366 Notes on Audley House, Salisbury. 



Lord de Mauley, through his grandmother, is Sir John Webb's 

 legal personal representative. 1 



From the fact, that some prominent citizen or member of the 

 Corporation generally occupied the house, may not its history have 

 been that Webb, or whoever built it, acquired a long lease from 

 the Bishop of his moiety, and a long lease from the Corporation of 

 their moiety, and afterwards, when the leases expired, it was let 

 to some wealthy citizen. Now, in the year 1630, Mr. Anthony 

 Weekes was in occupation of the house, and was in treaty with 

 the Corporation for a new lease, but the treaty fell through, and 

 directions were given to the Chamberlain, to view and survey the 

 premises, and, finally, to enter, and " Mr. Weekes moved to repair 

 in accordance with his covenants." 2 The treaty fell through, 

 presumably, because the Corporation preferred to sell their moiety 

 to Lord Castlehaven. By an indenture dated the 16th of August, 

 1630, in consideration of £100, and a further sum of £5 for 

 charitable uses, the Mayor and Commonalty granted and enfeoffed 

 MervinEarl of Castlehaven "of all that messuage, back side, and 

 garden, in Crane Street, then or late in the tenure of Anthony 

 Weekes, Esq." 3 In 1631, Mervin Earl of Castlehaven was executed, 

 and, of the property, one moiety escheated to the Bishop, as Lord 

 of the Manor. [I have not seen any particulars how Lord 

 Castlehaven acquired the Bishop's moiety, possibly he only had a 

 long lease of it.] The other moiety was, no doubt, included in the 

 estates of his father, which, 9 Charles I., were re-granted to James 

 Earl of Castlehaven, 4 who commenced an action for partition 

 against the Bishop. 



In 1634 James Harris, of the Close, Sarum, gentleman, had a 

 lease for three years of the Bishop's moiety. James Harris bad 

 married Gertrude, daughter of Robert Townson, the previous 

 Bishop ; his great-great-grandson was created Earl of Malmesbury 

 in 1800. After a partition of the two undivided moieties, Lord 



1 Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries, voi. x., p. 209. 

 ■ Ledger III., folio 353. 



3 Ledger III., folio 382. 



4 MSS. Tower Eecords. 



