48 



TROPENELL MEMORANDA. 



COTTBLS. 



Tn the previous volume (Wilts Arch Mag., xxxvii., pp. 564 — 565) 

 it was shown how the king, by writ 12 May, 1369 (Close Boll Cat.), 

 ordered John de Evesham, escheator in co. Wilts, " to take of 

 John Wrenche and Margaret his wife security for payment of their 

 relief at the Exchequer, and to cause them to have seisin of a 

 messuage and two carucates of land in Atteworth," reciting the 

 story there set out, and that Thomas Spigurnell, to whom the 

 king by letters patent, 16 June, 1366, had committed "the 

 keeping of his manor of Atteworth," " to hold for a set yearly 

 farm during pleasure," "said nought in effect wherefore livery 

 thereof ought not to be given them," John and Margaret, " as the 

 heritage of the said Margaret." It was also conjectured that, 

 Wrench and his wife having thus recovered possession, they shortly 

 afterwards sold the manor to pay expenses. 



What Wrench and his wife actually did with the manor was, all 

 the time, on record, in the Pedes Finium, or Feet of Fines (not yet 

 calendared, unfortunately, for Wiltshire), as follows : — 



" Final concord in the Octave of the Trinity, 43 Edward III (June, 

 1369), between Thomas Spigurnell and Katharine, his wife ; querents, 

 and John Wrenche, and Margaret his wife, deforciants of a messuage, 

 two carucates of land, 30a. meadow, and 100a. wood, in Atteworth ; 

 acknowledged to be the right of Thomas as those which Thomas and 

 Katharine have of the gift of John- and Margaret ; to hold to Thomas 

 and Katharine and the heirs of Thomas ; warranty for themselves and 

 the heirs of Margaret ; consideration, 100 marks. 



Fee t of Fines ( Wilts), Case 255. File 51 (38). 

 The sale, within a month of the writ close which put them in 

 possession, by Wrench and his wife to the farmer, under the crown, 

 of the manor whereof they had nominally dispossessed him, suggests 

 naturally that the whole of the proceedings were collusive in their 

 nature, — set in motion, that is to say, not by the successful suitors, 

 but by Spigurnell himself. 



