OF SELBORNE. ,31:J 



acceptable ; and, in a few reigns after, it was given to princes 

 of the blood. g In old days gentry resided more at home on 

 their estates, and, having fewer resources of elegant in-door 

 amusement, spent most of their leisure hours in the field and 

 the pleasures of the chase. A large domain, therefore, at little 

 more than a mile distance, and well stocked with game, must 

 have been a very eligible acquisition, affording him influence 

 as well as entertainment ; and especially as the manorial house 

 of Temple, by its exalted situation, could command a view of 

 near two-thirds of the forest. 



That Gurdon, who had lived some years the life of an out- 

 law, and at the head of an army of insurgents, was, for a 

 considerable time, in high rebellion against his sovereign, 

 should have been guilty of some outrages, and should have 

 committed some depredations, is by no means matter of 

 wonder. Accordingly we find a distringas against him, order- 

 ing him to restore to the bishop of Winchester some of the 

 temporalities of that see, which he had taken by violence and 

 detained ; viz. some lands in Hocheleye, and a mill. h By a 

 breve, or writ, from the king he is also enjoined to readmit 

 the bishop of Winchester, and his tenants of the parish and 

 town of Farnham, to pasture their horses, and other larger 

 cattle, " averia" in the forest of Wolmer, as had been the usage 

 from time immemorial. This writ is dated in the tenth year 

 of the reign of Edward, viz. 1282. 



All the king's writs directed to Gurdon are addressed in 



" Appendix, N III." 

 " Southampton." 



" Hundreds, Selborne and Finchdeane." 

 " Honours and manors," &c. 

 " Aliceholt forest, three parks there. 



" Eenstcd and Kingsley ; a petition of the parishioners concerning the 

 " three parks in Aliceholt forest." 



William, first earl of Dartmouth, and paternal grandfather to the present 

 lord Stawel, was a lessee of the forests of Aliceholt and Wolmer before 

 brigadier-general Emanuel Scroope Howe. 

 * See Letter II. of these Antiquities. 



h Hocheleye, now spelt Hawklcy, is in the hundred of Selbornc, and has 

 a mill at this day, 



