OF SELBORNE. 443 



highly acceptable ; and, in a few reigns after, it was given 

 to princes of the blood. 1 In old days gentry 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 a 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 manorial house of Temple, by its ex- 

 alted 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. 2 By a breve, or writ, from the king, he is also en- 

 joined 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, " x Custodi 

 foreste sue de Wolvemere." 3 



In the year 1293 a quarrel between the crews of an 



" 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 Wol- 

 mer, before Brigadier- General Emanuel Scroope Howe. G. W. 



1 See Letter II. of these Antiquities. G. W. 



2 Hocheleye, now spelt Hawkley, is in the hundred of Selborne, and 

 has a mill at this day. G. W. 



3 See p. 27, note 4. ED, 



