PETERBOROUGH SOKE 



Upton appears in the charter 

 MJNOR OF of Wulfhere to Peterborough of 

 UPTON 664,' but it is not mentioned in 



that of Edgar of 970, nor in 

 Domesday Book, though in the latter it may perhaps 

 be included in the account of Castor or of Ailsworth. 

 Godwin of Upton early in the 1 2th century held 

 3 virgates and ' serves with the knights.' ' At the 

 beginning of the next century this land was held by 

 the Watcrville family of Marholm.' The Watervilles 

 had held land in Upton from a much earlier date ; 

 Ascelin de Waterville was a fee-holder in I 1 46/ and 

 the holding of Hugh de Waterville in Upton was 

 confirmed to Peterborough Abbey by Richard I and 

 Henry III, and also the chapel of Upton adjacent to 

 the church of Castor and the mill.' In l 176 Robert 

 de Nevlll had seisin of Upton which had belonged to 

 Ralph de Waterville,^ who had taken part in the re- 

 bellion of 1 1 74 against Henry II. He was brother 

 of William de Waterville, abbot of Peterborough from 

 I 155 to 1177, and the abbot's attempt to shelter his 

 brother is supposed to have been the real cause of his 

 deposition from the abbacy in 1 175.' In 1190 

 Asceline de Waterville recovered Upton from Ralph 

 de Nevill.' She was probably the wife of Geoffrey de 

 Waterville, perhaps another brother of Ralph. She 

 left two daughters, Asceline, and Maud who married 

 William de Dive.' This marriage may account for 

 the fact that during the l 2th century Robert de Dive 

 is stated to hold two knights' fees in Upton of Peter- 

 borough Abbey.'" The advowson of the chapel of 

 Upton was divided between the sisters, but most of 

 the land appears to have eventually fallen to the lot 

 of Asceline, though Hugh de Dive, presumably a 

 descendant of Maud, was holding a little land in Up- 

 ton as late as the reign of Edward I." 



Asceline married one of the Torpel family," and 

 brought Upton as her dower. Thence it passed by 

 the marriage of her daughter to Ralph Camoys. 

 The son of the latter marriage was John Camoys, 

 who in 1280 sold Upton and Torpel manors to 

 Eleanor, queen of Edward I ;" the sale, an illegal act 

 on his part, causing some dispute with the monastic 

 overlords. However in 1290 a compromise seems to 

 have been arrived at, and the king granted the cus- 

 tody of the two manors during his pleasure to the 

 abbey of Peterborough for a rent of j^ioo." It was 

 during the period of this custody that the royal com- 

 mand directed action against certain persons for felling 

 and removing timber in the king's wood at Upton.'' 



In 1308 the manor formed part of a grant made by 

 Edward II to his favourite Peter de Gaveston,'" who 

 had married Margaret, the king's niece. Two years 

 later Upton and other manors were exchanged by the 

 Gavestons for the county of Cornwall," and subse- 



CASTOR 



quently Upton was for a short time held by John 

 earl of Surrey, king Edward's nephew." The manor 

 next formed part of the dower of Queen Isabella, but 

 she surrendered it in I 3 19,'' and the same year it was 

 granted to the king's half-brother, Edmund earl or 

 Kent, with a stipulated reversion to the crown in de- 

 fault of male heirs of his body,*" and this grant was 

 confirmed by Edward III in the first year of his reign. 

 Three years later the earl was attainted," and his 

 estates were forfeited. The manor of Upton was 

 granted to Simon de Bereford ' for his agreement to 

 stay always with the king with twenty men-at-arms in 

 time of war.' ^' The grant was for life, and whether 

 the death of Simon or other circumstances determined 

 his holding does not appear, but in the same or the fol- 

 lowing year the manor was restored to Margaret the 

 widowed countess of Kent." She retained it until 

 her death " about eighteen years later, when it passed 

 to John, eldest surviving son of the Earl of Kent, who 

 died within a few years, leaving as heiress his sister 

 Joan, wife of Sir Thomas Holland," who in right of 

 his wife received the earldom of Kent. Thomas 

 Holland died about 1361,"' and his widow subse- 

 quently became the wife of Edward the Black Prince 

 and mother of Richard II. Upon her death in 1385" 

