Decline
By 1219, the limitations of space on the hilltop site had become cause for concern, with the cathedral and castle in close proximity and their respective chiefs in regular conflict. When Bishop Poore's men were held out of the hill-fort by the King's men, Poore formally requested the cathedral's relocation.
The site of a new cathedral was consecrated later that year, and in 1220 the bishop started construction on the banks of the Avon. A new settlement grew up around it, called New Salisbury or New Sarum — eventually just known as Salisbury. By 1217, the inhabitants of Old Sarum had removed their residence, and constructed their new habitations with the materials they razed from their old. As one city increased in population and extent, so the other almost as rapidly decayed.
From the reign of Edward II in the 14th century, the borough of Old Sarum elected two members to the House of Commons, despite the fact that from at least the 17th century it had no resident voters at all. One of the members in the 18th century was William Pitt the Elder. In 1831 it had eleven voters, all of whom were landowners who lived elsewhere. This made Old Sarum the most notorious of the rotten boroughs. The Reform Act 1832 completely disfranchised Old Sarum.
Read more about this topic: Old Sarum
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“But only that soul can be my friend which I encounter on the line of my own march, that soul to which I do not decline, and which does not decline me, but, native of the same celestial latitude, repeats in its own all my experience.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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