First Earl of Pembroke of the Present Creation. 105 



coronation of the queen^ which took place on October 1st of the 

 same year. 



The question of the Spanish marriage and Mary's determination 

 to suppress Protestantism speedily led to disunion in the Council ; 

 Gardiner was the only statesman in the country who thought a 

 return to Catholic union practicable or desirable ; while there was 

 scarcely an influential family, titled or untitled, which was not, by 

 grant, or purchase, in possession of confiscated Church property. 

 Aubrey's story of the return of the nuns to Wilton on the accession 

 of Mary, and of their subsequent dismissal in Elizabeth's time in 

 the coarse language attributed to Pembroke, is purely imaginary. 

 One of the first things done by the Commons after Mary's accession 

 was to come to an understanding that lay owners of Church lands 

 should not be disturbed in their tenure under any pretence whatever ; 

 nor had the queen at any time afterwards power to alter this decision. 



Although Wilton was not invaded by the nuns, it was disturbed 

 by local quarrels, notably by Lord Stourton's servants, as appears 

 by the following extract of a letter addressed to the Council, dated 

 August 19th, 1553: — * "And towching the mattre betwene the 

 Earle of Pembroke's servantes and the Lorde Sturtons, what is all 

 redy [? known to] you, my Lorde of Norffolk can well declare. 

 This afternoone we will traveil to the best of our poures to make a 

 parfight ende thereof." The exact cause of the quarrel does not 

 appear, it probably arose from some jealousy on the part of Lord 

 Stourton, who belonged to the old Catholic party, and whose restless 

 tendencies are too well known, from his quarrel with, and subsequent 

 murder of the Hartgills, at Kilmington.^ The state of things at 



^ State Papers, Domestic, Mary, vol. i.. No. 9. 



^ Lord Stourton was executed at Salisbury for this offence. Bishop Burnet, 

 in his History of the Reformation, gives an accoiint of an attempt on the part of 

 the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Pembroke, and the High Sheriff, Sir Anthony 

 Hungerfoi'd, to evade the receipt of a reprieve or pardon which was said to have 

 been brought down to Wilton on the night previous to the execution by Lord 

 Stourton's son. This improbable story has been shewn by Canon Jackson to be 

 incoiTect and most probably untrue, in his account of Loixl Stourton and the 

 Hartgills. {Wilts Mag., vol. viii., p. 260.) 