 the manor passed into the hands of the king, and was 

 granted by him to his half-brother Thomas Hol- 

 land. His son Thomas" was attainted for taking 

 part in the first rebellion against Henry IV. Upton, 

 part of his forfeited estates," was granted for a short 

 time to Sir Francis de Court,'" ' the King's knight,' 

 but it was restored later, together with the earldom, to 

 his brother Edmund, who died in possession of the 

 manor in 1408. He left as his heir Edmund earl of 

 March, the son of one of his sisters," by whom Upton 

 was granted shortly before his death to one Leonard 

 Hastynges for life." The earl died childless in 1424, 

 leaving as co-heirs his two surviving sisters and his 

 nephew Richard duke of York,'' Upton becoming the 

 possession of the last named. When the Duke of 

 York's son ascended the throne as Edward IV he 

 made a grant of Upton to his mother, the widowed 

 Duchess of York, for life, as having belonged to her 

 late husband." 



In 1492 Upton was granted as part of her jointure 

 to Elizabeth queen of Henry VII," and during the 

 reign of Henry VIII the manor successively formed 

 part of the dower of four of Henry's queens,*" and 

 was afterwards granted in 1 543-4 to Sir Richard 

 Wingficld, the diplomatist of the reigns of Henr}- VII 

 and Henry VIII.'' 



To the gr.isping proclivities of the Tudor sovereigns 

 was due the uprising of a class of inform.ints who 

 made it their business to apprise the crown lawyers of 

 any weakness which might exist or profitably be 



1 Birch, Cart. Sax. No. 22. 



' Chronkottj 173. 



" Soc. Antlq. MS. No. 38, fol. 127*. 



* Sparlce, Scriptores^ So. 



* Cart. Antiq. DD. 17 ; Chart. R. 11 

 Hen. Ill, pt. i, m. 19. 



« Pipe R. 22 Hen. II, m. 4. 



' Benedict of Peterborough (Rolls Ser.), i, 

 106. 



« Pipe R. 2 Ric. I, m. 4. 



« Red Bk. of Exch. 151; Mon. Artg. 

 iv, 162. 

 ■" Cott. Vesp. E. xxii, 99*. 

 " Chan. Inq. p.m. 8 E<uv. I, No. 29. 

 " Peck, Anrtiih of Stamford, bk. vii, 13. 

 18 Close, 8 Edw. I, m. 9 d. 



" Pat. 19 Edw. I, m. 18. 



"Ibid. 28 Edw. I, m. nd. 



« Close, I Edw. II, m. 6. 



'7 Chart. R. ', Edw. II, m. 10, No. 27. 



>' Abhrev. Orig. R. (Rec. Com.), pt. i, 

 18,. 



" Pat. 13 Edw. II, m. Ij. 



«» Chart. R. 13 Edw. II, m. 6, No. 20. 



" Ibid. I Edw. Ill, m.43, No. 31. 



'^ Pat. 4 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. iS. 



*» Close, 4 Edw. Ill, m. 12 ; Close, J 

 Edw. Ill, ra. 12. 



** Chan. Inq. p.m. 23 EJw. Ill ; Close, 

 5 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 29. 



'^ Chan. Inq. p.m. 26 Edw. Ill, No. 54. 



'^ Ibid. 35 Edw. Ill, pt. i, No. 104. 



483 



'^'* Chan. Inq. p.m. g Ric. II, No. 30. 

 i» Ibid. 20 Ric. II, No. 30. 

 »9 Ibid. I Hen. IV, rile i v, No. 4. 

 ^ Pat. I Hen. IV, pt. vi, m. 40 and 

 m. 3. 

 s* Chan. Inq. p.m. 10 Hen. IV, No. 



SI- 

 S' Ibid. 3 Hen. VI, No. 32. 

 " Ibid. 



" Pat. 1 Edw. IV, pt. iv, m. i. 

 »^ Pari. R. (Rcc. Com.), vi, 462. 

 ^ Pat. I Hen. VIII, pt. i, ra. 8 ; ibid. 



31 Hen. VIII, pi. vii, m, 4; ibid. 32 



Hen. VIII, pt. vi, m. 17-19. 

 '^ Ibid. 35 Hen. VIII, ft. xvi, m. 9. 



