If we wish to multiply proofs that a burh was the same thing as a borough, we can turn to the Anglo-Saxon illustrated manuscripts, and we shall find that they give us many pictures of burhs, and that in all cases they are fortified towns.[46] Finally, Florence of Worcester, one of the most careful of our early chroniclers, who lived when Anglo-Saxon was still a living language, and who must have known what a burh meant, translates it by urbs in nineteen cases out of twenty-six.[47] His authority alone is sufficient to settle this question, and we need no longer have any doubt that a burh was the same thing which in mediæval Latin is called a burgus, that is a fortified town, and that our word borough is lawfully descended from it.

It would not have been necessary to spend so much time on the history of the word burh if this unfortunate word had not been made the subject of one of the strangest delusions which ever was imposed on the archæological world. We refer of course to the theory of the late Mr G. T. Clark, who contended in his Mediæval Military Architecture[48] that the moated mound of class (e), which we have described in our first chapter, was what the Anglo-Saxons called a burh. In other words, he maintained that the burhs were Saxon castles. It is one of the most extraordinary and inexplicable things in the history of English archæology that a man who was not in any sense an Anglo-Saxon scholar was allowed to affix an entirely new meaning to a very common Anglo-Saxon word, and that this meaning was at once accepted without question by historians who had made Anglo-Saxon history their special study! The present writer makes no pretensions to be an Anglo-Saxon scholar, but it is easy to pick out the word burh in the Chronicle and the Anglo-Saxon Laws, and to find out how the word is translated in the Latin chronicles; and this little exercise is sufficient in itself to prove the futility of Mr Clark’s contention.

Sentiment perhaps had something to do with Mr Clark’s remarkable success. There is an almost utter lack of tangible monuments of our national heroes; and therefore people who justly esteemed the labours of Alfred and his house were pleased when they were told that the mounds at Tamworth, Warwick, and elsewhere were the work of Ethelfleda, and that other mounds were the work of Edward the Elder. It did not occur to them that they were doing a great wrong to the memory of the children of Alfred in supposing them capable of building these little earthen and timber castles for their personal defence and that of their nobles, and leaving the mass of their people at the mercy of the Danes. Far other was the thought of Ethelfleda, when she and her husband built the borough of Worcester. As they expressed it in their memorable charter, it was not only for the defence of the bishop and the churches of Worcester, but “To Shelter all the Folk.”[49] And we may be sure that the same idea lay at the founding of all the boroughs which were built by Alfred and by Edward and Ethelfleda. They were to be places where the whole countryside could take refuge during a Danish raid. The Chronicle tells us in 894 how Alfred divided his forces into three parts, the duty of one part being to defend the boroughs; and from this time forth we constantly find the men of the boroughs doing good service against the Danes.[50] It was by defending and thus developing the boroughs of England that Alfred and his descendants saved England from the Danes.

Thus far we have seen that all the fortifications which we know to have been built by the Anglo-Saxons were the fortifications of society and not of the individual. We have heard nothing whatever of the private castle as an institution in Saxon times; and although this evidence is only negative, it appears to us to be entitled to much more weight than has hitherto been given to it. Some writers seem to think that the private castle was a modest little thing which was content to blush unseen. This is wholly to mistake the position of the private castle in history. Such a castle is not merely a social arrangement, it is a political institution of the highest importance. Where such castles exist, we are certain to hear of some of them, sooner or later, in the pages of history.

We can easily test this by comparing Anglo-Saxon history with Norman of the same period, after castles had arisen in Normandy. Who among Saxon nobles was more likely to possess a castle than the powerful Earl Godwin, and his independent sons? Yet when Godwin left the court of Edward the Confessor, because he would not obey the king’s order to punish the men of Dover for insulting Count Eustace of Boulogne, we do not hear that he retired to his castle, or that his sons fortified their castles against the king; we only hear that they met together at Beverstone (a place where there was no castle before the 14th century)[51] and “arrayed themselves resolutely.”[52] Neither do we hear of any castle belonging to the powerful Earl Siward of Northumbria, or Leofric, Earl of Mercia. And when Godwin returned triumphantly to England in 1052 we do not hear of any castles being restored to him.

