By the Rev. F. H. Manley. 



287 



one hundred years afterwards. On the division of the Badlesmere 

 estates in 1340 among four co-heiresses this fee, then valued at £6, 

 was assigned to the Earl and Countess of Northampton, John 

 Maltravers being in possession. The family of Mautravers or 

 Maltravers of Lytchet, Dorset, 1 has been traced back to Hugh 

 Maltravers, who held Lytchet as mesne tenant of William de 

 Gw at the Domesday Survey, 1086, also lands in Wiltshire under 

 the same. The family was of considerable importance as early, 

 at least, as the reign of Henry I. One of its members is known 

 to have been an attendant on the court of that monarch, Sir Walter 

 Maltravers is mentioned 30th Henry II. as holding land at 

 Sumreford in Wilts valued at 100s. His son John joined the 

 barons against King John, and his lands in Somerford and 

 elsewhere were seized by the King, but restored to him two years 

 after, in 1218, as he had then sworn allegiance to his royal master. 

 In the Liber Feodorum (1250 — 1270) John Mautravers is said 

 to hold " a knight's fee and one tenth of Walter de Dunstanville 

 in Sumreford." To his son, John, in 12 Edward II. a charter for 

 freewarren on his lands — among others Somerford — was granted. 

 It was probably the son of this last who was attached to the 

 party of Isabell and Mortimer in the reign of Edward II., and was 

 charged with the custody of the deposed monarch. He was involved 

 in the schemes which led to the murder of Edward II., but was 

 afterwards pardoned by Edward III. Dying in 1364, a son 

 having predeceased him in 1349, his property fell to two co- 

 heiresses, of whom one, Eleanor, was the wife of John Fitzalan, 

 third son of Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel and Surrey. 

 The title of Lord Maltravers thus passed to the Fitzalans. 

 John de Arundel, Lord Maltravers, died in 1391. His son, John 

 Fitzalan, in 1415, became Earl of Arundel through failure of issue 

 on the part of his cousin. The manor of Great Somerford re- 

 mained with this family until the middle of the 16th century. It 

 seems to have been sold by Henry Fitzalan, whose only son, Henry, 

 Lord Maltravers, died without issue in 1538, and is buried at Brussel. 

 The father died in 1580, and his property then passed on to the 



1 Hutchins' History of Dorset, vol. iii. 

 VOL. XXXI. — NO. XCV, X 



