CASTLE COMBE, 



WILTSHIRE, 



THE SEAT OF G. P. SCROPE, ESQ., M.P. 



±T is well known to every historical student that in the period of our history immediately preceding 

 the Norman Conquest, the great feudal lords or barons (as they were commonly styled) possessed each a 

 fortified residence or castle, which castle was termed Capus Baronim, or head lordship. Within this 

 were comprehended several subordinate manors, held either directly from the baron himself, or under him 

 by " knights' service." These sub-feudatories were of knightly rank, and bound to do suit and service 

 to the baron for their estates — to attend him in war' with a certain force, and in peace to pay, in 

 lieu of such actual service, an annual fine, called a " knight's fee." The baron had the wardship of 

 minors and other important privileges : such a barony was Castle Combe. 



In the Domesday Survey of Wiltshire, two Vills are mentioned by the names of " Cumbe " and 

 (( Come " respectively, one of which must refer to Combe Biset, in the south of the county ; the 

 other to Castle Combe : and it is a singular circumstance that several Letters Patent, obtained 

 in the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, and Henry VIII, by the Lords of Castle Combe, for the 

 purpose of securing certain privileges to the tenants of this manor, as having been a royal demesne at 

 the time of the Conquest (which deeds are still extant), uniformly recite, as applying to this manor, 

 the Survey of Domesday, which, from indubitable evidence, must have related not to Castle Combe but 

 to Combe Biset. This mistake is perhaps to be explained by the little interest which the officers 

 of Exchequer, who searched the " Book of Domesday " for the survej^, had in distinguishing between 

 the two " Combes," or rather perhaps to their wish to favour the promoters of the search, by finding 

 the record of ancient demesne which was required. The proofs of the identity of the "Come" of 

 Domesday, which was not " Royal demesne," with the manor of Castle " Combe," consist partly in the 

 accordance of the physical features of the letter with the description there given, but chiefly in the fact 

 of its having at that time formed one of the twenty-seven manors then possessed by Hunfridus de 

 Insula, or Humphrey de l'-Isle, and which, for the greater part of two centuries afterwards, were 

 held together, as composing the Barony of Castle Combe, by his direct heirs. It passed by marriage 

 to the Dunstanvilles, and from them to De Montfort, and from them to Lord de Badlesmere, and 

 afterwards it. passed by marriage to Lord John de Tibetot, but who died in 1368. His eldest son, 

 Robert Lord Tibetot, inherited the estates, who left no son, but three daughters, then respectively of 

 the ages of six, four, and two years; these were heirs to their father's vast possessions. In the next 

 year but one after his death (in the 48 Edward III) the wardship of these infant co-heiresses was 

 granted by the King for the sum of 1,000 marks to Sir Richard Scrope, Lord of Bolton, then Lord 

 Treasurer, and from that year [1375] the courts and manors of Castle Combe, as appears from the 

 Rolls, were held in his name. This nobleman betrothed the three infant heiresses to his own three 

 sons. The family of Scrope thus became possessed of the barony and lordship of Castle Combe, and 

 in whose line it still remains, down to the present accomplished owner. 



Sir Richard Scrope, Lord of Bolton, the Chancellor to Richard II, who refused to affix the seal of 

 State to that monarch's profuse grants to his favourites, or to deliver it to any other person than the 

 King himself, was the plaintiff in the celebrated trial before the Court of Chivalry, presided over by the 

 Duke of Gloucester, in 1385 to 1390, for the right to bear a particular escutcheon. The depositions 

 taken in this suit from companions at arms of the two parties, Lords Scrope and Grosvenor, and their 

 ancestors, as printed in the work of Sir H. Nicolas, are full of interest, reciting as they do, in 

 graphic language, out of the mouths of the heroic warriors themselves, the incidents of the numerous 

 campaigns. The claim of Scrope prevailed, the disputed coat (azure a bend) was adjudged to the 

 family, by whom it is still borne; while the house of Grosvenor was permitted to wear another, azure a 



