318 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
Upon this emergency, Edward sent a writ to Gurdon, ordering 
him and four others to enlist three thousand soldiers in the counties 
of Surrey, Dorset, and Wiltshire, able-bodied men, “tam sagittare 
quam balistare potentes ;”” and to see that they were marched by 
the feast of All Saints, to Winchelsea, there to be embarked aboard 
the king’s transports. 
The occasion of this armament appears also from a summons to 
the Bishop of Winchester to Parliament, part of which I shall 
transcribe on account of the insolent menace which is said therein 
to have been denounced against the English language :—“ qualiter 
rex Franciz de terra nostra Gascon nos fraudulenter et cautelose 
decepit, eam nobis nequiter detinendo ......... vero predictis 
fraude et nequitia non contentus, ad expugnationem regni nostri 
classe maxima et beilatorum copiosa multitudine congregatis, cum 
quibus regnum nostrum et regni ejusdem incolas hostiliter jam 
invasurus, “nguam Anglicam si concepte iniquitatis proposito 
detestabili potestas correspondeat, quod Deus avertat, ommuino de 
terra delerve propontt.” Dated 30th September, in the year of King 
Edward’s reign xxill.* 
The above are the last traces that I can discover of Gurdon’s 
appearing and acting in public. The first notice that my evidences 
give of him is that in 1232, being the 16th of Henry III., he was 
the King’s bailiff, with others, for the town of Alton. Now, from 
1232 to 1295 is a space of sixty-three years,.a long period for one 
man to be employed in active life! Should any one doubt whether 
all these particulars can relate to one and the same person, I should 
wish him to attend to the following reasons why they might. In 
the first place, the documents from the priory mention but one Sir 
Adam Gurdon, who had no son lawfully begotten ; and in the next, 
we are to recollect that he must have probably been a man of 
uncommon vigour, both of mind and body, since no one unsup- 
ported by such accomplishments could have engaged in such 
adventures, or could have borne up against the difficulties which 
he sometimes must have encountered ; and, moreover, we have 
modern instances of persons that have maintained their abilities 
for near that period. 
Were we to suppose Gurdon to be only twenty years of age in 
1232, in 1295 he would be eighty-three: after which advanced 
period it could not be expected that he should livelong. From the 
_* Reg. Winton, Stratford, but query Stratford; for Stratford was not bishop of Winton 
till 1323, near thirty years afterwards. 
