^ x"^
PROCEEDINGS
OF THE
erset Ulistery and
EDITED BY
Professor BUCKMAN, F.G-S., F.L.S., &e,
III.
SHERBORNE:
PUBLISHED BY LOUIS HENRY RUEGG, SOUTH STREET.
1879.
984(>b(>
J)A
v,3
CONTENTS.
Page
List of Members . . . . . . . . . . . . i7.
Anniversary Address of the President ... . . . . . . 1
Notes on Sandsfoot Castle, by T. B. Groves ... ... .... 20
On Bound Oak, by Eev. O. P. Cambridge .. ... ., 25
Notes on the History of Shaftesbury, by Rev. W. Barnes ... . . 27
On an Ancient Hour Glass and Stand in Bloxworth Church, Dorset, by
Rev. 0. P. Cambridge .. .. ... ,. ..34
On the Morel, by Professor Buckman. . .. ... ... 36
On Terebratula Morierei, by A. U. Kent ... ... ... . . 39
On the Terebratula Morierei in England, by J. F. Walker, M.A... 42
The Tout Hill, Shaftesbury, by Rev. W. Barnes . . . . . . 48
Cardinal Morton, Preface C ... .. .. ,.. i.— iv.
A Biographical Sketch of Cardinal Morton, communicated by
the President .. .. .,. ... ... ... 49
The Welsh in Dorset, by Thomas Kerslake ... ... .. 74
The Ennobling of Beets, by Professor Buckman ... ... 104
On the Dorset Trigoniae, by the President ... ... ..Ill
On a Series of Sinistral Gasteropods, by Professor Buckman ... 135
On the Belemnoteuthis Montefiorei, by Professor Buckman ... .. 141
ENGKAVINGS.
To face
Page
Bound Oak .. ... ... ... ... 25
Ancient Hour Glass, &c. ... ... ... ... 34
Cuts of Terebratula Morierei and T. Coarctata... 40
Cuts of Beets .. ... ... ... ... 107-8-9
Cut of Trigonia Conjungens ... .. ... 122
Trigonias PL 1 — 5 ... .. ... ... 134
Sinistra Univalves ... . ... .. 13g
Belemnoteuthis Montefiorei ... .. ... ^ 142
C|)t $|0rs.et
Jfidtr
INAUGURATED 16th MARCH, 1875.
J. 0. MANSEL-PLEYDELL, ESQ., F.G.S., &c.
EEV. H. H. WOOD, F.G.S. (Treasurer).
PROF. JAMES BUCKMAN, F.G.S., F.L.S. (Hon. Secretary).
Eev. M. J. BERKELEY, F.E.H.S.L., &o., Sibbertoft Vicarage,
Northampton.
M. H. BLOXHAM, Esq., F.S.A., &c., Eugby.
E. BRISTOW, Esq., F.E.S., F.G.S. , Ordnance Geological Survey.
W. CARRUTHERS, Esq., F.E.S., F.G.S., F.L.S., British Museum.
THOMAS DAVIDSON, Esq., F.G.S., 3, Leopold Eoal, Brighton.
E. ETHERIDGE, Esq., F.E.S., F.G.S., Ordnance Geological
Survey.
E. A. FREEMAN, Esq., D.C.L., Summerleaze, "Wells.
E. LEES, Esq., F.L.S., F.G.S., Vice-President of the Worcester-
shire Naturalists' Cliib, Worcester.
ALFRED NEWTON, Esq., Professor, Magdalen College, Cambridge.
J. H. PARKER, Esq., C.B., Oxford.
J. PRESTWICH, Esq., F.E.S., F.G.S., Professor of Geology,
Oxford.
Eev. Prebendary SCARTH, F.S.A., &c.,WringtonEectory, Somerset.
CHARLES WARNE, Esq., F.S.A., 45, Brunswick Eoad, Brighton.
H. C. WATSON, Esq., Thames Ditton, Surrey.
J. O. WESTWOOD, Esq., Professor of Zoology, Oxford.
G. B. WOLLASTON, Esq., Chiselhurst.
The Eight Hon. the EAEL OF SHAFTESBUEY, K.G.. St. Giles's
House, Cranborne, Salisbury.
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*#* Please notify any errors or omissions to the Secretary.
tf tfa
SHALL endeavour to lay before you a general
view of the results of the various physical
changes of the earth in past ages affecting the climates
of Europe and the distribution of life, especially of
plant-life. I am aware of the difficulty of the task,
both on account of my own inability as well as the
mass of matter to be examined and epitomized into a
short address such as this.
