By the Rev. Canon Eddrup. 279 
were content with what we should consider somewhat rough accom- 
modation, yet they usually travelled with a large retinue, acoom- 
panied by some of the great officers of State, and often with hawks ! 
and dogs and many huntsmen, guards, and attendants. During 
these journeys the kings transacted public business and executed 
documents ; several of these are witnessed at Stanley ; among them 
Edward the Second’s writ of confirmation of the privileges of 
London. King John was at Stanley, October 25th, 1200, coming 
from Malmesbury and passing on to Melksham, Berkeley, and 
Gloucester. Edward the First was here in March, 1282, on his 
way from Malmesbury to Devizes; and on April 23rd and 24th, on 
his way back from Devizes to Gloucester. Edward the Second 
stayed two nights at Stanley, June 21st and 22nd, in 1308, in his 
journey from Marlborough to Bristol, in the first year of his reign.? 
I do not know whether we have since had many visits of Royalty 
to these parts of North Wilts. 
Abbeys were often chosen as favourite places of burial, and it is 
probable that when the Church at Stanley was destroyed, there were 
destroyed with it, tombs, interesting or beautiful, of persons of dis- 
tinction connected with the neighbourhood. One such person, at 
any rate, was buried at Stanley, Philip Bassett, in 1271.3 The 
‘name is preserved to us in Berwick Bassett, Compton Bassett, 
Winterbourne Bassett, Wootton Bassett, in which places this family 
held estates. Many owners have held them since then, but they 
have faded out of memory, and the family that owned these parishes 
‘more than six hundred years ago has stamped its name of Bassett 
on the lands which it once possessed. Aliva, the daughter of this 
Philip . Bassett, was a great heiress, and was married successively to 
two of the most notable men in England at that day—Despenser, 
Justiciary of England, and Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk and Earl 
Marshal.* 
ley knight seldom stirred from his house without a falcon on his wrist or a 
greyhound that followed him.” Hallam’s Middle Ages, ix., i. 
: 2 See Birch. p. 284, 309, 301. 
3 Birch, p. 299. 
4 Jackson's Aubrey, p. 42. 
