The Tropenell Cartulary. 



195 



date. From Mr. Dickinson the property passed, by inheritance, 

 to the Harman family, of Monks and Bowden Park, and it was 

 from one of that family, long after the property had been alienated, 

 that I obtained the book. 



(2.) Who was Tropenell, and whence his cartulary ? A Wilts 

 gentleman of good family, deriving (as the book says) from " long 

 before the time that no mind renneth, anjd, before the Conquest " 

 (this to be taken cum grano). Sir George le Tropenell, the first of 

 whom we hear, may have lived in the time of Henry I. His 

 grandson, Walter Tropenell, married Katherine, daughter of Sir 

 William Percy, of Great Chalfield; and Thomas Tropenell, of 

 whom we speak, was fifth in direct descent from them. It was 

 partly through this connection with the Percys that he obtained 

 the Great Chalfield property. I say partly, because, I believe, he 

 really bought it from Thomas Beverley (who had finally obtained 

 the manor by law) as direct descendant of the original Percys, in 

 1467. But I cannot go into this long history now. Tropenell was 

 constable of Trowbridge Castle, as his predecessors in title were ; 

 but this also involves matter which cannot now be dealt with. He 

 may have been born about 1405 (6 Henry IV.). He married twice 

 — (1) Agnes Bourton, widow, (2) Margaret, widow of John Erley, 

 and second daughter of Wm. Ludlow, of Hill Deverell. He was 

 the re-builder of Great Chalfield Manor House, and the builder of 

 the chapel attached to the Church close by — a gorgeous little 

 building, about 12ft. square, which he no doubt intended for his 

 own chantry, but which, for whatever reason, never became so. 

 We do not know much about his private character. An enemy, 

 whether with justice or not, calls him grasping : " the said Thomas 

 Tropenell is and alway hath been called a perillous covetous man." 

 From the same inquisition (32 Henry VI., 1453) we have, again in 

 hostile evidence, that he was a man who would make his power 

 felt if he got a,n adversary into his hands ; but that this might be 

 discounted now, for he was " fast in prison in London, and never 

 like to come out, and there condemned in a Teynt," &c. Whether 

 there was any shred of truth in this we cannot say ; but swearing 

 seems to have been hard, and hazards were great. Tropenell's 



