THE ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE 299 



de Selbourne, &c., pie compacientes sollicitudines pastorales, 

 labores, diligentias quam plurimas per nos & commissarios 

 nostros pro reformatione status ejus impenderimus, justicia 

 id poscente ; nihilominus tamen," &c., as in the article 

 to " desperatur," dated "in manerio nostro de Esher, Aug. 

 3d., 1485, & consec. 39." Then on the 6th of August, 

 Preston, in the presence of the other proctors, required 

 that they should be compelled to answer; when they all 

 allowed the articles, "fuisse & esse vera;" and the com- 

 missary, at the request of Preston, concluded the business, 

 and appointed Monday, August 8th, for giving his decree 

 in the same church of Esher ; and it was that day read, 

 and contains a recapitulation, with the sentence of union, 

 &c., witnessed and attested. 



As soon as the president and fellows of Magdalene 

 college had obtained the decision of the commissary in their 

 favour, they proceeded to suplicate the pope, and to entreat 

 his holiness that he would give his sanction to the sentence 

 of union. Some difficulties were started at Rome-, but 

 they were surmounted by the college agent, as appears by 

 his letters from that city. At length pope Innocent VIII., 

 by a bull 1 bearing date the 8th of June, in the year of 

 our Lord 1486, and in the second year of his pontificate, 

 confirmed what had been done, and suppressed the 

 convent. 



Thus fell the considerable and well-endowed Priory of 

 Selborne after it had subsisted about two hundred and fifty- 

 four years : about seventy-four years after the suppression 

 of Priories alien by Henry V., and about fifty years before 

 the general dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII. The 

 founder, it is probable, had fondly imagined that the 

 sacredness of the institution, and the pious motives on 



1 There is nothing remarkable in this bull of pope Innocent, except the state- 

 ment of the annual revenue of the Priory of Selborne, which is therein estimated 

 at ifoflor. auri ; whereas bishop Godwin sets it at 337/. 15*. 6^. Now iflorcn, 

 so named, says Camden, because made by Florentius, was a gold coin of king 

 Edward III., in value 6s., whereof 160 is not one seventh part of 337/. 15^. 6d. 

 -[G. W.j 



