ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 219 



evening. This unmerited and unexpected lenity melted the heart of 

 the rugged Gurdon at once ; he became in an instant a loyal and useful 

 subject, trusted and employed in matters of moment by Edward when 

 king, and confided in till the day of his death. 



LETTEE IX. 



IT has been hinted in a former letter that Sir Adam Gurdon had 

 availed himself by marrying women of property. By my evidences it 

 appears that he had three wives, and probably in the following order : 

 Constantia, Ameria, and Agnes. The first of these ladies, who was the 

 companion of his middle life, seems to have been a person of consider- 

 able fortune, which she inherited from Thomas Makerel, a gentleman 

 of Selborne, who was either her father or uncle. The second, Ameria, 

 calls herself the quondam wife of Sir Adam, " quae fui uxor," &c., and 

 talks of her sons under age. Now Gurdon had no son : and beside, 

 Agnes, in another document, says, " Ego Agnes quondam uxor Domini 

 Adce Gurdon in pura et ligea viduitate mea :" but Gurdon could not 

 leave two widows ; and therefore it seems probable that he had been 

 divorced from Ameria, who afterwards married and had sons. By 

 Agnes Sir Adam had a daughter Johanna, who was his heiress, to 

 whom Agnes in her life-time surrendered part of her jointure : he had 

 also a bastard son. 



Sir Adam seems to have inhabited the house now called Temple, 

 lying about two miles east of the church, which had been the property 

 of Thomas Makerel. 



In the year 1262 he petitioned the prior of Selborne in his own 

 name, and that of his wife Constantia only, for leave to build him an 

 oratory in his manor-house, " in curia sua." Licenses of this sort were 

 frequently obtained by men of fortune and rank from the bishop of the 

 diocese, the archbishop, and sometimes, as I have seen instances, from 

 the pope ; not only for convenience-sake, and on account of distance, 

 and the badness of the roads, but as a matter of state and distinction. 

 Why the owner should apply to the prior, in preference to the bishop 

 of the diocese, and how the former became competent to such a grant, 

 I cannot say ; but that the priors of Selborne did take that privilege is 

 plain, because some years afterward, in 1280, Prior Richard granted to 

 Henry Waterford and his wife Nicholaa, a licence to build an oratory 

 in their court-house, " curia sua de Waterford," in which they might 

 celebrate divine service, saving the rights of the mother church of 

 Basynges. Yet all the while the prior of Selborne grants with such 

 reserve and caution, as if in doubt of his power, and leaves Gurdon and 

 his lady answerable in future to the bishop, or his ordinary, or to the 

 vicar for the time being, in case they should infringe the rights of the 

 mother church of Selborne. 



The manor-house, called " Temple," is at present a single building, 

 running in length from south to north, and has been occupied as a 