Before entering into the subject I beg to congratu-
late you upon the issue of the second Volume of the
Proceedings, which contains useful information on
various subjects connected with the natural history and
antiquities of our county. The paper by Mr. Clemen-
shaw, which goes into the region of chemical geology,
will be read with interest, and I hope it is an earnest of
future contributions from him. The botany of Holwcll,
by our Treasurer, is an important addition to this
section of our work, and not the least instructive part
of the Paper is, the discovery of an isolated calcareous
deposit by the presence of Clematis Vitalba, a
plant which renounces all connection with
the surrounding aluminous beds. The various
papers by our Secretary add much to the
value of the volume, especially that of the " Worked
Flints," illustrated by two plates, with representations
of twenty individuals. The plates accompanying the
Professor's notes upon the Portisham cromlech are
from drawings by the artistic hand of Mrs. Colfox. I
must not omit Mr. J. J. Buckman's (the Professor's
son) paper upon the genus Astarte, with two
plates and seven paginal figures, describing no less than
fifteen species and three sub-species, many not before
described. We hail the youthful contributor with
pleasure and joy.
The most ancient condition of the earth consisted in
extensive seas ; the land was then confined to islands
with a special and simple vegetation, while the seas
were peopled with various marine tribes, some living,
as now, at great depths, some near the coasts, and
others between high and low water-mark. The presence
of graphite, a nearly pure carbonaceous substance, which
occurs in the laurentian beds, prove a vegetation then,
in some abundance. The first animal, Eozoon
Canadense occurs in this very early palaeozoic rock.
A large alga, Cruziana D'orb., of considerable height,
with fronds upon a thick cartilagenous stem, grew in
the lower silurian seas. The most ancient land-plant
known is a fem^Eopteria Morierei, somewhat resembling
Cydopteris of the coal-measures, but with this differ-
ence, the stipes of the frond bear unequal sized and
irregularly arranged pinnules ; it was found in the
middle silurian, at Angers, in France. The first evi-
dence of a Lycopodiacea occurs in the upper Silurians of
Canada, Psilophyton, Daw, a dichotomous branched
plant with slender bifurcating stems proceeding from a
horizontal rhizome ; the surface of the stem is destitute
of scars, but marked with spiral ridges, as if rudimentary
leaves. The internal structure of the axis shows
loose cellular tissue sunounded by a cylinder of
elongated woody cells without distinguishable
pores, but with traces of spiral fibres, which
point not only to its affinity with the Lycopodiacese
but especially with the recent Psilotum, a genus
of club-mosses found in America and Australia.
The rhizomata of this ancient plant occur in situ in a
number of argillaceous beds, in a manner which shews
that they crept in immense numbers over flats of sandy
clay, which were frequently inundated. The succeeding
devonian age produced several new forms of plants
which, with few exceptions, generally resemble those
of the coal-measures, among which a single species of
the genus Lepidodendron may be mentioned ; also a
conifer Prototaxites, having spirally-marked cells*
characteristic of the genera Taxites and Spiropites of
Goeppart, but differing in the cylindrical form and loose
aggregation of the wood-cells. Doctor Dawson found
in the devonian beds of the State of JSTew York and
Canada, thirty-two genera, and sixty-nine species of
plants, comprising Bigillatfiafy Calamites, Aster-
ophyllites, the Lepidodendron^ conifers and ferns of the
genera Cyclopteris, Neuropteris, S]?henoj)teris,alsofrmts,
Trigonocarpum and Gardiocarpum (which latter was
thought by Brongniart to belong to a Lepidodendrous
plant) ; but our distinguished fellow-member, Mr.
Carruthers, considers it to be a gymnosperm of an
extinct type, confined, as far as is yet known, to the
palaeozoic rocks, and, possibly, to have been the fruit
of the Taxinian, Dadoxylon. The devonian flora in
many respects resembles that of the mesozoic period,
and of modern tropical countries more than the
carboniferous, which might, possibly, arise from the
absence of the wide undulated plains of that period,
and, perhaps, from a higher temperature. From the
great diversity of the devonian rocks, it seems that
during their deposition, Europe was an archipelago,
the sea, of course, predominated, and, as far as is
known, there were no fresh-water deposits. Gmynos-
perms and acrogens form the two prominent groups ;
the former are the lowest of the flowering plants, the
latter the highest of the flowerless.
In the succeeding carboniferous age, Cordiates
appears for the first time ; it is a gymnosperrnous tree of
considerable height, resembling the recent Podocarpus
in its growth, bearing coriaceous leaves several feet
long, and fruit analogous to the Taxinece. No less than
three hundred and twenty land plants are found in
the carboniferous beds ; the conditions favourable for
their pieservation was forest growth, in swampy ground
about the mouth of a river with rapid oscillations of
level, the coal produced during subsidence being
covered over by the sediment brought down by the
river, which, on re-elevation, formed the soil for fresh
growths, the alternation being occasionally broken by
the deposit of purely marine beds. The coal of this
age is mainly confined to countries north of the
equator, and was not probably under the influence of
extreme heat at the time of deposition. The coal of
the oolitic and cretaceous ages belong to the southern
hemisphere ; the tertiary coal is uniformly distributed
inespective of latitude.
