ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 323 



The above are the last traces that I can discover of Garden's 

 appearing and acting in public. The first notice that my evi- 

 dences give of him is that in 1232, being the i6th of Henry III., 

 he was the King's bailiff, with others, for the town of Alton. 

 Now, froVn 1232 to 1295 is a space of sixty-three years, a long 

 period for one man to be employed in active life ! Should any 

 one doubt whether all these particulars can relate to one and the 

 same person, I should wish him to attend to the following reasons 

 why they might. In the first place, the documents from the priory 

 mention but one Sir Adam Gurdon, who had no son lawfully 

 begotten ; and in the next, we are to recollect that he must have 

 probably been a man of uncommon vigour, both of mind and 

 body, since no one unsupported by such accomplishments could 

 have engaged in such adventures, or could have borne up against 

 the difficulties which he sometimes must have encountered ; and 

 moreover, we have modern instances of persons that have main- 

 tained their abilities for near that period. 



Were we to suppose Gurdon to be only twenty years of age in 

 1232, in 1295 he would be eighty-three; after which advanced 

 period it could not be expected that he should live long. From 

 the silence, therefore, of my evidences, it seems probable that this 

 extraordinary person finished his life in peace, not long after, at 

 his mansion of Temple. Gurdon's seal had for its device a man, 

 with a helmet on his head, drawing a cross-bow ; the legend, 

 " Sigillum Ade de Gurdon } " his arms were, " Goulis, iii floures 

 argent issant de testes de leopards." * 



If the stout and unsubmitting spirit of Gurdon could be so 

 much influenced by the belief and superstition of the times, much 

 more might the hearts of his ladies and daughter. And accord- 

 ingly we find that Ameria, by the consent and advice of her sons, 

 though said to be all under age, makes a grant for ever of some 

 lands down by the stream at Durton ; and also of her right of the 

 common of Durton itself, f Johanna, the daughter and heiress of 



* From the collection of Thomas Martin, Esq., in the "Antiquarian Re- 

 pertory,'' p. 109, No. XXXI. 



t Durton, now called Dorton, is still a coninon for the copyholders of 

 Selbcrne manor. 



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