Now let us contrast this piece of English history, as told by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, with the Norman history of about the same period, the history of the rebellion of the Norman nobles against their young duke, William the Bastard. The first thing the nobles do is to put their castles into a state of defence. William has to take refuge in the castle of a faithful vassal, Hubert of Rye, until he can safely reach his own castle of Falaise. After the victory of Val-ès-Dunes, William had to reduce the castles which still held out, and then to order the destruction of all the castles which had been erected against him.[53]

Or let us contrast the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 1051 with that of 1088, when certain Norman barons and bishops in England conspired against the new king, William Rufus. The first thing told us is that each of the head conspirators “went to his castle, and manned it and victualled it.” Then Bishop Geoffrey makes Bristol Castle the base of a series of plundering raids. Bishop Wulfstan, on the other hand, aids the cause of William by preventing an attempt of the rebels on the castle of Worcester. Roger Bigod throws himself into Norwich Castle, and harries the shire; Bishop Odo brings the plunder of Kent into his castle of Rochester. Finally the king’s cause wins the day through the taking of the castles of Tonbridge, Pevensey, Rochester, and Durham.

If we reflect on the contrast which these narratives afford, it surely is difficult to avoid the conclusion that if the chronicler never mentions any Saxon castles it is because there were no Saxon castles to mention. Had Earl Godwin possessed a stronghold in which he could fortify himself, he would certainly have used it in 1051. And as the Norman favourites of Edward the Confessor had already begun to build castles in England, we can imagine no reason why Godwin did not do the same, except that such a step was impossible to a man who desired popularity amongst his countrymen. The Welshmen, we are told (that is the foreigners, the Normans), had erected a castle in Herefordshire among the people of Earl Sweyn, and had wrought all possible harm and disgrace to the king’s men thereabout.[54] The language of the Chronicle shows the unpopularity, to say the least of it, of this castle-building; and one of the conditions which Godwin, when posing as popular champion, wished to exact from the king, was that the Frenchmen who were in the castle should be given up to him.[55] When Godwin returned from his exile, and the Normans took to flight, the chronicler tells us that some fled west to Pentecost’s castle, some north to Robert’s castle. Thus we learn that there were several castles in England belonging to the Norman favourites.

It is in connection with these Norman favourites that the word castel appears for the first time in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. This is a fact of considerable importance in itself; and when we weigh it in connection with the expressions of dislike recorded above which become much more explicit and vehement after the Norman Conquest, we cannot but feel that Mr Freeman’s conclusion, that the thing as well as the word was new, is highly probable.[56] For the hall of the Anglo-Saxon ealdorman or thane, even when enclosed in an earthwork or stockade, was a very different thing from the castle of a Norman noble. A castle is built by a man who lives among enemies, who distrusts his nearest neighbours as much as any foe from a distance. The Anglo-Saxon noble had no reason to distrust his neighbours, or to fortify himself against them. Later historians, who were familiar with the state of things in Norman times, tell us frequently of castles in the Saxon period; but it can generally be proved that they misunderstood their authorities. The genuine contemporary chroniclers of Saxon times never make the slightest allusion to a Saxon castle.