Before leaving this period let us carry our imagina-
tion back to its morasses and lagoons, scarcely raised
above the sea-level, and encircled by rising ground not
worthy to be designated hills, on which hung dank
mists, feeding the streams which flowed through the
masses of matted verdure. Let us picture to our-
selves, the erect naked Calamite, the columnar trunked
Sigillaria, the Lepidodendron, the graceful arborescent
ferns with their magnificent crowns of leaves,the climbing
Asteropliyllites, all combining to excite admiration,
but no lovely petalled flower broke the monotony of
this verdant scene ; the organs of reproduction were
not at that time enclosed in a covered receptacle, but
merely furnished with insignificant scales, and no
nature-painted petal, which now adorn so large a pro-
portion of plant life, ravished the eye as now with their
many coloured bridal garments. The first evidence
of a rnonocotyledonous plant occurs in the lowest
beds of the carboniferous series ; the spadix of an
Aroid, Pothocites, was found by Doctor Paterson in
the bituminous shades of the coal-measures, near
Edinburgh. The plants of this family are chiefly
natives of countries near the Equator, many of them
arborescent and of considerable size.
The flora of the succeeding permian age is marked by
the preponderance of cycads and conifers, also
ferns similar to those now limited to the southern
hemisphere. Several plants now disappear.
Sigillaria,) Aster ophyllites^ most of the woody
Eyuisetacece and Lepidodendra, whose cones surpassed
in elegance of structure those of the conifer, which
they resemble in form, while the cryptogamic organi-
zation of their fructification and the separate grouping
of the male and female spores approach the recent
Isoetes, which, as is well known, now only grows at the
bottom of lakes. Europe, which was, until the end of
this age, an archipelago of islands, gradually became
united so as to form a continent. Cycads and conifers
continued to flourish ; angiosperms, which now comprise
more than nine-tenths of living plants, had not then
appeared on the earth's surface. The cycads do not
differ from those which now grow in the vicinity of
the tropics ; many of the conifers were of great height,
allied to the Aracaurias and Cypressinece. Brachy-
phyllum, whose leaves were reduced to simple
mammilated scales, are especially distinctive of this
period.
At the summit of the Hochrnad, half-way up the
Blumenstein, (a liassic formation), has been found, a
cycad Zamites gracilis^ Kurr, also two conifers Wid-
dringtonia liassica, Kurr, and Thuites fallax, Herr,
the two first occur with an Araucarites in the upper
lias of Wurtemburg, with numerous marine animals
and alga3. The physiognomy of plant-life was then
uniform ; no difference seems to have existed from
Spitzbergen to Hindoostan, from southern Europe to
Siberia. In a comparison of the upper oolite flora
with the lower oolite there appear to be several
links of affinity, and at the same time wide
differences. During the deposition of the purbeck
beds, Europe became more decidedly continental
by the amalgamation of its lands and the formation of
considerable lakes and estuaries. The oolitic seas in
Western Europe formed three principal basins, one
covering the north-west of France and the eastern part
of England, marked by a line running north-east from
Somersetshire to Durham; another from Eochelle to
what is now occupied by the Pyrenean range from
Bigorre to Perpignan ; and the third extending from
Dauphine and Provence to the present site of the Alps
(which, as well as the Pyrenees, did not rise until a
much later period), also Piedmont and Italy. The
shores of these seas gradually retired, forming a series
of consecutive diminishing circles. At Solenhofen in
Bavaria, at Stonesfield in Oxfordshire, and in the pur-
beck-bedsof Dorsetshire and Wiltshire,which stand near
the boundary line between the oolitic and cretaceous
periods, are large assemblages of insects, cockroaches,
beetles, grasshoppers, white-ants, and dragon-flies.
Solenhofen has produced a fossil bird, Archceopterix
macrura (Owen,) retaining its feathers so perfectly that
i
the vanes as well as the shafts are preserved. It differs
from all existing birds in its long tail, consisting of
twenty vertebra?, each of which supports a pair of
quill feathers. From the form of the tail, the animal
was at first regarded as an intermediate state between
a bird and a reptile, until Professor Owen showed that
it had no reptilian character. Professor Prestwich has
recently discovered in the Kimmeridge Clay the
gigantic reptilian Iguanodon, or some closely allied
Dinosaur, which has hitherto been thought to have
browsed only on the trees and herbs of the wealden
and lower cretaceous forests, proving a con-
tinuity of land-condition from the upper oolite to the
lower greensand period. We now arrive at a very
important era of plant-life, namely y the first appear-
ance of dicotyledonous plants, not only in abundance,
but in great varieties of forms. Unknown before, they
rapidly prevailed, compelling the cycads and conifers
to decrease and abandon their hitherto dominant posi-
tion. The cretaceous fresh-water deposits of Bohemia
are rich in fossil-plants, as also those of Moravia,
Harz, Saxony, Westphalia ; the neighbourhood of Aix-
la-Chapelle and of Toulon, have furnished a consider-
able series of fossil-plants from the middle-chalk, which
seem to have grown near the shores of a cretaceous
sea. They present a curious assemblage of extinct
genera, with some which now only grow within the
tropics, and others which are confined to northern Europe.
