42 



Westbury under the Plain. 



history is rather curious. It is a formal deed in Latin, a sort of 

 letters patent, proclaiming' (as such documents begin) to all the 

 faithful in Christ that Walter Pavely binds himself to supply Roger 

 Marmion every Christmas as long as he (Marmion) lives with a 

 furred robe after the pattern of that worn by the other Esquires in 

 attendance upon him. In consideration of which dignity Marmion 

 was to give up any claim he might have to a certain one hundred 

 acres of land, and pay one mark of silver every year. A train of 

 young Marmions in furred robes in attendance upon him gives one 

 an idea of the dignity of the chief esquire of Westbury in those 

 days. The formal grant of an annual dress, secured by a solemn 

 document, was quite a common custom then. In many of what are 

 called the wardrobe accounts of the Hoyal household we find legal 

 documents regularly drawn up in Latin and registered, in which 

 are prescribed most carefully how many yards of cloth or silk, fur, 

 ermine or rabbit skins, as the case might be, were to be used for such 

 and such an officer. The last male heir of the Pavely family died in 

 1361, and left two coheiresses, Alice and Joan : and here begins the 

 splitting up of estates which I alluded to before : with which, 

 however, we must deal very briefly. Alice married, and left three 

 daughters co-heiresses of her share; and one of those daughters 

 married and left two more co-heiresses : so that in course of time 

 Alice's original half of the Brooke House cake got cut up into very 

 thin slices indeed. The story of the descent from her is simply a 

 labyrinth of pedigree. It is enough to say that to Alice Pavely's 

 original moiety belonged whatever lands in Westbury were after- 

 wards found belonging to, or bearing the names of St. Loe, 

 Chedyock, St. Maur, Arundell, Stowell or Drury. Joan, the other 

 co-heiress of Pavely, married a Cheyney, and her moiety was not 

 subjected to so many subdivisions. It was divided only once, 

 between a Willoughby and a Paulet, Marquis of Winchester. 

 The Willoughby share passed by marriage to Blount, Lord Mountjoy, 

 so that ultimately half the original Pavely property belonged to the 

 two families of Blount and Paulett. 1 What house of residence 



1 The following table will explain, better thau a long verbal detail, how the 



