444 ANTIQUITIES 



English and a Norman ship, about some trifle, brought on 

 by degrees such serious consequences, that in 1295 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 sol- 

 diers in the counties of Surrey, Dorset, and Wiltshire, able- 

 bodied men, ' ' tarn saggitare 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 trans- 

 ports. 



The occasion of this armament appears also from a sum- 

 mons to the Bishop of Winchester to parliament, part of 

 which I shall transcribe on account of the insolent menace 

 which is said therein to have been denounced against the 

 English language : " qualiter rex Francia3 de terra nostra 

 Gascon nos fraudulenter et cautelose decepit, earn nobis 

 nequiter detinendo . . . vero predictis fraude et nequitia non 

 contentus, ad expugnationem regni nostri classe maxima et 

 bellatorum copiosa multitudine congregatis, cum quibus 

 regnum nostrum et regni ejusdem incolas hostiliter jam 

 invasurus, linguam Anglicam, si concepte iniquitatis pro- 

 posito detestabili potestas correspondeat, quod Deus avertat, 

 omnino de terra delere proponit" Dated 30th September, 

 in the year of King Edward's reign xxiii. 1 



The above are the last traces that I can discover of 

 Gurdon's appearing and acting in public. The first notice 

 that my evidences give of him is, that, in 1232, being the 

 sixteenth of Henry III., he was the king's bailiff, with 

 others, for the town of Alton. Now, from 1232 to 1295 is 

 a space of sixty-three years ; a long period for one man to 

 be employed in active life ! Should any one doubt whether 

 all these particulars can relate to one and the same person, 

 I should wish him to attend to the following reasons why 



1 Reg. Wynton, Stratford, but query Stratford ; for Stratford was not 

 Bishop of Winton till 1323, near thirty years afterwards. G. W. 



