ANTIQUITIES OP SELBORNE. 223 



hang to this appointment, yet are there reasons why it might be highly 

 acceptable ; and, in a few reigns after, it was given to princes of the 

 blood.* In old days gentry resided more at home on their estates, and 

 having fewer resources of elegant indoor 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 distringas 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.f 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 Woolmer, 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 1293 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. 



"Names of lessees, William, earl of Dartmouth, and others (in trust). 



" Date of the last lease, March 23, 1780 ; granted for such term as would fill up 

 the subsisting term to 31 years. 



" Expiration March 23, 1811. 



" Southampton. 



' ' Hundreds Selborne and Finchdeane. 

 " Honours and manors, &c. 



" Aliceholt forest, three parks there. 



"Bensted and Kingsley; a petition of the parishioners concerning the three 

 parks in Aliceholt Forest." 



"William, first earl of Dartmouth, and paternal grandfather to the present 

 Lord Stawel, was a lessee of the forests of Aliceholt and Wolmer before brigadier- 

 general Emanuel Scroope Howe." 



* See Letter II. of these Antiquities. 



t Hocheleye, now spelt Hawkley, is in the hundred of Selborne. and has a mill 

 at this day. 



