WILLIAM DE MIDDLETON was collated in 1363.



CHAPTER III--REFORMATION TIMES



The rectorial tithe of Hursley having been given to St. Elizabeth's
College, and apparently some rights over Merdon, the Chancellor
Wriothesley obtained that, on the confiscation of monastic property,
the manor should be granted to him. Stephen Gardiner had been bishop
since 1531, a man who, though he had consented to the king's
assumption of the royal supremacy, grieved over the fact as an error
all his life. He appeared at the bar of the House of Commons and
pleaded the rights of his See, to which Merdon had belonged for 1300
years. It was probably in consequence of his pleading that
Wriothesley restored the manor, but when Gardiner was illegally
deposed by the regency of Edward VI. on 14th February 1550, John
Poynet, a considerable scholar, but a man of disgraceful life,
obtained the appointment to the see, by alienating various estates to
the Seymour family, and Merdon was resumed by the Crown. It was then
granted to Sir Philip Hobby who had been one of King Henry's privy
councillors, and had been sent on an embassy to Portugal, attended by
ten gentlemen of his own retinue, wearing velvet coats with chains of
gold.

Already had come to the hamlet of Slackstead in Hursley Parish
another reformer, Thomas Sternhold, who had been gentleman of the