The President's Address. 



9 



Wilton in one of her royal progresses, probably as much for matters 

 of state policy as personal enjoyment. She is described during her 

 visit as being "both merrie and pleasante." Wilton becomes 

 linked with the memories of Philip Massinger, Sir Philip Sidney, 

 and Shakspeare, while the delightful imagery of Spenser, in his 

 " Faery Queene," might well have been inspired by the lovely 

 scenery around him — 



It was a chosen plott of fertile land 

 As if it had by Nature's cunning hand 

 Bene choycely picked out from all the rest, 

 And laid forth for ensample of the best. 



Amidst these pastoral scenes arose the modest church and home of 

 George Herbert, a kinsman of the Earl of Pembroke. We may 

 fairly infer that Isaac Walton, the celebrated angler, who wrote the 

 life of his friend Herbert, had often stopped at Wilton to ply his 

 gentle craft on the waters which run so rippingly through the town, 

 and that he met beneath the roof of the parsonage the worldly- 

 minded and ambitious Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who wrote the 

 life of King Henry VIII. In the August following his accession 

 to the throne — A.D. 1603 — James the First visited Wilton House, 

 where he was royally entertained by the third Earl of Pembroke, 

 and on the 6th October of the same year till the 29th, both the 

 King and Queen paid a second visit, and held their court there. His 

 Majesty further paid a visit to Wilton in 1620, for the purpose of 

 visiting Stonehenge ; and poor Inigo J ones had to write an essay on 

 this wonderful antiquity, as to what he had discovered concerning it. 

 On the 7th day of August, 1623, the King knighted at Wilton 

 House Thomas Morgan, who was in all probability the co-burgess 

 of Wilton in 1593 with Robert Penruddocke, whose portrait has an 

 honourable place in this Town-hall, and who was knighted by his 

 Majesty in the first year of his reign in the Royal Gardens of 

 Whitehall. In 1627, on account of the violence of the plague at 

 Salisbury, the market of that town was transferred to Wilton, and 

 the inhabitants of Wilton were the principal purveyors to the wants 

 of the citizens of Salisbury. Tradition still points to a mossy grey- 

 stone on the roadside, between West Hamham and Netherhamptonj 



