2/0 WHITE 



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 con- 

 siderable 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. Accord- 

 ingly we find a distringas against him, ordering 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. 7 By a breve t 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 has 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 the 

 following manner, " Edwardus Dei gratia, etc., dilecto et fideli 

 suo Ade Gurdon salutem;" and again, "Custodi foreste sue 

 de Wolvemere." 



In the year 1293 a quarrel between the crews of an Eng- 

 lish and a Norman ship about some trifle brought on by 

 degrees such serious consequences, that in 1293 a war broke 

 out between the two nations. The French king, Philip the 

 Hardy, gained some advantages in Gascony ; and, not con- 

 tent with those, threatened England with an invasion, and by 

 a sudden attempt took and burnt Dover. 



Upon this emergency, Edward sent a writ to Gurdon, order- 

 ing him and four others to enlist three thousand soldiers in the 

 counties of Surrey, Dorset, and Wiltshire, able-bodied men, 

 " tarn sagittare quam balistare potentes ; " and to see that they 

 were marched by the feast of All Saints, to Winchelsea, there 

 to be embarked aboard the king's transports. 



The occasion of this armament appears also from a sum- 

 mons to the bishop of Winchester to Parliament, part of which 

 I shall transcribe on account of the insolent menace which is 

 said therein to have been denounced against the English lan- 

 guage : " qualiter rex Franciae de terra nostra Gascon nos 

 fraudulenter et cautelose decepit, earn nobis nequiter deti- 

 nendo . . . vero predictis fraude et nequitia non contentus, 



