190 THE ANTIQUITIES [LETT. 



guilty of some outrages, and should have committed some depre- 

 dations, is by no means matter of wonder. Accordingly 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. By a breve, or writ, from the king 

 lie 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 

 Woliner, 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 the 

 following manner : " Edwardus, Dei gratia, &c., 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 English 

 and a Norman ship, about some trifle, brought on by degrees 

 such serious consequences, that in 1295 a war broke out between 

 the two nations. The French king, Philip the Hardy, gained 

 some advantages in Gascony ; and, not content 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, ordering 

 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 summons 

 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 language : 

 " qualiter rex Francise de terra nostra Gascon nos fraudulenter 

 et cautelose decepit, earn nobis nequiter detenendo . . . vero 

 predictis fraude et nequitia non contentus, ad expugnationem 



1 Hocheleye, now spelt Hawkley, is in the hundred of Selborne, and has 

 a mill at this day. 