The word castellum, it is true, appears occasionally in Anglo-Saxon charters, but when it is used it clearly means a town. Thus Egbert of Kent says in 765: “Trado terram intra castelli mœnia supranominati, id est Hrofescestri, unum viculum cum duobus jugeribus, etc.,” where castellum is evidently the city of Rochester.[57] Offa calls Wermund “episcopus castelli quod nominatur Hroffeceastre.”[58] These instances can easily be multiplied. Mr W. H. Stevenson remarks that “in Old-English glosses, from the 8th century Corpus Glossary downwards, castellum is glossed by wic, that is town.”[59] In this sense no doubt we must interpret Asser’s “castellum quod dicitur Werham.”[60] Henry of Huntingdon probably meant a town when he says that Edward the Elder built at Hertford “castrum non immensum sed pulcherrimum.” He generally translates the burh of the Chronicle by burgus, and he shows that he had a correct idea of Edward’s work when he says that at Buckingham Edward “fecit vallum ex utraque parte aquæ”—where vallum is a translation of burh. The difference between a burh and a castle is very clearly expressed by the Chronicle in 1092, when it says concerning the restoration of Carlisle on its conquest by William Rufus, “He repaired the borough (burh) and ordered the castle to be built.”

The following is a table of the thirty boroughs built by Ethelfleda and Edward, arranged chronologically, which will show that we never find a motte, that is a moated mound, on the site of one of these boroughs unless a Norman castle-builder has been at work there subsequently. The weak point in Mr Clark’s argument was that when he found a motte on a site which had once been Saxon, he did not stop to inquire what any subsequent builders might have done there, but at once assumed that the motte was Saxon. Of course, if we invariably found a motte at every place where Edward or Ethelfleda are said to have built a burh, it would raise a strong presumption that mottes and burhs were the same thing. But out of the twenty-five burhs which can be identified, in only ten is there a motte on the same site; and in every case where a motte is found, except at Bakewell and Towcester, there is recorded proof of the existence of a Norman castle. In this list, the burhs on both sides of the river at Hertford, Buckingham, and Nottingham are counted as two, because the very precise indications given in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle show that each burh was a separate construction.

Out of this list of the burhs of Ethelfleda and Edward, thirteen are mentioned as boroughs in Domesday Book;[61] and as we ought to subtract five from the list as unidentified, and also to reckon as one the boroughs built on two sides of the river, the whole number should be reduced to twenty-two. So that more than half the boroughs built by the children of Alfred continued to maintain their existence during the succeeding centuries, and in fact until the present day. But the others, for some reason or other, did not take root. Professor Maitland remarked that many of the boroughs of Edward’s day became rotten boroughs before they were ripe;[62] and it is a proof of the difficulty of the task which the royal brethren undertook that, with the exception of Chester, none of the boroughs which they built in the north-western districts survived till Domesday. In all their boroughs, except Bakewell, the purpose of defending the great Roman roads and the main waterways is very apparent.

Our list is very far from being a complete list of all the Anglo-Saxon boroughs existing in Edward’s day. In the document known as the “Burghal Hidage” we have another quite different list of thirty-two boroughs,[63] which, according to Professor Maitland, “sets forth certain arrangements made early in the 10th century for the defence of Wessex against the Danish inroads.”[64] Five at least on the list are Roman chesters; twenty are mentioned as boroughs in Domesday Book. There are two among them which are of special interest, because there is reason to believe that the earthen ramparts which still surround them are of Saxon origin: Wallingford and Wareham. Both these fortifications are after the Roman pattern, the earthen banks forming a square with rounded corners.[65] See Fig. 3.

To complete our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon fortification, we ought to examine the places mentioned in Anglo-Saxon charters as royal seats, where possibly defensive works of some kind may have existed. Unfortunately we are unable to learn that there are any such works, except at one place, Bensington in Oxfordshire, where about a hundred years ago “a bank and trench, which seem to have been of a square form,” were to be seen.[66]

In the following chapter we shall deal in detail with such archæological remains as still exist of the boroughs of Edward and Ethelfleda, but here we will briefly summarise by anticipation the results to which that chapter will lead. We see that sites defensible by nature were often seized upon for fortification, as at Bamborough, Bridgenorth, and Eddisbury; but that this was by no means always the case, as a weak site, such as Witham, for example, was sometimes rendered defensible by works which appear to have fulfilled their purpose. In only one case (Witham) do we find an inner enclosure; and as it is of large size (9½ acres) it is more probable that the outer enclosure was for cattle, than that the inner one was designed solely for the protection of the king and his court. We are not told of stone walls more than once (at Towcester); but the use of the word timbrian, which does not exclusively mean to build in wood,[67] does not preclude walls of stone in important places. In the square or oblong form, with rounded corners, we see the influence which Roman models exercised on eyes which still beheld them existing.

