By the Rev. J. E. Jackson. 



69 



upon Monday the xxv th day of October, ther and then to mete and receyve the 

 said priucesse after the maner Mowing, that is to saie, my lord tresourer, ac- 

 companyed with the Bishops of Bathe and Hereford, the abbots of Abindon and 

 Redyng, my lord Daere of the South, my lord Zouche, Sir Robert Poyntz, Sir 

 Vm, Sandes, Sir John Seymor, Sir Christopher Wroughton, Sir John Brereton 

 and Sir John Chok, to mete her iij or iiij myles befor she come to Ambresbury. 

 And the said Duchess of Norfolk to receyve her after her offring in some con- 

 venient place betwix that and her loging ; at which tyme Wta. Hollybrand 

 which shall awaite upon her, shall in the Spanyshe song, in the name of the 

 said duchesse, welcome the said princesse with such wordes as be delyvered to 

 him in writing. And that the said duchesse have warning therof, and the said 

 Hollybrand, by my lord chamberlayn. 



Item that there be a chare redy at Ambresbury the same tyme for the said 

 princesse to put her in the next day, or at any other tyme w r hen it shall please 

 her. 



Item the Wensday next folowing (3 Nov.) she shall disloge from Ambresbury 

 and draw towards Andover and ther loge in the inn of Thaungell." * 



The monastery and its precincts, including garden, orchards, 

 fishponds, cemetery, &c, covered 12 acres of ground. No plan or 

 view of the buildings appears to be in existence, and of their style 

 or character nothing is known. In the beginning of Kiug Edw. 

 IV. 's. reign, about A.D. 1461, they had suffered by flre» This we 

 learn incidentally from an old document called " A Wrytyng an- 

 nexed to the will of Margaret Lady Hungerford and Botreaux ; " 

 in which she recapitulates all the costs and expenses she had been 

 put to by the troubles that befell her family in the Wars of the Roses. 



" Item, at such tyme as I was by the Chanceler of Ingland put in the Abbay 

 of Amesbury, and ther kept by the Kyng's comm'ndement, by fortune of fyre 

 all my meovable goods, that is to say, beddis of cloth of goolde, beddis of aras 

 and of silke, hangyngis of aras for hallis and chambris, plate, monay, and other 

 stuffe, to the value of a Thousand pounds and more, and the chief loggyng of 

 the same place where I was in, cover'd with lede, by the said infortune was 

 brent and pulled downe, of which the new bildyng and amendyng coste me 

 £200: sum £1200." 



The monastery was granted at the Dissolution (31 Henry VIII.) 



to Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford (afterwards the Protector 



Somerset) : and with it so much of the estates as had been held in 



their own occupation by the nuns. This consisted of 290 selions 



of arable land called " Acres," lately cultivated by the Prioress, 



and valued at 4d. an acre per annum : feeding for 374 sheep in 



the common pasture of Ambresbury : a piece called the Park, 6 



* Letters and Papers illustrative of H. VII. Gairdner, vol. i., p. 407. 



