310 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
PETER Vite. 
Our forefathers in this village were no doubt as busy and 
bustling, and as important, as ourselves ; yet have their names and 
transactions been forgotten from century to century,and have sunk 
into oblivion ; nor has this happened only to the vulgar, but even 
to men remarkable and famous in their generation. I was led into 
this train of thinking by finding in iny vouchers that Sir Adam 
Gurdon was an inhabitant of Selborne, and a man of the first rank 
and property in the parish. By Sir Adam Gurdon I would be 
understood to mean that leading and accomplished malcontent 
in the Mountfort faction, who distinguished himself by his daring 
conduct in the reign of Henry III. The first that we hear of this 
person in my papers is, that with two others he was bailiff of Alton 
before the sixteenth of Henry III., viz., about 1231, and then not 
knighted. Who Gurdon was, and whence he came, does not appear : 
yet there is reason to suspect that he was originally a mere soldier 
of fortune, who had raised himself by marrying women of property. 
The name of Gurdon does not seem to be known in the south ; 
but there is a name so like it in an adjoining kingdom, and which 
belongs to two or three noble families, that it is probable this re- 
markable person was a North Briton; and the more so, since the 
Christian name of Adam isa distinguished one to this day among 
the family of the Gordons. But, be this as it may, Sir Adam 
Gurdon has been noticed by all the writers of English history for 
his bold disposition and disaffected spirit, in that he not only 
figured during the successful rebellion of Leicester, but kept up 
the war after the defeat and death of that baron, entrenching 
himself in the woods of Hampshire, towards the town of Farnham. 
After the battle of Evesham, in which Mountfort fell, in the year 
1265, Gurdon might not think it safe to return to his house for fear 
of a surprise ; but cautiously fortified himself amidst the forests and 
woodlands with which he was so well acquainted. Prince Edward, 
desirous of putting an end to the troubles which had so long ha- 
rassed the kingdom, pursued the arch-rebel into his fastnesses, 