We see that the main idea of the borough was the same as that of the prehistoric or British “camp of refuge,” in that it was intended for the defence of society and not of the individual. It was intended to be a place of refuge for the whole countryside. But it was also something much more than this, something which belongs to a much more advanced state of society than the hill-fort.[68] It was a town, a place where people were expected to live permanently and do their daily work. It provided a fostering seat for trade and manufactures, two of the chief factors in the history of civilisation. The men who kept watch and ward on the ramparts, or who sallied forth in their bands to fight the Danes, were the men who were slowly building up the prosperity of the stricken land of England. By studding the great highways of England with fortified towns, Alfred and his children were not only saving the kernel of the British Empire, they were laying the sure foundations of its future progress in the arts and habits of civilised life.

CHAPTER III
ANGLO-SAXON FORTIFICATIONS—continued

The bare list which we have given of the boroughs of Edward and Ethelfleda calls for some explanatory remarks. Let us take first the boroughs of Ethelfleda.

Worcester.—We have already noticed the charter of Ethelred and Ethelfleda which tells of the building of the burh at Worcester.[69] There appears to have been a small Roman settlement at Worcester, but there is no evidence that it was a fortified place.[70] This case lends some support to the conjecture of Dr Christison, that the Saxons gave the name of chester to towns which they had themselves fortified.[71] The mediæval walls of Worcester were probably more extensive than Ethelfleda’s borough, of which no trace remains.

Chester is spoken of by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 894 as “a waste chester in Wirral.” It had undoubtedly been a Roman city, and therefore the work of Ethelred and Ethelfleda here was solely one of restoration. Brompton, who wrote at the close of the 13th century “a poor compilation of little authority,”[72] was the first writer to state that the walls of Chester were enlarged by Ethelfleda so as to take in the castle, which he fancied to be Roman;[73] and this statement, being repeated by Leland, has acquired considerable vogue. It is very unlikely that any extension of the walls was made by the Mercian pair, seeing that the city was deserted at the time when it was occupied by the Danes, only fourteen years before. But it is quite certain that the Norman castle of Chester lay outside the city walls, as the manor of Gloverstone, which was not within the jurisdiction of the city, lay between the city and the castle.[74] A charter of Henry VII. shows that the civic boundary did not extend to the present south wall in his reign. Ethelfleda’s borough probably followed the lines of the old Roman castrum.

Bremesbyrig.—This place has not yet been identified. Bromborough on the Mersey has been suggested, and is not impossible, for the loss of the s sometimes occurs in place-names; thus Melbury, in Wilts, was Melsburie in Domesday. Bremesbyrig was the first place restored after Chester, and as the estuary of the Dee had been secured by the repair of Chester, so an advance on Bromborough would have for its aim to secure the estuary of the Mersey. It was outside the Danish frontier of Watling Street, and could thus be fortified without breach of the peace in 911. There is a large moated work at Bromborough, enclosing an area of 10 acres, in the midst of which stands the courthouse of the manor of Bromborough. But this manor was given by the Earl of Chester to the monks of St Werburgh about 1152, and it is possible that the monks fortified it, as they did their manor of Irby in Wirral, against the incursions of the Welsh. One of the conditions of the Earl’s grant was that the manor is to be maintained in a state of security and convenience for the holding of the courts appertaining to Chester Abbey.[75] Thus the fortification appears to be of manorial use, though this does not preclude the possibility of an earlier origin. On the other hand, if Bromborough is the same as Brunanburh, where Athelstan’s great battle was fought (and there is much in favour of this), it cannot possibly have been Bremesbyrig in the days of Edward. Another site has been suggested by the Rev. C. S. Taylor, in a paper on The Danes in Gloucestershire, Bromsberrow in S. Gloucestershire, one of the last spurs of the Malvern Hills. Here the top of a small hill has been encircled with a ditch; but the ditch is so narrow that it does not suggest a defensive work, and it is remote from any Roman road or navigable river.

