32 CRANBORNE AND TEWKESBURY. 



William Rufus, who conferred on him the Lordship of the Honour 

 of Gloucester, of which Brihtric had been cruelly deprived, in 

 reward for his service in the conquest of Glamorganshire. Of 

 course he could do what he pleased with his own, and now both 

 Cranborne and Tewkesbury were under his patronage. And now 

 we may see, I think, the power of priestly influence which the 

 Abbot of Cranborne exercised over the piety of Sybil, FitzHamon's 

 wife, to persuade him to rebuild and re-endow the neglected 

 Abbey of Tewkesbury, said to have been originally founded in 

 A.D. 715. This abbot, Gerald de Brienne, a Norman monk, 

 probably owned no lively affection for this Saxon foundation at 

 Cranborne, and preferred the prospect of an institution under the 

 Norman dynasty, for the ostensible reason stated in the record. 

 The translation of the brethren to their new abode took place in 

 A.D. 1 102. There were 57 of them. Two only, with a prior, were 

 left behind at Cranborne to preserve the semblance of a religious 

 house and to carry on the service of the parish church. We trust 

 that the Abbot Gerald and his 57 brethren had no occasion to 

 look back with unavailing regret on the luxurious repasts afforded 

 by the Cranborne Chase venison which they had left behind, 

 consoled by the fact that it was now replaced by the dainty 

 produce of the Severn fishery, far superior to that of the humble 

 Crane stream to which they had been accustomed. They had, 

 indeed, no reason to regret the change, now located as they were 

 in a rich and beautiful valley, more attractive to them than the 

 bleak downs and woods and moors of Dorset, and not far distant 

 from one of the chief residential strongholds of theii powerful 

 patron the Earl of Gloucester. 



But there is a tide in the affairs of men, and so in the course of 

 a few centuries the time arrived when it was very low water at 

 Tewkesbury, so low that this once flourishing abbey was left high 

 and dry by the receding waves, in the sense of the loss of all its 

 wealth, dignity, and splendour, and thus robbed, despoiled, and 

 forsaken, it stood amidst its losses and its ruin, a proud memorial 

 of the days when lords and mitred priests worshipped within 



