94 THE POOLE TOWN CELLAR. 



being received into the opening heavens. The device upon his 

 shield she presently recognised ; astonished, she asked who it was 

 thus ascending, and being received by the angels into such glory ; 

 she was answered in a distinct and audible voice ' William, thy 

 son ! ' ' She took note of the night, and the vision was fulfilled. 

 This William Longespee came into possession of the Manor of 

 Canford and Town of Poole in 1243. In 1248 he granted to 

 Poole that first charter which was the foundation of their privileges, 

 this grant being just previous to his departure for the Holy Land 

 on that expedition in which he was killed. His son, William (the 

 third) Longespee, succeeded to the estate of his father. He was a 

 minor at his father's death, and in 1257 received such injuries in a 

 tournament at Blyth, in Nottinghamshire, that he died. Holinshed 

 says this happened in 1266. Thus the Countess Ela lost her 

 husband, her son, and her grandson by violent deaths. The 

 foundation and endowment of ecclesiastical buildings and institu- 

 tions was a prevailing feature of the religious feeling of the age 

 during which Ela lived, and this spirit of religion seems to have 

 been largely developed in her, and does it not appear rather 

 inconsistent for her to have founded an Abbey or Priory elsewhere 

 and to have neglected the Manor whence, as a child, she was 

 carried away, and which was replete with tender memories of her 

 youth, and associated with others and more dear of her husband, 

 her son, and her grandson 1 May this not have been the place of 

 her retirement from her duties as Abbess in 1257, and may she not 

 then have either built or finished this monastery of St. Clement's 1 

 In 1348 Poole was visited by the Black Death, which made its 

 appearance in England first on the Dorsetshire coast. Capgrave 

 says that in many ports in Dorset nine-tenths of the population 

 were destroyed, and lord's rents and priest's tithes ceased to be 

 paid. Probably at this time St. Clement's monastery ceased to be 

 such, and the buildings fell into a ruinous state. In 1362, on the 

 death of Joan, widow of Earl Warren, the Manor reverted to the 

 Montacute family in the person of William Lord Montacute, 2nd 

 Earl of Salisbury of that name, who was seised of Poole borough at 



