By the Rev. Canon Eddrup. 



279 



were content with what we should consider somewhat rough accom- 

 jjmodation, yet they usually travelled with a large retinue, accom- 

 panied by some of the great officers of State, and often with hawks 1 

 i and dogs and many huntsmen, guards, and attendants. During 

 these journeys the kings transacted public business and executed 

 documents ; several of these are witnessed at Stanley; among them 

 ; Edward the Second's writ of confirmation of the privileges of 

 London. King John was at Stanley, October 25th, 1200, coming 

 from Malmesbury and passing on to Melksham, Berkeley, and 

 Gloucester. Edward the First was here in March, 1282, on his 

 way from Malmesbury to Devizes ; and on April 23rd and 24th, on 

 his way back from Devizes to Gloucester. Edward the Second 

 stayed two nights at Stanley, June 21st and 22nd, in 1308, in his 

 journey from Marlborough to Bristol, in the first year of his reign. 8 

 I do not know whether we have since had many visits of Royalty 

 to these parts of North Wilts. 



Abbeys were often chosen as favourite places of burial, and it is 

 probable that when the Church at Stanley was destroyed, there were 

 destroyed with it, tombs, interesting or beautiful, of persons of dis- 

 tinction connected with the neighbourhood. One such person, at 

 any rate, was buried at Stanley, Philip Bassett, in 127 l. s The 

 name is preserved to us in Berwick Bassett, Compton Bassett, 

 Winterbourne Bassett, Wootton Bassett, in which places this family 

 held estates. Many owners have held them since then, but they 

 have faded out of memory, and the family that owned these parishes 

 more than six hundred years ago has stamped its name of Bassett 

 on the lands which it once possessed. Aliva, the daughter of this 

 ' Philip Bassett, was a great heiress, and was married successively to 

 two of the most notable men in England at that day — Despenser, 

 Justiciary of England, and Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk and Earl 

 Marshal. 4 



1 " A knight seldom stirred from his house without a falcon on his wrist or a 

 greyhound that followed him." Hallam's Middle Ages, ix., i. 



2 See Birch, p. 284, 300, 301. 

 3 Birch, p. 299. 

 4 Jackson's Aubrey, p. 42. 



