Queen Elfrida, who performed many penances and built monasteries in atonement for the crime of the murder of her step-son, Edward the Martyr, founded a Benedictine nunnery at Amesbury in 980. This nunnery flourished for many years, until the ill-conduct of the nuns caused King Henry II. to expel them (1177), and place them under stricter discipline in other religious houses. He then gave the monastery of Ambresbury to the Abbey of Fontevrault, in Normandy. This order was founded by Robert d’Arbrissel about the end of the eleventh century. It is looked upon as a singularity in the church, some finding it strange to see an abbess exercising equal authority over men as well as women. Before his death d’Arbrissel appointed Petronilla de Craou Chemille as head and chief of his order, of which he drew up statutes, putting them under the order of St. Benedict. Under the new rule, this monastery increased in splendour and royal favour, King John conferring upon it important privileges. Eleanor, only daughter of Geoffrey, Earl of Bretagne, was buried, according to her own request, at Ambresbury in 1241. Mary, sixth daughter of Edward I., together with thirteen young ladies of royal birth, took the veil in 1283; and two years afterwards, anno 1287, Eleanor, queen of Henry III., entered the order, and died and was buried at Ambresbury in 1292. The monastery continued to prosper, and became one of the richest in England. The following names of the prioresses have been preserved:—Isabella of Lancaster, fourth daughter of Henry, Earl of Lancaster; Joan de Gennes; Sibilla de Montacute; Katherine of Arragon lodged within the convent walls on her first arrival in England in 1501. [Picture: Chinese Summer House] At the time of the Reformation, the last prioress (but one), Florence Bormewe, refused to surrender her monastery to the King’s emissaries. They wrote: “Albeit we have used as many ways with her as our poor wits could attain, yet in the end we could not by any persuasion bring her to any conformity, but at all times she resteth and so remaineth in these terms.” She answered, “If the King’s Highness command me to go from this house I will gladly go, though I beg my bread, and as for pension I care for none.” The death of this brave prioress saved her from further humiliation. Joan Darell was abbess at the time of the Dissolution; she surrendered to King Henry VIII. Dec. 4th, 1540. The old Chronicle of Geoffrey of Monmouth gives Amesbury as the place of Queen Guinevere’s penitential retirement. The modern poet, Tennyson, takes the same view: “Queen Guinevere had fled the Court and sat There in the holy house at Almesbury.”