86 Some Notice of William Herbert, 



The appointment of the penultimate abbess was the first canse of 

 coolness between Henry VIII, and Cardinal Wolsey. Mr. Brewer^ 

 in his Introductions to Letters, &c., temp. Henry VIII., under the 

 date 1528j says, "The good understanding between the king and 

 his minister was rudely shaken by unexpected events, that must 

 have reminded Wolsey of the instability of greatness. On the death 

 of the Abbess of Wilton, in the time of the sweating sickness, John 

 Carey, the brother of Mary Boleyn^s husband, was anxious to secure 

 the vacant appointment for his sister Elinor, one of the nuns. Her 

 appointment was warmly espoused by Ann and the king, as might 



eleventh centuiy. It is simply a deed of sale of certain lands at Combe, in 

 Somersetshire to the Bishop of Wells ; but the transaction took place at Wilton, 

 on February 28th, 1072, before the abbess, the royal Editha. The document 

 itself is a transcript made in the 15th century, but from internal evidence it is 

 considered by Professor Earle to be imdoubtedly a copy of the original. It has 

 been printed, together with'a translation, in the twenty-second vol. of the Pi'o- 

 ceedings of the Somersetshire Archseological Society, where reference is made to 

 an elaborate notice of the document by Mr. Freeman ; fi-om which we incidentally 

 learn " that the widow of Edward the Confessor, the sister of Harold, the daughter 

 of Godwine, lived here in quasi-regal state, holding lier court as Lady of the 

 English, suiTounded by a following purely English, with not a Norman name 

 among the officers of her household. We mark at once that the English scribe 

 speaks of the Old Lady with greater reverence than he bestows on her Norman 

 successor, and the royal state which she is recorded to have kept is brought 

 before us in a lively manner. The place too is eminently characteristic of the 

 lady herself. The biographer of her hu.sband tells us that, whereas the Church 

 of Wilton had before been of wood, she rebuilt it of stone. It is therefore 

 marked as a ' stone church,' and we even have something of its architectural 

 design. It had an ' upfloor,' a triforium. The word is used in the Chronicle 

 in describing Abbot Thui-stan's doings at Glastonbury ; and, as the upfloor was 

 used for the transaction of business, attended by many witnesses, we may sup- 

 pose that iit was a large, wide, lofty upper story, such as is found in many early 

 Norman minsters. The Church of Wilton, in short, followed the proportions of 

 Waltham and Norwich, not those of Gloucester and Tewkesbury. In that up- 

 floor, nigh befoi-e the lady, Azor sold his land to tlie Bishop, and the purchase 

 was witnessed by twenty-six witnesses, all of whom, save one or two, we may 

 safely pronounce to be Englishmen. After a long list of names, some of which 

 are not unknown in Domesday and the Charters, the last signatures are those of 

 her two cooks. The abbess-queen had one cook bearing the good EnglLsli name 

 of .3i]thelric ; the other, Rabel, is more doubtful. But, as the deed was di'awn up 

 in Lent, the services of both of them were, for the moment, less important than 

 usual." 



