8 



The Seventeenth General Meeting. 



opposed this measure they were soundly cudgelled into submission. 

 All this caused a great deal of bad blood, and legal enquiries were 

 made into the matter of this contest between Wilton and New 

 Sarum. Nearly a century elapsed before it was put an end to by 

 the issue of a proclamation, which denned the days on which the 

 inhabitants of both places were to hold their markets. But the 

 trade of Wilton from this time began to decline, and later on, in 

 1349, a frightful pestilence fell on the town, and destroyed at least 

 one-third of the inhabitants. In the fifteenth century, curiously 

 enough, there appears to have been a good trade in beer, and we 

 find the brewers quarrelling for priority to supply the public wants. 

 Indeed, in 1464, the then Mayor of Wilton was obliged to step in 

 and effect a reconciliation of the fractious brewers, by ordering that 

 five should brew on Monday, five on Wednesday, and four on Friday, 

 weekly. During the Wars of the Roses, Wilton apparently re- 

 mained indifferent and apathetic, though stirring events were taking 

 place in England, and levies of men and materials were made in 

 Wiltshire. Come we now to the reign of Henry VIII., by whose 

 orders the religious edifices of Wilton were dissolved. The monas- 

 tery of Wilton accepted its dissolution quietly, and gave no trouble 

 whatever, but surrendered on the 25fch March, 1539. Pensions 

 were provided for the abbess, prioress, nuns, and officers of the 

 establishment. The abbess retired to Fovant, a village through 

 which we shall pass in our excursion to-morrow, and we read of one 

 of the dispossessed nuns, whose name was Alice Langton, passing 

 the remainder of her days at Ugford, near this town, at the residence 

 of the Revels motherless daughter, Laura Wodeland, who had been 

 a pupil of the grateful nun. I believe that the house can be pointed 

 out to this day. Incidents like this are small, but they give an 

 interest to persons and places, which time is unable to efface. Upon 

 the site of the ancient church of St. Edith has risen the noble 

 edifice of the Pembroke family, completed in the reign of Edward 

 VI., under the conduct of Hans Holbein. In 1551 Wilton was 

 honoured by a visit from the then youthful monarch, who was 

 travelling in the western counties for a change of air, as we should 

 say in modern parlance. England's virgin Queen paid a visit to 



