3i8 ANTIQUITIES OF SEL BORNE. 



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 Franciae de terra nostra Gascon nos fraudulenter et cautelose 



decepit, earn nobis nequiter detinendo vero predictis 



fraude et nequitia non contentus, ad expugnationem regni nostri 

 classe maxima et beilatorum copiosa multitudine congregatis, cum 

 quibus regnum nostrum et regni ejusdem incolas hostiliter jam- 

 in vasurus, lingitam Anglicam si concepte iniquitatis proposito 

 detestabili potestas correspondeat, quod Deus avertat, omnino de 

 terra delere proponit" Dated 3oth September, in the year of King 

 Edward's reign xxiii.* 



The above are the last traces that I can discover of Gurdon's 

 appearing and acting in public. The first notice that my evidences 

 give of him is that in 1232, being the i6th of Henry III., he was 

 the King's bailiff, with others, for the town of Alton. Now, from 

 1232 to 1295 is a space of sixty-three years, a long period for one 

 man to be employed in active life ! Should any one doubt whether 

 all these particulars can relate to one and the same person, I should 

 wish him to attend to the following reasons why they might. In 

 the first place, the documents from the priory mention but one Sir 

 Adam Gurdon, who had no son lawfully begotten ; and in the next, 

 we are to recollect that he must have probably been a man of 

 uncommon vigour, both of mind and body, since no one unsup- 

 ported by such accomplishments could have engaged in such 

 adventures, or could have borne up against the difficulties which 

 he sometimes must have encountered ; and, moreover, we have 

 modern instances of persons that have maintained their abilities 

 for near that period. 



Were we to suppose Gurdon to be only twenty years of age in 

 1232, in 1295 he would be eighty-three : after which advanced 

 period it could not be expected that he should live long. From the 



* Reg. Winton, Stratford, but query Stratford ; for Stratford was not bishop of Winton 

 till 1323, near thirty years afterwards. 



