56G ANTIQUITIES 



The Ela Longspcc therefore above-mentioned was a 

 lady of high birth and rank, and became countess to 

 Thomas de Nevvburgh, the sixth Earl of Warwick : 

 she was the second daughter of the famous Ela Long- 

 spec, Countess of Salisbury, by William Longspee, 

 natural son of King Henry II. by Rosamond. 



Our lady, following the steps of her illustrious 

 mother 4 , " was a great benefactress to the university 

 of Oxford, to the canons of Oseney, the nuns of God- 

 stow, and other religious houses in Oxfordshire. She 

 died very aged in the year 1300 5 , and was buried 

 before the high altar in the abbey church of Oseney, at 

 the head of the tomb of Henry D'Oily, under a flat 

 marble, on which was inlaid her portraiture, in the 

 habit of a vowess, engraved on a copper-plate." 

 Edmondson's History and Genealogical Account of the 

 Grevilles, p. 23. 



LETTER XIII. 



THE reader is here presented with five forms respect- 

 ing the choosing of a prior 1 . Such evidences are rare 

 and curious, and throw great light upon the general 



4 Ela Longspee, Countess of Salisbury, in 1232, founded a monastery 

 at Lacock, in the county of Wilts, and also another at Hendon, in the 

 county of Somerset, in her widowhood, to the honour of the Blessed 

 Virgin and St. Bernard. CAM MIA. 



5 Thus she survived the foundation of her chantry at Selborne fifteen 

 years. About this lady and her mother consult Dugdale's Baronage, I. 

 72, 175, 177. Dugdale's Warwickshire, I. 383. Leland's Itin. II. 45. 



1 (No. 108.) 

 Carta petens licentiam eligendi prelatum a Domino Episcopo Wintoniensi. 



Defuncto prelato forma petendi licentiam eligendi. 



Domino et patri in Christo reverendo domino & P. Dei gratia Win- 

 toniensi episcopo, devoti sui filii supprior monasterii de S. Wintoniensis 

 dioceseos salutem cum subjectione humili, reverentiam, et honorem. 

 Monasterio nostro de S. in quo sub protectione vestra vivimus, sub habitu 

 regular!, Prioris solacio destitute per mortem bone memorie,&c. quondam 

 Prioris nostri, qui tali hora in aurora diem clausit cxtrcmuin, vestrc pater- 



