[56] This prophecy is thought to have been fulfilled when the son of Edmund Tudor, a Welshman, ascended the throne as Henry VII.
[57] This dedication is curious. St. Rumbold was the son of a Northumbrian King, and of a daughter of Penda, King of Mercia, born at Sutton, in Northamptonshire; he died when three days old, but not before he had repeated the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed in Latin. This fact gained canonization for him.
[58] This has given the colloquial name of “the Rock” to Shaftesbury. Those who live in the town are spoken of as coming from the Rock; those who dwell in the villages below it are spoken of as “Side off” the Rock.
[59] The Abbey of Alcester was founded in 1140 by Ralf Boteler, and a document exists by which one William le Boteler, of Wem, grants to the Abbey 100 shillings per annum, derived from land in the parish of St. James, Shaftesbury, to pay for masses for his own soul and that of the King (7th year of Henry IV.). This is only a confirmation of a previous gift.
[60] Jude the Obscure, p. 313.
[61] Of the poet “George Turberville, gentleman,” not much is known. He was born at Winterborne Whitchurch, probably before 1530, and died after 1594. Besides a book on falconry and numerous translations, he wrote a good many occasional poems, though none of great length.
Sir Walter Ralegh, a Devonshire man, was connected with Sherborne, for it was here that he and his wife, Elizabeth Throgmorton, settled, and in January, 1591-2, had obtained a ninety-nine years’ lease of the castle and park. Here he busied himself with building and “repairing the castle, erecting a magnificent mansion close at hand, and laying out the grounds with the greatest refinement and taste.” The castle now occupied by the Digby family is in part the lodge built by Sir Walter, and over the central doorway appear his arms, and the date, 1594. Before his conviction he settled his estate on his son, but by a flaw in the deed James I. took it from him, and granted it to his favourite, Carr, Earl of Somerset. It is said that Lady Ralegh asked the King on her knees to spare her son’s heritage, but that the King’s only answer was, “I maun hae the lond; I maun hae it for Carr.” On Sir Walter’s journey to the Tower, he passed in full view of Sherborne, and said, motioning with his hands towards the woodlands and the castle, “All this was once mine, but has passed away.”
[62] About 1727 one Prior, of Godmanston, a labouring man, declared to a company, in the presence of Mr. Hutchins, that he was Mr. Prior’s cousin, and remembered going to Wimborne to visit him, and afterwards heard that he became a great man.—Hutchins’ Dorset.
[63] Longman’s Magazine, October, 1884.
[64] The collection of books to which the History of the World belongs was given to the town in 1686, many years after Prior had left Wimborne. See the Contemporary Review, May, 1890.