284 The History of Longleat. 
it was dissolved: and its revenue, or the little that remained, trans- 
ferred to another religious Society, the Abbey of Charterhouse 
Henton, about twelve miles off, on the road to Bath. During the 
short time that it was attached to Henton, it was called the Cell of 
the Priory of Longleat. Ten years afterwards, in 1539, Henton 
Abbey itself was dissolved, its property was dispersed, and the site 
of this Cell of Longleat was sold by the Crown to Sir John Horsey, 
of Clifton Maubank, Co. Dorset; who in the following year, 1540, 
sold it to Sir John Thynne. 
That the Priory stood upon this identical spot is proved by the 
discovery a few years ago, during some alterations in the interior 
of this house, of an old wall that had formed part of it and that 
had been worked up into the frame of the present house. At the same 
time several coffins of rude workmanship, containing skeletons, were 
found under the floor near the foot of the grand staircase. These 
were removed into Horningsham churchyard. 
Until Sir John Thynne, in the year 1540, bought the old Priory, 
he was not in any way connected by property with the county of 
Wilts. His family came from Shropshire, and their name had 
anciently been Botteville. 
And here I may observe, as not impertinent to this occasion, that 
the house of Thynne, Patrons of Archeology in the 19th century, 
were in the 16th, working archeologists themselves. William 
Thynne, uncle to Sir John, published one of the earliest printed 
editions in folio, of our old Geoffrey Chaucer: and Francis Thynne, 
son of William, was not only Lancaster Herald and a great col- 
lector of English historical antiquities, but also a writer: though, 
as often is the case, he laboured for others to reap where he had 
sown. ‘ Whosoever,” (says Fuller) “shall peruse the voluminous 
works of Ralph Holinshed (the chronicler) will find how much 
he was assisted therein by the help of Mr. Francis Thynne, seeing 
the shoulders of Atlas himself may be weary, if not sometimes 
beholden to Hercules, to relieve him.” 
Sir John turned his own abilities in a different direction, and 
one a great deal more profitable than Archeology. One of his 
uncles had been Master of the Household to King Henry VII., and 
. 
