52 



Westbury under the Plain. 



in North Wilts, ended in an heiress, who married Sir John Dan vers. 

 The heiress of Danvers married Sir Henry Lee, of Ditchley, and 

 the heiress of Lee married the first Earl of Abingdon. In the year 

 1651 all the burgage houses in Westbury certainly belonged to Sir 

 John Danvers, who held his court here, and the Earls of Abingdon 

 certainly resided at Lavington, at a mansion now destroyed, 

 famous in its day for fine gardens, &c, so that putting all these 

 links together it seems highly probable that the Abingdon estates 

 came to that family through the chain of descent now suggested. 

 Sir R. C. Hoare mentions the property as theirs, but gives no ac- 

 count of the way in which it came to them. I know of no other 

 way of connecting the Earls of Abingdon, an Oxfordshire family , 

 with Westbury. 



Chalcote. 



Chalcote, so far back as 1364, belonged to the then great family of 

 Mauduit, whose name still survives in North Wilts, attached to the 

 parish of Somerford. Whether they lived here or not I cannot say. 

 They had larger possessions at Fonthill and elsewhere, especially at 

 Warminster, where they were lords paramount, and where, if any- 

 where, their residence would most likely have been. The heiress of 

 Mauduit married Sir Henry Green, one of the faithful adherents of 

 King Richard II. 1 He defended Bristol Castle for the King, but 

 being betrayed by Bolingbroke (afterwards King Henry IV.) was 

 beheaded with the rest. 



In later times Chalcote passed through various hands till towards 

 the end of last century it became the property of a gentleman whose 

 name, being honourably connected with English literature, must not 

 be passed over now, for he was a native of Westbury, Bryan 

 Edwards, author of an able and accurate history of the British 

 Colonies in the West Indies. He was born in 1743. His father 

 had some small property in this parish, but died in difficulties. The 



1 " Ourself and Bushey, Bagot there and Green." [Shakspeare, Richard II. 

 act I., scene 4.] In the second act, scene 2, Sir Henry appears on the stage 

 and brings to Queen Isabel the news of Bolingbroke having landed at Ravens- 

 purg. 



