“And thus upon a night there came a vision unto Sir Launcelot, and
charged him, in remission of all his sins, to haste him towards
Almesbury. ‘And by that time thou come, there thou shalt find Queen
Guenever dead; and therefore take thy fellows with thee, and also purvey
thee a horse bier, and bring you the corpse of her, and bury it by her
lord and husband.’ Then Sir Launcelot took his seven fellows with him,
and on foot they went from Glastonbury, which is little more than thirty
miles. And when Sir Launcelot was come to Almesbury, within the nunnery,
Queen Guenever died but half an hour before.”
Timbs, in his “Abbeys and Castles in England,” says: “At Amesbury, says
Bishop Tanner, quoting from Geoffrey of Monmouth, there is said to have
been an ancient British monastery for 300 monks, founded, as some say, by
the famous Prince Ambrosius who lived at the time of the Saxon invasion,
and who was therein buried, destroyed by that cruel pagan, Gurmendus, who
overran all this country in the sixth century.” This alludes to a
monastery prior to the one founded by Elfrida, with which I begin my
account of Amesbury Abbey.