28 OLt) WARDOUR CASTLE. 



every reader of Shakespeare, which gave the King an excuse for 

 banishing both of these dangerous nobles ; not yet was " this dear, 

 dear land, dear for her reputation through the world . . . 



leased out like to a tenenaent or pelting farm." 



Plenty of trouble Avas soon to fall upon the country, but for the 

 time the king was reigning constitutionally, and the land had rest. 

 One noteworthy act alone marks the year of the foundation of this 

 castle — namely, the " Statute of Piciemunire." 



But to return to our immediate subject — the history of this 

 castle. Built by Lord Lovell, as we have said, it remained in the 

 direct line until the death of his grandson in 1454. "We next find 

 the castle in the hands of Lord Audley, to whom it was granted by 

 Edward IV. in the first year of his reign ; possibly the castle had 

 during the troublous times of the AVars of the Roses been con- 

 fiscated by the White Rose party. John Lord Audley died in 

 1491. Next, but how, I do not know, the estate passed to Thomas 

 Earl of Ormonde, also Earl of Wiltshire, and he in 1498 sold the 

 castle, manor, and park to Sir Robert Willoughby Lord Brooke. He 

 by his second wife, daughter of Richard Nevil Lord Latimer, left 

 three daughters, the eldest of whom married Sir Fulke Greville, 

 and having inherited Wardour from her father, she and her 

 husband sold the property to Sir Thomas Arundell, Kniglit, in 

 1545. You see, we now for the first time come across the name 

 so intimately associated in our minds with the castle. And it will 

 be now necessary to turn back and see who these Arundells were. 

 It will be impossible for me to enter upon a complete family 

 history, suffice it to say that they were an old West Country 

 family, one of whom, Roger, is named in Domesday Book as 

 possessing manors in Dorset and Somerset. In the reign of 

 Henry III., by marriage, large estates in Cornwall came into the 

 possession of Reinfred de Arundell ; the chief seat of the family 

 was at Lanherne, in the parish of St. Columbs. Inter-marriages 

 of his descendants with the families of Chideock and Dynham and 

 others added fresh estates to the family possessions. K"ow note 

 this : John Lord Dynham, 5th Baron, married the daughter of Lord 