Scergeat has not yet been identified. Mr Kerslake argued with some probability that Shrewsbury is the place;[76] but the etymological considerations are adverse, and it is more likely that such an important place as Shrewsbury was fortified before Edward’s time. Leland calls it Scorgate, and says it is “about Severn side.”[77] It should probably be sought within the frontier of Watling Street, which Ethelfleda does not appear to have yet crossed in 911.

Bridgenorth is undoubtedly the Bricge of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, as Florence of Worcester identifies it with the Bridgenorth which Robert Belesme fortified against Henry I. in 1101.[78] Bridgenorth is on a natural fortification of steep rock, which would only require a stout wall to make it secure against all the military resources of the 10th century. We may therefore be quite certain that it was here Ethelfleda planted her borough, and not (as Mr Eyton unfortunately conjectured) on the mound outside the city, in the parish of Oldbury.[79] This mound was far more probably the site of the siege castle (no doubt of wood) which was erected by Henry I. when he besieged the city.[80]

Tamworth was an ancient city of the Mercian kings, and therefore may have been fortified before its walls were rebuilt by Ethelfleda.[81] The line of the ancient town-wall can still be traced in parts, though it is rapidly disappearing. Dugdale says the town ditch was 45 feet broad. Tamworth was a borough at the time of Domesday.

Stafford has a motte on which stood a Norman castle; but this is not mentioned in the table, because it stands a mile and a half from the town on the southern side of the river Sowe, while we are expressly told by Florence that Ethelfleda’s borough was on the northern side, as the town is now. Stafford was a Domesday borough; some parts of the mediæval walls still remain. The walls are mentioned in Domesday Book.[82]

Eddisbury, in Cheshire (Fig. 4), is the only case in which the work of Ethelfleda is preserved in a practically unaltered form, as no town or village has ever grown out of it. The burh stands at the top of a hill, commanding the junction of two great Roman roads, the Watling Street from Chester to Manchester, and the branch which it sends forth to Kinderton on the east. As a very misleading plan of this work has been published in the Journal of the British Archæological Association for 1906, the burh has been specially surveyed for this book by Mr D. H. Montgomerie, who has also furnished the following description:—

“This plan is approximately oval, and is governed by the shape of the ground; the work lies at the end of a spur, running S.E. and terminating in abrupt slopes to the E. and S. The defences on the N. and W. consist of a ditch and a high outer bank, the proportions of these varying according to the slope of the hill. There are slight remains of a light inner rampart along the western half of this side. The remains of an original entrance (shown in Ormerod’s Cheshire) are visible in the middle of the N.W. side, beyond which the ditch and outer bank have been partially levelled by the encroachments of the farm buildings. The defences of the S. side seem to have consisted of a long natural slope, crowned by a steeper scarp, cut back into the rock, and having traces of a bank along its crest. The S.E. end of the spur presents several interesting details, for it has been occupied in mediæval times by a small fortified enclosure, whose defences are apt to be confused with those of the older Saxon town. The rock makes a triangular projection at this end, containing the foundations of mediæval buildings,[83] and strengthened on the N.E. by a slight ditch some 7 to 10 feet below the crest; the rock on the inner side of this ditch has been cut back to a nearly vertical face, while on the outer bank are the footings of a masonry wall extending almost to the point of the spur. There are traces of another wall defending the crest on the N.E. and S.; but the base of the triangle, facing the old enclosure, does not appear to have been strengthened by a cross ditch or bank.

“It may be noted that this enclosure presents not the slightest appearance of a motte. It is at a lower level than the body of the hill, and belongs most certainly to the Edwardian period of the masonry buildings.”

