246 The Despencers’ Estates in Wilts. 
of her son. In conjunction with her paramour, Roger Mortimer, 
she maintained in Nottingham Castle a retinue (so Speed tells us), 
of a hundred and fourscore knights beside esquires and gentlemen. 
To give one example of her power:—it must have been through 
her influence that the unjust detention of Sir William de la Zouch 
and Eleanor his wife in Devizes Castle occurred, even while the 
King and his council were sitting at Windsor. From this harassing 
duresse, Roger Mortimer threatened the captives that they should 
purchase deliverance only by the surrender of their lands in Gla- 
morganshire, of the Manor of Tewkesbury, and of other their lands 
in Wales, Worcestershire, and Gloucestershire. ‘(For the salvation 
of their lives, and for doubt of death,” they did indeed make over 
the Castle of Halle, and the chaces of Malvern and Cors, but of 
course petitioned for restitution as soon as Mortimer in his turn 
was slain, and Devizes Castle taken out of Isabella’s hands. [See 
the Zouch petition, on the Rolls 4th Edward III.] To return now 
to the Despencers :— 
Though the estates of the elder Hugh le Despencer lay in several 
counties, the greater part were in Wilts, and his favorite residence 
appears to have been in the Manor of Fasterne, a spot still distin- 
guished by the remains of a mansion, where the Englefields, in a 
subsequent age, lived and died, and where Dryden no doubt spent 
many a holiday with the Howards. (It is now the property of 
Lord Clarendon). In addition to his various Wiltshire manors, the 
names of which will occur in the following memoranda, the elder 
Despencer was also warden of the forests of Clarendon and Braden, 
and Constable of the Castles of Devizes and Marlborough, with 
their valuable appendages. The title of the elder Despencer was 
Earl of Winchester, that of his son was Earl of Gloucester. 
The fall of the two favorites was, as might be expected, imme- 
diately followed by the cry for reparation issuing from the victims 
of their oppression. The first audible utterances from this county 
emanate from the Abbat and Convent of Stanley, touching the 
Manor of 
Berwick Basser. The Abbat reminds the King and council 
that in the previous year, 1327, he, and his brethren, had sought 
ies 
