OF SELBORNE 267 



resided more at home on their estates, and, having fewer resources 

 of elegant in-door amusement, spent most of their leisure hours 

 in the field and the pleasures of the chase. A large domain, 

 therefore, at little more than a mile distance, and well stocked 

 with game, must have been a very eligible acquisition, affording 

 him influence as well as entertainment ; and especially as the 

 manerial house of Temple, by its exalted situation, could command 

 a view of near two-thirds of the forest. 



That Gurdon, who had lived some years the life of an outlaw, 

 and at the head of an army of insurgents, was, for a considerable 

 time, in high rebellion against his sovereign, should have been 

 guilty of some outrages, and should have committed some 

 depredations, is by no means matter of wonder. Accordingly 

 we find a distnngas 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. 1 By a breve, or writ, from the king he 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 Wolmer, 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. 



1 Hocheleye, now spelt Hawkley, is in the hundred of Selbome, and has a mill 

 at this day. 



