By the Rev. J. E. Jackson. 



67 



The List of Prioresses or Abbesses is very imperfect. In 

 the following are one or two names not hitherto noticed. 1 

 A.D. 1211. Emelina. (Hunter's Berkshire Fines, p. 145.) 



1294. Joan de Gennes, from Font Evrault. 



1308. Johanna. (Wilts Institutions.) 



Dambert. (See preceding letter.) 



1349. Margery de Pirebrooke. (Wilts Institutions.) 



1420. Sibilla de Montacute, died this year. (Pedigree 

 of Duke of Manchester.) 



1438. Johanna. (Wilts Institutions.) 



1486. 16th May, Alice Fisher. (See Wilts Collections, 

 Aubrey & Jackson, p. 199, " Wanborough.") 



1534. Florence Bormewe. (Yalor Eccles.) 



1539. Johanna Darell. The last. 

 " As early as 1535 or 1536," (says M. A. Everett Wood) "an at- 

 tempt had been made on the part of (Secretary) Cromwell's emissaries 

 to persuade the prioress voluntarily to surrender her monastery into 

 the King's hands, but this she steadily refused. Dr. Tregonnel and 

 his fellow commissioners thus addressed Cromwell on the subject ": — ■ 

 " ' We came to Ambresbury, and there communed with the Abbess 

 for the accomplishment of the King's highness' commission in like 

 sort ; and, albeit we have used as many ways with her as our poor 

 wits could attain, yet, in the end we could not, by any persuasions, 

 bring her to any conformity, but at all times she resteth and so 

 remaineth in these terms : ' If the King's highness command me to 

 go from this house I will gladly go, though I beg my bread ; and 

 as for pension I care for none.' In these terms she was in all her 

 communication, praying us many times to trouble her no farther 

 herein for she had declared her full mind, in the which we might 

 plainly gather of her words she was fully fixed before our coming. ' 



1 In the New Monasticon (p. 331), and in ISir R. C. Hoare's " Amesbury," p. 72, 

 the first known Abbess is said to have been Isabella of Lancaster, fourth daugh- 

 ter of Henry, Earl of Lancaster, and grand-daughter to Edmund Crouchback 

 son of Henry III., and the date given to her is A.D. 1202. This date must 

 certainly be an oversight ; as the Earl of Lancaster died 1345. But it is very 

 doubtful whether she was an Abbess here at all. Aconbury in co. Hereford, and 

 not Amesbury in Wilts, appears to have been the nunnery over which Isabella 

 of Lancaster presided. See Notes and Queries, 3rd series, vol. vii., p. 76. 



E 2 



