KEMPSEY. 211

the battle of Evesham. Edward I brought his Queen, then enceinte, down the river in a boat to Kempsey, in 1301, In the church of this place, William de Gaynesbure, a friar, on being appointed Bishop of Worcester, watched all night before proceeding to Worcester to be installed, and refused to move any further, on his journey till the Prior of Worcester came to him, although the latter was not obliged, by ancient custom, to go more than a mile from Worcester. The more humble the friar the prouder the Bishop; and it was at Kempsey manor-house in 1314 that the Bishop of Worcester excommunicated Gloucester Monastery for refusing to submit to a visitation from the Prior of Worcester during the vacancy of the see.

The ancient families of Nash and Buck had their habitat at Kempsey. Dr. Nash, the historian of Worcestershire, was born at Clerkenleap, in this parish. John de Kempsey, treasurer of Hereford Cathedral in the thirteenth century, was a noted man, belonging to a good family here. He was the writer of Bishop Swinfield's roll of expenses, which a few years ago came to light in Sir Thomas Winnington's library, and which has been so admirably edited by the Rev. J. Webb; and he was long remembered in the church of Kempsey, where he founded a chantry well endowed for masses at the altar of the Virgin, and left such regulations as secured the chaste and reverent behaviour of the priests who officiated there. Kempsey likewise gave birth to Col. Sir W. Ellis, who served his country most nobly, and was shot down at Waterloo.

The rectory of Kempsey was given to the Dean and Chapter of Worcester by Edward VI, in exchange for other livings. The rectory was a manor of itself, and among its privileges was this, that no tenant of the manor could be arrested by the Corporation of Worcester for debt without three weeks' previous notice, an invaluable privilege to any man who contemplated "levanting." The Dean and Chapter are still patrons of the living, which is valued at £262; Rev. G. L. Foxton vicar. The church stands in a picturesque