ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE 259 



NOTES 



1 At Bene's or Bin's parsonage there is a house and stout barn, and seven 

 acres of glebe ; Bene's parsonage is three miles from the church. G. W. 



2 See "Godwin de Praesulibus," Folio Cant. 1743, p. 239. G. W. 



3 " Such legacies were very common in former times, before any effectual 

 laws were made for the repairs of highways." Sir John Cullum's Hawsted, 

 p. 15. G. W. 



LETTER VII 



I SHALL now proceed to the Priory, which is undoubtedly the 

 most interesting part of our history. 



The Priory of Selborne was founded by Peter de la Roche, 

 or de Rupibus, 1 one of those accomplished foreigners that 

 resorted to the court of King John, where they were usually 

 caressed, and met with a more favorable reception than ought, 

 in prudence, to have been shown by any monarch to strangers. 

 This adventurer was a Poictevin by birth, had been bred to 

 arms in his youth, and distinguished by knighthood. His- 

 torians all agree not to speak very favorably of this remark- 

 able man ; they allow that he was possessed of courage and 

 fine abilities, but then they charge him with arbitrary princi- 

 ples, and violent conduct. By his insinuating manners he soon 

 rose high in the favor of John ; and in 1205, early in the reign 

 of that prince, was appointed bishop of Winchester. In 1214, 

 he became lord chief justiciary of England, the first magistrate 

 of the state, and a kind of viceroy, on whom depended all the 

 civil affairs in the kingdom. After the death of John, and dur- 

 ing the minority of his son Henry, this prelate took upon him 

 the entire management of the realm, and was soon appointed 

 protector of the king and kingdom. 



The barons saw with indignation a stranger possessed of all 

 the power and influence, to part of which they thought they 

 had a claim ; they therefore entered into an association against 

 him, and determined to wrest some of that authority from him, 

 which he had so unreasonably usurped. The bishop discerned 

 the storm at a distance ; and, prudently resolving to give way 

 to that torrent of envy which he knew not how to withstand, 



