A great treat was in store for us this morning, for we had to pass
through Wilton, with its fine park surrounding Wilton House, the
magnificent seat of the Herberts, Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery. Our
first impression was that Wilton was one of the pleasantest places we
had visited. Wiltshire took its name from the river Wylye, which here
joins the Nadder, so that Wilton had been an important place in ancient
times, being the third oldest borough in England. Egbert, the Wessex
King, had his palace here, and in the great contest with Mercia defeated
Beornwulf in 821 at Ellendune. A religious house existed here in very
early times. In the reign of Edward I it was recorded that Osborn de
Giffard, a relative of the abbess, carried off two of the nuns, and was
sentenced for that offence to be stripped naked and to be whipped in the
churches of Wilton and Shaftesbury, and as an additional punishment to
serve three years in Palestine. In the time of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn
wished to give the post of abbess to a friend, but King Henry had
scruples on the subject, for the proposed abbess had a somewhat shady
reputation; he wrote, "I would not for all the gold in the world clog
your conscience nor mine to make her a ruler of a house, which is of so
ungodly a demeanour, nor I trust you would not that neither for brother
nor sister I should so bestain mine honour or conscience.
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