246 



Cjje Jeiitlj of tlje ^xxst €arl of .^albturg 

 at ParlboTOug^. 24t| Pag, 1612: 

 Cljt §ill)ertiius of <§. fllarjavd's. 



By THE Rev. Chr. Wordsworth, M.A.' 



Though it is now one of the healthiest places in the kingdom, 

 Marlborough in time of old lias been a sick-house for distinguished 

 personages. 



K. Henry III. lay ill at the Castle for some weeks after Christmas, 

 1225. Not many days later, his uncle, the noble-hearted William 

 Longespee, Earl of Salisbury, in January, 1226, paid a hasty visit 

 to the king here, and was taken mortally ill under suspicious cir- 

 cumstances — some think he was poisoned by the De Burghs, against 

 one of whom he came to lodge a complaint for the premature 

 attentions which one of them had paid to the Countess Ela, when 

 her husband,Williani Longespee, was supposed to have been drowned 

 at sea. He died within two months, and was the first to be buried 

 in the new Lady Chapel of the Cathedral Church at Salisbury, 

 8tli March, 1226, where he and his countess had laid two of the 

 foundation stones, 28th April, 1220. 



In more modern times (1767) Pitt's father, the Earl of Chatham, 

 had spent a fortnight at the Castle Inn (now the older part of 

 Marll)orough College buildings) as an invalid on his way from 

 Bath, and had driven the landlord, Mr. White, and his servants to 

 their wits' end liy his requirements. 



It is to anotlier eminent invalid and statesman that I propose to 

 invite your attention to-day. He was one who lived and died before 

 the Georges, but considerably later than tlie Plantagenets, in fact 

 in those early Jacobean times when many of the older houses in 

 Marlborough appear to have been built, as Mr. Pouting has assured 

 me. 



' The latter portion only of this paper was read at the Marlborough Meeting 

 of the Society, 1905. 



