142 Abridgement of the History of the 



originals of the Deed of Assignment by which the great inheritance 

 of Giles Lord Badlesmere was partitioned among these coheiresses 

 (of which a counterpart exists in the British Museum under the 

 name of the Mortimer Ledger), is still preserved at Castle Combe, 

 which barony fell to the share of the last mentioned lady, and was 

 inherited with other estates by her eldest son, Robert Lord Tibetot, 

 or Tiptoft, on the death of his father, in 1368. The dependencies 

 of the barony were separated on the partition of the Badlesmere 

 estates. But they still were held by their several owners as 

 " parcel of that barony," and most of them continued to pay annual 

 compositions for suit and service due at the knight's court of the 

 manor down to the seventeenth century, at which time the sums 

 compounded for — viz., 2s. for each knight's fee, having been fixed at 

 an early date, were become too insignificant to be worth collection, 

 or at least disputing, in case their payment was neglected. The 

 claim of wardship, and of " premier seisin" or livery, was of greater 

 value, but, on the other hand, not so easily submitted to, or en- 

 forced when resisted. The latest claim on record among the 

 Castle Combe documents is of the date of 1620, made for the ward- 

 ship and marriage of an infant of six years old, son and heir of 

 Edmund James of Broadfield, in the parish of Hullavington, a 

 manor held, as was averred, of the Barony of Castle Combe as a 

 knight's fee. This, however, was disputed by Sir Walter Pye, 

 attorney of the Court of Wards and Liveries, who claimed the 

 same for the Crown. A few years later, all these vicious feudal 

 powers, whether of the Crown or other superiorities, were wholly 

 extinguished by Act of Parliament. While on this subject we 

 may remark that the several successive lists of the subordinate 

 tenants of the Barony and Manor of Castle Combe, owing and 

 mostly paying composition for suit and service, as recorded in the 

 Polls of the Knight's Court still preserved at Castle Combe, afford 

 valuable aid towards ascertaining the successive owners of the 

 twenty or thirty manors in Wiltshire which were held on these con- 

 ditions. Several such lists of different dates from the twelfth to 

 the seventeenth century are printed in the volume before us of 

 which an abstract will be given in a subsequent article. 



