350 On the Succession of the Abbesses of Wilton, Sfc. 



I 



Digest. , p. 871). It was under the presidency of this abbess that 1 

 the scandalous affair occurred of the abduction of two nuns of the 

 monastery by a knight, Osborn Gifford. For this offence he suffered I 

 a severe penance, a part of which was publicly performed in the 1 

 churches and market places of Wilton and Shaftesbury. In Pal- 

 grave's Par. Writs, p. 336, we find the name of Osbertus Gifford 

 returned as holding lands in Dorset and Somerset, twenty-eighth 

 of Edw. I. Supposing this to be the culprit, and that his Dorset 

 property was near to Shaftesbury, this would account for a part of 

 his public penance being carried out at the latter place. 



Lady Emma Blounde or Blount, The name of this abbess is j 

 not found in any previous list; her name occurs in a Pern, charter 

 as having died second Edw. II. — 1308-9 (may be earlier). This, 

 no doubt, is the abbess of whom Hoare gives some particulars, but 

 had not met with her actual name. It forms No. 7 of his list, he 

 says her election is dated Forfar, twenty-fourth Edward L- — 1295. ; 

 In 1303 the abbess was summoned to send her service against the ' 

 Scots ; muster at Berwick-upon-Tweed at Whitsuntide, in the 

 thirty-first of Edw. I. 



Alice de Parham. The name of this abbess has not previously 

 been met with in any list. It occurs in a Pembroke charter of the 

 time of Edw. II. or III. A grant to John de Parham, 1 of Alvedistone, ,-. 

 of a burgate of land. Witnessed by Matthew Wake, 2 Stephen of 

 Bayeux, and others. This abbess is afterwards mentioned as having 

 preceded Constance. 



Constance de Percy. This abbess's name is found in a Pern, 

 charter of the eighteenth Edw. II. — 1324-5, and again on the sixth 

 of Edw. III. — 1332. She is named No. 8 in Hoare's list, as having 

 succeeded her predecessor in 1321, but her name is met with in a 



1 In the twenty-fifth Edw. I. — 1297 — we find the name of John de Parham 

 returned from the counties of Dorset and Somerset as holding lands or rents to 

 the amount of £20 yearly, either in capite or otherwise, and as such summoned 

 to perform military service in person, with horses and arms, &c, in parts beyond 

 the seas. In the Nomina Villarum, 1335, John de Parham, with others, held 

 lands at Alvediston. 



2 The family of Wake were lords of the manor of Ebbesbourne from the time 

 of King John until the middle of the last century. 



