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



275 



1449. Jaii. 5th. William of Westbury, Justice of Common 

 Pleas, leaves by will 4i0s. to Edingdon Priory (Hist, of Westbury, 18). 



29th June, 1450. The Murder op William Ayscough, Bishop 

 op Salisbury, at Edingdon. 



The following account of this event is taken from Fuller's Worthies 

 (under " Lincolnshire ") . 



" He was descended of a worshipful and very ancient family now 

 living 1 at Kelsey, in this county, the* ariation of a letter importing 1 

 nothing to the contrary. 1 I have seen at Salisbury his arms, with 

 allusion to the arms of that house and some episcopal addition. 

 Such likeness is with me a better evidence than the sameness, know- 

 ing that the clergy in that age delighted to disguise their coats 

 from their paternal bearing. He was bred Doctor of the Laws, a 

 very able man in his profession, became Bishop of Sarum, confessor 

 to King Henry the Sixth, and was the first (as T. Gascoigne re- 

 lateth) 3 of Bishops who discharged that office, as then conceived 

 beneath the place. Some will say, If King Henry answered the 

 character commonly received of his sanctity, his Confessor had a very 

 easy performance. Not so, for always the most conscientious men are 

 the most scrupulous in the confession of their sins and the particular 

 enumeration of the circumstances thereof. It happened that J. Cade 

 with his cursed crew (many of them being the tenants of this 



1 The prelate's name is variously written, Ayscough, Ascough, Aiscoth, and 

 Asku (the last being the proper way of pronouncing the name however spelt). 

 The family was of Yorkshire origin, where it was also called Aske. 



2 T. Gascoigne's complaint was that whereas earlier kings were wont to chuse 

 for their confessors grave doctors of divinity who had no other cure of souls, or 

 if they. happened to be appointed to bishoprioks were dismissed to look after their 

 dioceses : but that in later times the dioceses were neglected by Bishops being 

 also confessors to the King, Chancellors or Treasurers. " The mob " [he says] 

 " when they set on Asku, Bishop of Sarum, to murder him, thus insulted and up- 

 braided him : ' That fellow always lived with the King, and was his confessor 

 and did not reside in his Diocese of Sarum with us, nor keep aw/ hospital if // : 

 therefore he shall not live.'' Not content with their revenge on the Bishop, 

 they likewise plundered several Rectors and Vicars in the same diocese near 

 Salisbury and about Hungerford, harassing the inferior clergy at a barbarous 

 rate " [though what the inferior clergy had to do with the King's conscience they 

 did not stop to enquire]. See Lewis's Life of Peoock, pp. 30 aud 135. 



