260 Potterne. 



of The Devizes/'^ This dating from Potterne would seem fairly 

 to imply that Henry III. was at the time the guest of the Bishop, 

 William of York, who was one of his most trusted friends and ad- 

 visers. Though every trace of this episcopal mansion has passed 

 away, literally not one stone of it standing upon another, its site is 

 well known. It was just below where the original church stood, 

 which was some 100 yards south-west from the knoll on which the 

 present church is built. It would seem to have been standing as 

 late as 1656, for in a survey of the parish for that year we have the 

 entry "One dwelling-house, being the manor house, one chappie, 

 and one great barn with the courts, &c., thereunto adjoining." 



(A.D. 1300-1400).— Very little can I tell you about Potterne in 

 the fourteenth century. During that period William de Montacute 

 Earl of Salisbury, one of the founders by the way of the Order of 

 the Garter, appears for some service or other to have had a grant 

 of 200 marks annually from the Manor of Potterne. And a little 

 later on (in 1367) Sir Thomas Hungerford was lessee of the manor. 

 In the Nonal Inquisitions moreover we meet with the name of 

 Alfred Blount as that of a juror, and it was reported in that enquiry 

 that there was then (1340) " no merchant who lived on his merchan- 

 dize" in Potterne.^ 



In 1330 Robert Wyville became Bishop of Sarum, having been 

 consecrated at Woodstock by the Bishop of Lincoln and two other 

 bishops with special authority from the Pope. He had held the 

 canonry and prebend of Gretton at Lincoln Cathedral. In 1329 

 King Edward III. had recommended him to the Pope for the see of 

 Bath and Wells, but his Holiness nominated him the next year to 

 Salisbury instead. He owed his appointment to the influence with 

 the Pope of Philippa of Hainault, wife of Edward III., who held 

 the Castle of " The Devizes " as part of what had now become the 

 usual dowry of the Queen Consort. Had his Holiness, it is said, 

 previously " glimpsed " Robert Wyville, he never would have made 

 him a bishop. Fuller says of him, " It is hard to say whether our 



' Waylen's " Devizes," p. 65. 

 Inquis. Nonar, p. 175. 



