444 
ANTIQUITIES 
English and a Norman ship, about some trifle, brought on 
by degrees such serious consequences, that in 1295 a war 
broke out between the two nations. The French king^ 
Philip the Hardy, gained some advantages in Gascony ; and, 
not content with those, threatened England with an invasion, 
and, by a sudden attempt, took and burnt Dover. 
Upon this emergency Edward sent a writ to Gurdon, 
ordering him and four others to enlist three thousand sol- 
diers in the counties of Surrey, Dorset, and Wiltshire, able- 
bodied men, tam saggitare quam balistare potentes : and 
to see that they were marched, by the feast of All Saints, to 
Winchelsea, there to be embarked aboard the king^s trans- 
ports. 
The occasion of this armament appears also from a sum- 
mons to the Bishop of Winchester to parliament, part of 
which I shall transcribe on account of the insolent menace 
which is said therein to have been denounced against the 
English language: — " qualiter rex Franciee de terra nostra 
Gascon nos fraudulenter et cautelose decepit, eam nobis 
nequiter detinendo . . . vero predictis fraude et nequitia non 
contentus, ad expugnationem regni nostri classe maxima et 
bellatorum copiosa multitudine congregatis, cum quibus 
regnum nostrum et regni ejusdem incolas hostiliter jam 
invasurus, linguam Anglicam, si concepte iniquitatis pro- 
posito detestabili potestas correspondeat, quod Deus avertat, 
omnino de terra delere proponit'' Dated 30th September, 
in the year of King Edward's reign xxiii.^ 
The above are the last traces that I can discover of 
Gurdon's appearing and acting in public. The first notice 
that my evidences give of him is, that, in 1232, being the 
sixteenth of Henry III., he was the king's bailifi*, with 
others, for the town of Alton. Now, from 1232 to 1295 is 
a space of sixty-three years ; a long period for one man to 
be employed in active life ! Should any one doubt whether 
all these particulars can relate to one and the same person, 
I should wish him to attend to the following reasons why 
^ Reg. Wynton, Stratford, but querj Stratford ; for Stratford was not 
Bishop of Winton till 1323, near tliirtj years afterwards. — G. W. 
