py of Bishop Jewel's
_Apologie or Answer in Defense of the Churche of Englande_, dated
1571, in the chancel. The pulpit dates from the early seventeenth
century and is a well-designed piece of woodwork with carving of that
period. A brass to Edward Young and his family, two recessed tombs in
the south wall, a few scraps of wall painting, and the fine Norman
font with interlaced arches and sculptured pillars, are some of the
other interesting items in this old church. Ogbury Camp rises above
the village to the east; a lane to the north of it leads in rather
more than three miles to Amesbury.

In the mist of legend and tradition that surrounds the towns and
hamlets of the Plain the origin of Amesbury is lost. The name is
supposed to be derived from Ambres-burh--the town of Aurelius
Ambrosius--a native British king with a latinized name who reigned
about the year 550. In the _Morte d'Arthur_ "Almesbury" is the
monastery to which Guinevere came for sanctuary, and romantic
tradition asserts that Sir Lancelot took the body of the dead Queen
thence to Glastonbury. We are on firmer ground when we come to the
time of the tenth-century house of Benedictine nuns dispersed by Henry
II for "that they did by their scandalous and irreligious behaviour
bring ill fame to Holy Church." It had been founded by a royal
criminal, that stony-hearted Elfrida of Corfe, who murdered her
stepson while he was a guest at her door. But very soon there was a
new house for women and men--a branch of a noted monastery at
Fontevrault in Anjou--of great splendour and prestige in which the
women took the lead. To this Priory came many royal and noble ladies,
including Eleanor of Brittany, granddaughter of Henry II and Eleanor
of England, widow of Henry III. The Priory met the same fate as most
others at the Dissolution and its actual site is uncertain. Protector
Somerset obtained possession of the property and afterwards a house
was built by Inigo Jones, most of which has disappeared in subsequent
additions and alterations. While the Queensberry family were in
possession the poet Gay was a guest here and wrote, in a sham cave or
grotto still existing on the river bank, the _Beggar's Opera_, that
satire on certain aspects of eighteenth-century life which, strangely
enough, became lately popular after a long period of comparative
oblivion.

Amesbury Church once belonged to the Priory. Its appearance from the
outside gives the impression that it is unrest