62 



The Wills/iire Compounders. 



submitted to the Parliament in April, 1645, when he took the two 

 oaths, and paid £100 for his personal estate, and other sums on 

 account, for his real estate, to the Wilts Committee. These gentle- 

 men, wishing* to screen him as much as possible, reported to the 

 London Committee as follows. He declares that when acting as 

 commissioner it was by reason of his being under the forces of the 

 King. He suffered considerably by the proximity of his property 

 to Great or East Chalfield when occupied as a garrison, and 

 especially when it was besieged, his own house being next unto it. 

 [" Next " must be here understood as nearest, for the two mansions 

 were a quarter-of-a-mile asunder.] Since his submission he hath 

 taken the National Covenant, and hath been obedient to all orders 

 of the Parliament. As for his real estate in this county, as we are 

 credibly informed, it was worth in time of peace £190 per annum. 

 Signed 2nd October, 1646, by Robert Browne, Edward Martyn, 

 and Thomas Goddard. [Certificate of his having taken the covenant 

 subjoined.] 



He is seised in the manor of West Chalfield, remainder to six 

 sons in succession, then to his brother Henry ; annual value thereof 

 £160; tithes of a free chapel there, £10; lands at Atford, £20 ; 

 lands at Melksham and Bradford, £20. Having already compounded 

 for his personal estate, his fine, at a tenth, is £420. 11th December, 

 1643. 



John Eyre, of Wedhampton, returned as knight of the shire in 

 Elizabeth's Parliament of 1563, considerably increased his estate by 

 marriage with a co-heiress of the family of Payne, of Motcombe, 

 in Dorset. His son, of the same name, was yet more fortunate in 

 his espousals ; he had married Anne, the eldest daughter of Thomas 

 Tropenell, of Great Chalfield, when the singular and untimely 

 death of her brother in the chase made her co-heiress of that opulent 

 house. It is related of this brother that he had put a dog-couple 

 over his head, and leaping a hedge was caught by a bough and 

 strangled. In the division of the property thereupon occurring the 

 estate of Great Chalfield was assigned to the wife of John Eyre, 

 who at once made it the family seat. " The mansion," observes 

 Mr. Matcham, " reared in the time of the Plantagenets, still 



