3 io ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER VIII. 



OUR forefathers in this village were no doubt as busy and 

 bustling, and as important, as ourselves ; yet have their names and 

 transactions been forgotten from century to century, and have sunk 

 into oblivion ; nor has this happened only to the vulgar, but even 

 to men remarkable and famous in their generation. I was led into 

 this train of thinking by finding in my vouchers that Sir Adam 

 Gurdon was an inhabitant of Selborne, and a man of the first rank 

 and property in the parish. By Sir Adam Gurdon I would be 

 understood to mean that leading and accomplished malcontent 

 in the Mountfort faction, who distinguished himself by his daring 

 conduct in the reign of Henry III. The first that we hear of this 

 person in my papers is, that with two others he was bailiff of Alton 

 before the sixteenth of Henry III., viz., about 1231, and then not 

 knighted. Who Gurdon was, and whence he came, does not appear : 

 yet there is reason to suspect that he was originally a mere soldier 

 of fortune, who had raised himself by marrying women of property. 

 The name of Gurdon does not seem to be known in the south ; 

 but there is a name so like it in an adjoining kingdom, and which 

 belongs to two or three noble families, that it is probable this re- 

 markable person was a North Briton ; and the more so, since the 

 Christian, name of Adam is a distinguished one to this day among 

 the family of the Gordons. But, be this as it may, Sir Adam 

 Gurdon has been noticed by all the writers of English history for 

 his bold disposition and disaffected spirit, in that he not only 

 figured during the successful rebellion of Leicester, but kept up 

 the war after the defeat and death of that baron, entrenching 

 himself in the woods of Hampshire, towards the town of Farnham. 

 After the battle of Evesham, in which Mountfort fell, in the year 

 1265, Gurdon might not think it safe to return to his house for fear 

 of a surprise ; but cautiously fortified himself amidst the forests and 

 woodlands with which he was so well acquainted. Prince Edward, 

 desirous of putting an end to the troubles which had so long ha- 

 rassed the kingdom, pursued the arch-rebel into his fastnesses, 



