The Presidents Address. . 7 
return of the Saxon this religious house was rebuilt in stone by 
Editha, wife of the Confessor. In 1066 Wilton was considered to 
be the first and most valuable of the Royal borcughs, and its con- 
tributions to the Norman Conqueror appear to have been more than 
double those which it yielded in the time of the Confessor. In the 
disturbed years which followed the Conquest Wilton suffered, and 
the Abbey had often to contribute largely to satisfy the extortionate 
demands of the Normans. In the reign of Stephen the Empress 
Maud sojourned at Wilton in regal state, till her royal husband 
arrived there with a large force to convert the Monastery into a 
place of military defence, to restrain the excursions of the garrison 
- at Salisbury. But while the fortifications were yet in progress, the 
Salisbury people, under the Earl of Gloucester, invested and took 
the place, and the King fled. I am sorry to find from the old 
chronicle that the people of Salisbury behaved very rudely on this 
occasion, for they sacked the Monastery, set fire to the town, and 
walked off with all the plate and valuables, together with the per- 
sonal baggage of the monarch. Wilton appears, however, to have 
survived this bad behaviour, and, not having proved quite successful 
in war, to have betaken herself to the arts of peace, although the 
military spirit of the age tinctured even her sports. The glowing 
accounts of the conflicts on the plains of Syria, in which, without 
doubt, some of the citizens were bearing their part, stimulated them 
to keep up the pomp and pageantry of war, if not the reality. In 
the year 1194 a tournament was held in the vicinity of the town, 
which appears to have given infinite satisfaction alike to peasant 
and to peer. Thirty-five years later we find the town of New 
Sarum springing up around the “holy pile” which was gradually 
expanding to beauty im the “ Ladys Mead,” and unfortunately for 
the trade of Wilton its merchants adopted the new city as offering 
a more expanding market for their wares. This appears to have 
aroused the jealousy of the people of Wilton, and caused them to 
adopt the very novel method of sending their bailiffs to waylay these 
merchants and to compel them to expose their merchandize for sale 
in the market of Wilton. Such a state of things could not last 
without remonstrance, more particularly as when the merchants 
