270 



Edingdon Monastery. 



Bishop) fell foul on this Prelate at Edingdon n [Bishop Ayscough 

 had no palace at Edingdon, but had merely fled thither for refuge] . 

 " Bishop Godwin could not tell why they should be so incensed 

 against him. But I conceive it was because he was learned, pious, 

 and rich, three capital crimes in a clergyman. They plundered his 

 carriages, taking 10,000 marks (a mine of money in that age) from 

 him, and then to secure their riot and felony by murder and high 

 treason dragged him, as he was officiating, from the high altar. And 

 although they regarded difference of place no more than a wolf is 

 concerned whether he killeth a lamb in the fold or field, yet they 

 brought him out of the Church to a hill hard by, and there bar- 

 barously murdered him, and tore his bloody shirt in pieces, and left 

 his stripped body stark naked in the place. 



" Sic concussa cadit populari Mitea tumultu ; 

 Proteget optamus nunc Diadem a Deus. 



[By people's fury Mitre thus cast down ; 

 We pray henceforward God preserve the Ceown.] 



"This his massacre happened June 29th, 1450, when he had sate 

 almost twelve years in the See of Sarisbury.-" 1 



Leland (1540) says "The body of him was buried in the house of 

 Bonhoms at Hedington, and on the spot where he was killed ther 

 is now a chapelle and hermitage/'' 2 Later " Jack Cades 33 have 

 left no trace either of these buildings or of any monument in the 

 Church of Edingdon, if there ever was one to his memory. The 

 one in Salisbury Cathedral called Bishop Ayscough 's by Gough is 

 of much older date. The villagers used to show, as the scene of the 

 murder, a spot where they pretended that the grass grew so rank 

 and strong that the cattle refused to eat it. An old survey of A.D. 



, 1 There are very few Bishops of Sarum of whom history has so little to say as 

 Bishop Ayscough. See Cassan's Lives. Also Wilts Archceol. Mag., i., 189, 

 note : and the " Chronicle of Hen. VI. " (Camden Society), p. 64, which adds : 

 " These two Bishops [Adam Moleyns and Ayscough] were wonder covetous men 

 and evil beloved among the common people, and holde suspect of many defaults, 

 and were assentyng and willing to the death of the Duke of Gloucester, as it was 

 said." 



2 Leland, Itin., III., 98. Wilts Magazine, I., 189. 



