By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 



29 



through the influence of a lady, Alfrida, Dowager Queen of the 

 Anglo-Saxon King Edgar. 



The Monastery for ladies at Ambresbury was founded and en- 

 dowed by another Royal lady, Alburga, sister of King Egbert. 



The Monastery of Lacock, for an Abbess and nuns, was founded 

 by Ela, Countess Dowager of Salisbury, who also founded another 

 at Hinton Charterhouse. There were other Nunneries at Maiden 

 Bradley and St. Mary's, Kington St. Michael. 



Now let me call attention to this. Wilton House and most of the 

 lands there formerly the property of the Abbess, now belong to the 

 Earl of Pembroke ; Ambresbury to Sir E. Antrobus \ Lacock to Mr. 

 Talbot. Whatever territorial influence now attaches to those gentle* 

 men, attached in former times to the lady owners. These lady-heads 

 of Religious Houses were landowners of many thousand acres. At this 

 very place at which we are meeting, the Manor of Bradford, with a 

 good deal of land, and the appointment to six or seven neighbouring 

 Churches then included in it, belonged to the Abbess of Shaftesbury- 

 But consider the true character of these places. These famous 

 monasteries were not merely the abodes of a few contemplative nuns, 

 as is often supposed, but they were first-class places of education, to 

 which were sent, not only from the immediate neighbourhood, but 

 from all parts, young ladies of the very first families, even of the 

 Blood Royal. It is on record that Mary, sixth daughter of Edward 

 I., Isabella of Lancaster, and others were brought up at Ambresbury ) 

 Matilda, Queen of Henry L, at Wilton. The lists that remain to 

 us show that most truly " Kings' daughters were among their 

 honourable women." There they and hundreds of young persons of 

 good family were trained up to learn not merely female accomplish- 

 ments, but various useful domestic arts, solid practical work. They 

 were taught what so many young persons now-a-days, when their 

 education is called finished, begin to learn for themselves, medicine, 

 surgery, confectionery, cookery, the general management of house- 

 holds, and the duties of the rich to the poor ; all this under the 

 orderly superintendence of piety and religion. Now when it is recol- 

 lected that this training was undergone, not at a boarding-school in a 

 town, but at the very houses of the richest and largest land-owners, 



