ANTIQUITIES OF SELRORNE. 317 
Though little emolument might hang to this appointment, yet are 
there reasons why it might be highly acceptable; and in a few 
reigns after, it was given to princes of the blood.* In old days 
gentry resided more at home on their estates, and having fewer 
resources of elegant indoor amusement, spent most of their leisure 
hours in the field and the pleasures of the chase. A large domain 
therefore, at little more than a mile distance, and well stocked with 
game, must have been a very eligible acquisition, affording him 
influence as well as entertainment ; and especially as the manorial 
house of Temple, by its exalted situation, could command a view 
of near two-thirds of the forest. 
That Gurdon, who had lived some years the life of an outlaw, 
and at the head of an army of insurgents, was for a considerable 
time in high rebellion against his sovereign, should have been 
guilty of some outrages, and should have committed some depre- 
dations, is by no means matter of wonder. Accordingly we find a 
distringas against him, ordering him to restore to the Bishop of 
Winchester some of the temporalities of that see, which he had 
taken by violence and detained, viz., some lands in Hocheleye, 
anda mill.+ By a dreve, or writ, from the king he is also enjoined 
to readmit the Bishop of Winchester, and his tenants of the parish 
and town of Farnham, to pasture their horses, and other large 
cattle, “avevza,” in the forest of Woolmer, as had been the usage 
from time immemorial. This writ is dated in the tenth year of the 
reign of Edward, viz., 1282. 
All the king’s writs directed to Gurdon are addressed in the 
following manner—“ Edwardus Dei gratia, &c., dilecto et fideli suo 
Ade Gurdon salutem;” and again, “Custodi foreste sue de 
Wolvemere.” 
In the year 1293 a quarrel between the crews of an English and 
a Norman ship about some trifle, brought on by degrees such 
serious consequences, that in 1293 a war broke out between the two 
nations. The French king, Philip the Hardy, gained some advan- 
tages in Gascony ; and, not content with those, threatened England 
with an invasion, and by a sudden attempt took and burnt Dover. 
‘* Bensted and Kingsley; a petition of the parishioners concerning the three parks in 
Aliceholt Forest.”’ 
‘William, first earl of Dartmouth, and paternal grandfather to the present Lord Stawel, 
was a lessee of the forests of Aliceholt and Wolmer before brigadier-general Emmanuel 
Scroope Howe.’’ 
* See Letter II. of these Antiquities. ; ; 
+ Hocheleye, now spelt Hawkley, is in the hundred of Selborne, and has a mill at this 
day. 
