A^^TIQTJITIES OF SELBORNE. 
223 
hang to this appointment, yet are there reasons why it might be highly 
acceptable ; and, in a few reigns after, it was given to princes of the 
blood.* In old days gentry resided more at home on their estates, and 
having fewer resources of elegant indoor amusement, spent most of 
their leisure hours in the field and the pleasures of the chase. A large 
domain, therefore, at little more than a mile distance, and well stocked 
with game, must have been a very eligible acquisition, affording him 
influence as wiell as entertainment ; and especially as the manorial 
house of Temple, by its exalted situation, could command a view of 
near two-thirds of the forest. 
That Gurdon, who had lived some years the life of an outlaw, and at 
the head of an army of insurgents, was for a considerable time in high 
rebellion against his sovereign, should have been guilty of some 
outrages, and should have committed some depredations, is by no 
means matter of wonder. Accordingly we find a distringas against 
him, ordering him to restore to the Bishop of Winchester some of the 
temporalities of that sefe, which he had taken by violence and detained, 
viz., some lands in Hocheleye, and a mill.f By a hreve, or writ, from 
the king he is also enjoined to readmit the Bishop of Winchester, and 
his tenants of the parish and town of Farnham, to pasture their horses, 
and other larger cattle, " averia,'' in the forest of Woolmer, as had been 
the usage from time immemorial. This writ is dated in the tenth year 
of the reign of Edward, viz., 1282. 
All the king's writs directed to Gurdon are addressed in the 
following manner " Edwardus Dei gratia, &c., dilecto et fideli suo 
Ade Gurdon salutem ; " and again, " Custodi foreste sue de Wolvemere." 
In the year 1293 a quarrel between the crews of an English and a 
IN'orman ship about some trifle, brought on by degrees such serious 
consequences, that in 1293 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 soldiers in the counties of 
Surrey, Dorset, and Wiltshire, able-bodied men, " tam sagittare 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 
transports. 
*' Names of lessees, William, earl of Dartmouth, and others (in trust). 
" Date of the last lease, March 23, 1T80 ; granted for such term as would fill up 
the subsisting terra to 31 years. 
" Expiration March 23, 1811. 
" Southampton. 
* ' Hundreds — Selborne and Finchdeane. 
*' Honours and manors, &c. 
" Aliceholt forest, three parks there. 
*'Bensted and Kingsley ; a petition of the parishioners concerning the three 
parks in Aliceholt Forest." 
"William, first earl of Dartmouth, and paternal grandfather to the present 
Lord Stawel, was a lessee of the forests of Aliceholt and Wolmer before brigadier- 
general Emanuel Scroope Howe." 
* See Letter 11. of these Antiquities. 
t Hocheleye, now spelt Hawkley, is in the hundred of Selborne, and has a mill 
at this day. 