Warwick Castle has a motte which has been confidently attributed to Ethelfleda, only because Dugdale copied the assertion of Thomas Rous, a very imaginative writer of the 15th century, that she was its builder. The borough which Ethelfleda fortified probably occupied a smaller area than the mediæval walls built in Edward I.’s reign; and it is probable that it did not include the site of the castle, as Domesday states that only four houses were destroyed when the castle was built.[84] The borough was doubtless erected to protect the Roman road from Bath to Lincoln, the Foss Way, which passes near it. Domesday Book, after mentioning that the king’s barons have 112 houses in the borough, and the abbot of Coventry 36, goes on to say that these houses belong to the lands which the barons hold outside the city, and are rated there.[85] This is one of the passages from which the late Professor Maitland concluded that the boroughs planted by Ethelfleda and Edward were organised on a system of military defence, whereby the magnates in the country were bound to keep houses in the towns.[86]

Cyricbyrig.—About this place we adopt the conjecture of Dugdale, who identified it with Monk’s Kirby in Warwickshire, not far from the borders of Leicestershire, and therefore on the edge of Ethelfleda’s dominions. It lies close to the Foss Way, and about three miles from Watling Street; like Eddisbury, it is near the junction of two Roman roads. There are remains of banks and ditches below the church. Dugdale says “there are certain apparent tokens that the Romans had some station here; for by digging the ground near the church, there have been discovered foundations of old walls and Roman bricks.”[87] Possibly Ethelfleda restored a Roman castrum here. At any rate, it seems a much more likely site than Chirbury in Shropshire, which is commonly proposed, but which does not lie on any Roman road, and is not on Ethelfleda’s line of advance; nor are there any earthworks there.

Weardbyrig has not been identified. Wednesbury was stated by Camden to be the place,[88] and but for the impossibility of the etymology, the situation would suit well enough. Weardbyrig must have been an important place, for it had a mint.[89] Warburton, on the Mersey, has been gravely suggested, but is impossible, as it takes its name from St Werburgh.

Runcorn has not a vestige to show of Ethelfleda’s borough; but local historians have preserved some rather vague accounts of a promontory fort which once existed at the point where the London and North-Western Railway bridge enters the river. A rocky headland formerly projected here into the Mersey, narrowing its course to 400 yards at high water; a ditch with a circular curve cut off this headland from the shore. This ditch, from 12 to 16 feet wide, with an inner bank 6 or 7 feet high, could still be traced in the early part of the 19th century. Eighteen feet of the headland were cut off when the Duke of Bridgewater made his canal in 1773, and the ditch was obliterated when the railway bridge was built. From the measurements which have been preserved, the area of this fort must have been very small, not exceeding 3 acres at the outside;[90] and it is unlikely that it represented Ethelfleda’s borough, as the church, which was of pre-Conquest foundation, stood outside its bounds, and we should certainly have expected to find it within. As the Norman earls of Chester established a ferry at Runcorn in the 12th century, and as a castle at Runcorn is spoken of in a mediæval document,[91] it seems not impossible that there may have been a Norman castle on this site, as we constantly find such small fortifications placed to defend a ferry or ford. It is probable that Ethelfleda’s borough was destroyed at an early period by the Northmen, for Runcorn was not a borough at Domesday, but was then a mere dependency of the Honour of Halton.

The Burhs of Edward the Elder.

Hertford.—Two burhs were built by Edward at Hertford in 913, one on the north and the other on the south side of the river Lea. Therefore if a burh were the same thing as a motte, there ought to be two mottes at Hertford, one on each side of the river; whereas there is only one, and that forms part of the works of the Norman castle. Mr Clark, with his usual confidence, says that the northern mound has “long been laid low”;[92] but there is not the slightest proof that it ever existed except in his imagination. Hertford was a borough at the time of Domesday. No earthworks remain.

