Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/335

 THE ALIEN PRIORY OF ANDWELL. 259 the King committed the custody of the Priory of Shirebunic to Adam do Port ; vliicli, it ajipears, had been taken into the King's hands together Avith the other ahen Priories, " occasione interdicti," (1 Rot. Lit. Clans, p. 108.) In the tenth year he was sent on an embassy to Otlio, King of the llomans, nephew of John, in company with WilHam, Earl of Salisbmy, the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem, in England, and the Archdeacons of Woi'cester and Stafford. In the fourteenth of John, he was entrusted with the charge of the safe custody of Robert, son of Richard de Popeshall, and Wilham, son of Thomas Maudiot, whom their fathers had been compelled to deliver as hostages to the King. In the fifteenth he was entrusted with the government of the Castle of Southampton during the King's pleasure, superseding William Briwerr in that charge. He died shortly after his appointment to this post, for his son William de St. John had livery of his father's lands in this year, as appears by the following entry in the Rotuli de Oblatis, p. 477. Suiiamt'1 Will's de Sc'o Johanne dat quingentas marcas Bercsir'J pro habenda tota terra que fuit Ade de Portu, quondam patris sui : Et insuper d'no Regi inveniet x milites, bene paratos equis et armis, in serv : d'ni Regis in Pictavia, vel ubi ei placuerit, per unum annum integrum, ad custum suum ; scil. a die Sc'i Jacobi Apostoli, an. r. d'ni Reg : xv"., inunum annum integrum sequentem ; itaquod anno illo integro elapso, reddet quingentas marcas, secundum quod a d'no Rege terminos habere poterit. Et preceptum est vicecomitibus, quod eidem Willelmo plenariam saisinam sine dilatione habere faciant de predicta terra, cum pertinenciis suis,inBallivis eorum. On these grounds it seems probable that Adam de Port, the husband of the Countess Sybilla, Avhose lands, as we have seen, were forfeited, and himself still in exile in the reign of John, was a different person from the Adam de Port who married ^labell, the heiress of Roger de St. John above- mentioned. It aj^pears certain that this last mentioned Adam is the person so often spoken of in the reign of John, whose son William laid aside the name of Port, and assumed that of St. John. He probably is also the person whose good deeds are recorded in those singular inscriptions on the walls of the church of Warnford in Hampshire, noticed in the 2nd Volume of the Archaeological Journal ; and the builder of that curious house, the remains of which are to be seen eastward of the church. It is popularly called King