Edward I.[1] The jurors state in the 2nd of Edward I. (1273-1274) that he was possessed of the right of free warren, and that he had made a park in the time of Henry III.[2]
Having thus traced the manor into the hands of Robert Burnell, it will be necessary to say a few words concerning him. It appears that his eminent abilities caused him to be appointed secretary and confidential clerk to Edward I., before he ascended the throne[3]. He was elected bishop of Bath and Wells on the 23rd of January, 1275, but was not consecrated until Palm Sunday in that year[4]. He was even appointed to the see of Canterbury, (1272,) but the pope refused to confirm the election[5], and the see remained consequently vacant for some years. He was archdeacon of York, and chancellor of England from the year 1274 to his death in 1292; he died at Berwick upon Tweed, and was buried a month afterwards in the nave of his cathedral at Wells[6]. And having filled places of the highest trust under his sovereign, we find from the inquisition held in the year after his death, (21st of Edward I.[7],) that the extent of his temporal possessions was commensurate with his dignities, as he held more than thirty manors, besides vast estates in nineteen different counties. It will be unnecessary to pursue the history of his successors to this great wealth; it seems to have increased under the hands of Philip Burnell his nephew, who next inherited it; under Edward, who was summoned to parliament as a baron by writ in 1311[8], it waned, and we hear no more of it in the hands of the Burnells till the time of Nicholas, who was a collateral branch.
Attention having been thus briefly called to the history of the possessors of Acton Burnell, it is next directed to that of the church. When it is known that Robert Burnell had Edward's permission to take timber in the king's woods in the forest of Salop, for building his manor-house at Acton Burnell, where, as the entry on the Patent Rolls states, he was born[9], it will not appear improbable that he should divert some portion of his wealth to build a church; he certainly built on the western side of the episcopal palace at Wells a great hall,
