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 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.
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 congregatis, cum quibus regnum nostrum et regni ejusdem incolas hostiliter jam invasurus, linguam Anglicam si concepte iniquitatis proposito detestabili potestas correspondeat, quod Deus avertat omnino de terra delere proponit" Dated 3oth September, in the year of King Edward’s reign xxiii.*
* Reg. Winton, Stratford, but query Stratford; for Stratford was not bishop of Winton till 1323, near thirty years afterwards.
