Page:EB1911 - Volume 28.djvu/719

 bury, Eastern or Devizes and Southern or Wilton. It also contains the parliamentary borough of Salisbury, returning one member.

History.—The English conquest of the district now known as Wiltshire began in 552 with the victory of Cynric at Old Sarum, by which the way was opened to Salisbury Plain. Four years later, pushing his way through the vale of Pewsey, Cynric extended the limits of the West Saxon kingdom to the Marlborough Downs by a victory at Barbury Hill. At this period the district south of the Avon and the Nadder was occupied by dense woodland, the relics of which survive in Cranborne Chase, and the first wave of West Saxon colonization was chiefly confined to the valleys of the Avon and the Wylye, the little township of Wilton which arose in the latter giving the name of Wilsaetan to the new settlers. By the 9th century the district had acquired a definite administrative and territorial organization, Walstan, ealdorman of the Wilsaetan, being mentioned as early as 800 as repelling an attempted invasion of the Mercians. Moreover, “Wiltunscire” is mentioned by Asser in 878, in which year the Danes established their headquarters at Chippenham and remained there a year, plundering the surrounding country. In the time of Æthelstan mints existed at Old Sarum, Malmesbury, Wilton, Cricklade and Marlborough. Wilton and Salisbury were destroyed by the Danish invaders under Sweyn in 1003, and in 1015 the district was harried by Canute.

With the redistribution of estates after the Conquest more than two-fifths of the county fell into the hands of the church; the possessions of the crown covered one-fifth; while among the chief lay proprietors were Edward of Salisbury, William, count of Ewe, Ralph de Mortimer, Aubrey de Vere, Robert Fitzgerald, Miles Crispin, Robert d'Oily and Osbern Giffard. The first earl of Wiltshire after the Conquest was William le Scrope, who received the honour in 1397. The title subsequently passed to Sir James Butler in 1449, Sir John Strafford in 1470, Sir Thomas Boleyn in 1529, and in 1550 to the Paulett family. The Benedictine foundations at Wilton, Malmesbury and Amesbury existed before the Conquest; the Augustinian house at Bradenstoke was founded by Walter d'Evreux in 1142; that at Lacock by Ela, countess of Salisbury, in 1232; that at Longleat by Sir John Vernon before 1272. The Cluniac priory of Monkton Farleigh was founded by Humphrey de Bohun in 1125; the Cistercian house at Kingswood by William de Berkeley in 1139; and that of Stanley by the Empress Maud in 1154.

Of the forty Wiltshire hundreds mentioned in the Domesday Survey, Selkley, Ramsbury, Bradford, Melksham, Calne, Whorwellsdown, Westbury, Warminster, Heytesbury, Kinwardstone, Ambresbury, Underditch, Furstfield, Alderbury and Downton remain to the present day practically unaltered in name and extent; Thorngrave, Dunelawe and Cepeham hundreds form the modern hundred of Chippenham; Malmesbury hundred represents the Domesday hundreds of Cicemethorn and Sterchelee, which were held at farm by the abbot of Malmesbury; Highworth represents the Domesday hundreds of Crechelade, Scipe, Wurde and Staple; Kingbridge the hundreds of Chingbridge, Blachegrave and Thornhylle; Swanborough the hundreds of Rugeberge, Stodfold and Swaneberg; Branch the hundreds of Branchesberge and Dolesfeld; Cawden the hundreds of Cawdon and Cadworth. A noticeable feature in the 14th century is the aggregation of church manors into distinct hundreds, at the court of which their ecclesiastical owners required their tenants to do suit and service. Thus the bishop of Winchester had a separate hundred called Kurwel Bishop, afterwards absorbed in Downton hundred; the abbot of Damerham had that of Damerham; and the prior of St Swithin's that of Elstub, under each of which were included manors situate in different parts of the county.

