Upon the dissolution of the abbeys, he gave him the abbey of Wilton, and a country of lands and mannours thereabout belonging to it. He gave him also the abbey of Remesbury in Wilts, with much lands belonging to it. He gave him Cardiff-Castle in Glamorganshire, with the ancient crowne-lands belonging to it.
Almost all the country held of this castle. It was built by Sir Robert Fitzhamond the Norman, who lies buried at Tewkesbury abbey with a memorial: and he built the abbey of Glocester. It afterwards came to Jasper, duke of Bedford, etc.; so to the crowne. I have seen severall writings of Sir John Aubrey's at Llantrithid in Glamorganshire, which beginne[1178] thus:—'Ego Jaspar, frater regum et patruus, dux Bedfordiae, comes Pembrochiae, et dominus de Glamorgan et Morgannog, omnibus ad quos hoc presens scriptum pervenerit, salutem, etc.'
He maried <Anne> Par, sister of queen Katharine Par, daughter and co-heire of <Thomas> Par (I thinke[FC], marquisse of Northampton), by whom he had 2 sonnes, Henry, earle of Pembroke, and <Edward> the ancestor of the lord Powys.
He was made Privy Councellor and conservator of King Henry the Eight's[1179]will. He could neither write nor read, but had a stamp for his name. He was of good naturall parts; but very cholerique. He was strong sett but bony, reddish-favoured, of a sharp eie[1180], sterne looke.
In queen Mary's time, upon the returne of the Catholique religion, the nunnes came again to Wilton abbey, and this William, earl of Pembroke, came to the gate (which lookes towards the court by the street, but now is walled-up) with his cappe in hand, and fell upon his knee to the lady abbesse[LXXXVII.] and the nunnes, crying peccavi. Upon queen Mary's death, the earle came to Wilton (like a tygre) and turnd them out, crying, 'Out ye whores, to worke, to worke, ye whores, goe spinne.'
[LXXXVII.] The last lady abbesse here was ... Gawen, of Norrington, belonging to Chalke, where that family haz been 400 yeares (sold about 1665 to Judge Wadham Windham).
He being a stranger in our country, and an upstart, was much envyed. And in those dayes (of sword and buckler), noblemen (and also great knights, as the Longs), when they went to the assizes or sessions at Salisbury, etc., had a great number of retainers following them; and there were (you have heard), in those dayes, feudes (i.e. quarrells and animosities) between great neighbours. Particularly this new earle was much envyed by the then lord Sturton of Sturton[FD], who would, when he went or returned from Sarum (by Wilton was his rode), sound his trumpetts, and give reproachfull challenging words; 'twas a relique of knighthood errantry.
From my great-uncles, the Brownes of Broad Chalke:—in queen Elizabeth's time, some bishop (I have forgot who) that had been his chaplain, was sent to him from the queen and council, to take interrogatories of him. So he takes out his pen and inke, examines and writes. When he had writt a good deale, sayd the earle, 'Now lett me see it.' 'Why,' qd the bishop, 'your lordship cannot read it?' 'That's all one: I'le see it,' qd he, and takes it and teares it to pieces: 'Zounds, you rascall,' qd he, 'd'ee thinke I will have my throate cutt with a penknife?' It seemes they had a mind to have pick't a hole in his coate, and to have gott his estate.
'Tis reported that he caused himself to be lett bloud, and bled so much that it was his death, and that he should say as he was expiring, 'They would have Wilton—they would have Wilton,' and so gave up the ghost.