Witham (Fig. 4).—There are some remains of a burh here which are very remarkable, as they show an inner enclosure within the outer one. They have been carefully surveyed by Mr F. C. J. Spurrell, who has published a plan of them.[93] Each enclosure formed roughly a square with much-rounded corners. The ditch round the outer work was 30 feet wide; the inner work was not ditched. The area enclosed by the outer bank was 26¼ acres, an enclosure much too large for a castle; the area of the inner enclosure was 9½ acres. As far as is at present known, Witham is the only instance we have of an Anglo-Saxon earthwork which has a double enclosure.[94] Witham is not mentioned as a borough in Domesday Book, but the fact that it had a mint in the days of Hardicanute shows that it maintained its borough rights for more than a hundred years. The name Chipping Hill points to a market within the borough.

Buckingham is another case where a burh was built on both sides of the river, and as at Hertford, there was only one motte, site of the castle of the Norman Giffards, now almost obliterated. The river Ouse here makes a long narrow loop to the south-west, within which stands the town, and, without doubt, this would be the site of Edward’s borough. No trace is left of the second borough on the other side of the river. Buckingham is one of the boroughs of Domesday.

Bedford has had a motte and a Norman castle on the north side of the Ouse; but this was not the site of Edward’s borough, which the Chronicle tells us was placed on the south side of that river. On the south side an ancient ditch, 10 or 12 feet broad, with some traces of an inner rampart, semicircular in plan, but with a square extension, is still visible, and fills with water at flood times.[95] This is very likely to be the ditch of Edward’s borough. Both at Bedford and Buckingham the Chronicle states that Edward spent four weeks in building the burh. Mediæval numbers must never be taken as precise; but the disproportion between four weeks and eight days, the space often given for the building of an early Norman castle, corresponds very well to the difference between the time needed to throw up the bank and stockade of a town, and that needed for the building of an earthen and wooden castle.

Maldon.—Only one angle of the earthen bank of Edward’s borough remains now, but Gough states that it was an oblong camp enclosing about 22 acres.[96] It had rounded corners and a very wide ditch, with a bank on both scarp and counterscarp. Maldon was a borough at Domesday;[97] the king had a hall there, but there was never any castle, nor is there any trace of a motte.

Towcester (Fig. 5).—There is a motte at Towcester, but no direct evidence has yet been found for the existence of a Norman castle there, though Leland says that he was told of “certen Ruines or Diches of a Castelle.”[98] There was a mill and an oven to which the citizens owed soke,[99] and the value of the manor, which belonged to the king, had risen very greatly since the Conquest;[100] all facts which render the existence of a Norman castle extremely likely. But there can be no question as to the nature of Edward’s work at Towcester, as the Chronicle tells us expressly that “he wrought the burgh at Towcester with a stone wall.”[101] Towcester lies on Watling Street, and is believed to have been the Roman station of Lactodorum. Baker gives a plan of the remains existing in his time, which may either be those of the Roman castrum or of Edward’s borough.[102] The area is stated to be about 35 acres.

Wigingamere.—This place is not yet identified, for the identification with Wigmore in Herefordshire, though accepted by many respectable writers, will not stand a moment’s examination. Wigmore was entirely out of Edward’s beat, and he had far too much on his hands in 918 to attempt a campaign in Herefordshire. As Wigingamere appears to have specially drawn upon itself the wrath of East Anglian and Essex Danes, it must have lain somewhere in their neighbourhood. The mere which is included in the name would seem to point to that great inland water which anciently stretched southwards from the Wash into Cambridgeshire. The only approach to East Anglia from the south lay along a strip of open chalk land which lay between the great swamp and the dense forests which grew east of it.[103] Here ran the ancient road called the Icknield way. On a peninsula which now runs out into the great fens of the Cam and the Ouse there is still a village called Wicken, 6 miles west of the Roman road; and possibly, when the land surrounding this peninsula was under water, this bight may have been called Wigingamere. This suggestion of course is merely tentative, but what gives it some probability is that the Danish army which attacked “the borough at Wigingamere” came from East Anglia as well as Mercia.[104]