The meeting-place of Swanborough hundred was at Swanborough Tump, a hillock in the parish of Manningford Abbots identified as the moot-place mentioned in the will of King Alfred; that of Malmesbury was at Colepark; that of Bradford at Bradford Leigh; that of Warminster at Iley Oak, about 2 m. south of Warminster, near Southleigh Wood. The shire court for Wiltshire was held at Wilton, and until 1446 the shrievalty was enjoyed ex officio by the castellans of Old Sarum. Edward of Salisbury was sheriff at the time of the Domesday Survey, and the office remained hereditary in his family, descending to William Longespee by his marriage with Ela, great-granddaughter of Edward. In the 13th century the assizes were held at Wilton, Malmesbury and New Sarum.

On the division of the West Saxon see in 703 Wiltshire was included in the diocese of Sherborne, but in 905 a separate diocese of Wilton was founded, the see being fixed alternately at Ramsbury, Wilton and Sunning in Berkshire. Shortly before the Conquest Wilton was reunited to the Sherborne diocese, and by the synod of 1075—1076 the see was transferred to Salisbury. The archdeaconries of Wiltshire and Salisbury are mentioned in 1180; in 1291 the former included the deaneries of Avebury, Malmesbury, Marlborough and Cricklade within this county, and the latter the deaneries of Amesbury, Potterne, Wilton, Chalke and Wylye. In 1535 the archdeaconry of Salisbury included the additional deanery of Salisbury, while Potterne deanery had been transferred to the archdeaconry of Wiltshire. The deaneries of the archdeaconry of Salisbury have remained unaltered; Wiltshire archdeaconry now includes the deaneries of Avebury, Marlborough and Potterne; and the deaneries of Chippenham, Cricklade and Malmesbury form part of the archdeaconry and diocese of Bristol.

The inhabitants of Wiltshire have always been addicted to industrial rather than warlike pursuits, and the political history of the county is not remarkable. In 1086, after the completion of the Domesday Survey, Salisbury was the scene of a great council, in which all the landholders took oaths of allegiance to the king, and a council for the same purpose assembled at Salisbury in 1116. At Clarendon in 1166 was drawn up the assize which remodelled the provincial administration of justice. Parliaments were held at Marlborough in 1267 and at Salisbury in 1328 and 1384. During the wars of Stephen's reign Salisbury, Devizes and Malmesbury were garrisoned by Roger, bishop of Salisbury, for the empress, but in 1138 Stephen seized the bishop and captured Devizes Castle. In 1216 Marlborough Castle was surrendered to Louis by Hugh de Neville. Hubert de Burgh escaped in 1233 from Devizes Castle, where he had been imprisoned in the previous year. In the Civil War of the 17th century Wiltshire actively supported the parliamentary cause, displaying a spirit of violent anti-Catholicism, and the efforts of the marquess of Hertford and of Lord Seymour to raise a party for the king met with vigorous resistance from the inhabitants. The Royalists, however, made some progress in the early stage of the struggle, Marlborough being captured for the king in 1642, while in 1643 the forces of the earl of Essex were routed by Charles I. and Prince Rupert at Aldbourne, and in the same year Waller, after failing to capture Devizes, was defeated in a skirmish at Roundway Down. The year 1645 saw the rise of the “Clubmen” of Dorset and Wiltshire, whose sole object was peace; they systematically punished any member of either party discovered in acts of plunder. Devizes, the last stronghold of the Royalists, was captured by Cromwell in 1645. In 1655 a rising organized on behalf of the king at Salisbury was dispersed in the same year.

At the time of the Domesday Survey the industrial pursuits of Wiltshire were almost exclusively agricultural; 390 mills are mentioned, and vineyards at Tollard and Lacock. In the succeeding centuries sheep-farming was vigorously pursued, and the Cistercian monasteries of Kingswood and Stanlegh exported wool to the Florentine and Flemish markets in the 13th and 14th centuries. Wiltshire at this time was already reckoned among the chief of the clothing counties, the principal centres of the industry being Bradford, Malmesbury, Trowbridge, Devizes and Chippenham. In the 16th century Devizes was noted for its blankets, Warminster had a famous corn-market, and cheese was extensively made in north Wiltshire. Amesbury was famous for its tobacco pipes in the 16th century. The clothing trade went through a period of great depression in the