352 
ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 
and a mill.* By a breve, or writ, from the king he is also en- 
joined 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 Wolmer, 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 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, threat- 
ened 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 coun- 
ties 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. 
The occasion of this armament appears also from a summons 
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 Franciae 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 con- 
gregatis, cum quibus regnum nostrum et regni ejusdem incoias 
hostiliter jam invasurus, linguam Anglicam, si concepte iniqui- 
tatis proposito detestabili potestas correspondeat, quod Deus 
avertat, omnino de terra delere proponit." Dated 30th Septem- 
ber, in the year of king Edward's reign xxiii.f 
The above are the last traces that I can discover of Gurdon's 
appearing and acting in public. The first notice that my evi- 
dences give of him is, that, in 1232, being the l6th of Henry HI. 
* Hocheleye, now spelt Hawkley, is in the hundred of Selborne, and has a mill at this day. 
t Reg. Wynton, Stratford, but query Stratford; for Stratford was net bishop of Winton till 
1323^ near thirty years afterwards. 