The genus Credneria is an example of the first (now
only found in a fossil state) ; while Hymenoece^
Pandanacece (screw pine), Aralias, &c., were pushed
south towards the equator. About this period
the Palm appeared for the first time ; fossil trunks
of trees, with supposed leaf-scars (one of the
characteristics of the family) from the carboniferous
beds, were at one time thought to be palms, but now
ascertained to be cryptogams. The two principal
true palms of this period are Flabellariachamceropifolia>
Goepp., represented by a fan-shape leaf resembling
Chamcerops, and consequently allied to the dwarf
palmettos, and a palm from a fresh-lake deposit in
Austria, and from Provence ; the leaf of which is large,
with disunited segments, or only divided towards its
edges ; it resembles Phoenicophorium Sechellarum^
WendL, which holds amiddle place between the fan-shape
and the pinnate-leaved forms, such as the sabal and
the date. The cretaceous beds of North America
contain a large assemblage of dicotyledonous trees
with conifers and cycads. Professor Nordenskiold
(now an ice-bound prisoner with a Swedish scientific
expedition in the Vega, near Behring Straits, having
been overtaken by winter, probably in October,
when on the point of conpleting the North- West
passage), found in the peninsular of JNoarsoak, Green-
land, a Zingileracea, a bamboo, Arundo Grcenlandica^
Heer., and a cycad, Cycadites DicJcsoni, Heer., per-
haps, the last of the family which grew within the
polar circle, and several ferns belonging to the tropical
order of Gleicheniacece, also Palmacece, Pandanacece
and Drac&noe ; the dicotyledons comprise coriaceous.-
10
leaved poplars, figs, myrtles, azalias, magnolias,
and leguminous plants allied to the Lotus
among the conifers are Sequoias several species
of Cupressinece and a Salisburia. Monocotyledons,
which had been for a long time subordinate and weak,
became of some importance, At the close of this sera,
there was a large increase of land in the higher tem-
perate and polar regions which materially affected the
climate of Europe. The sea at this time still covered
the Alpine and Pyrenean area. A few islands were
sprinkled here and there indicative of the subsequent
line of elevation. Of all rocks of this period no
formation is of such great geographical importance
as that of the nummulitic ; it appears that of more
than fifty species of nummulites, described by
d Archaic, there are only one or two species in the
other tertiary beds. The nummulitic Sea traversed
Europe diagonally, and can be traced through northern
Africa, it was largely quarried of old for the pyramids
of Egypt, and is met with in Asia Minor, across Persia to
the mouths of the Indus ; nummulites have been found
in Western Thibet in deposits 16,800 feet above the
level of the sea. This extensive Mediterranean Sea
had an influence of some importance in the introduc-
tion of new plants among which is Sabal major,
a palm of majestic height resembling the Sabal
umbraculifera, Jacq., of the Antilles, found in all the
European miocenes, several Sequoias, Taxodianece and
Libocedrus, chiefly allied to Arbor vitce (Thuja) found
now only in Chili and New Zealand, An important
11
change with regard to animal terrestrial-life, took
place at this time, the diminutive marsupial mammals
of the mesozoic age were succeeded by large placental
herbivors, mostly pachydermous — Palceotherium^
Lophiodon, Anoplotherium, and Xiphodon with several
rodents and bats. The preponderance of these
pachyderms in the eocene forests may be accounted for
by the paucity of carnivors. The London clays of
Sheppey contain fruits and seeds of palms belonging
to the recent type Nipa, now only found in the salt-
marshes of Malacca, the Philippine Islands, and
Bengal. We have now arrived at the horizon of the
Alum Bay and Bournemouth beds, the latter of which,
through the industry of Mr. J. E. Gardner, have
yielded a large and highly interesting flora, including
Proteacece, Dryandrce, Stenocarpus, cinnamon, and
other Lauraceae, Eucalyptus, azalias, figs, beech,
maples, papilonacece, cactus, aroids, conifers, and ferns,
also fruits of Nipites, marine shells, a freshwater shell
of the genus Unio, with shore-crabs, also another
crustacean Callianassa, which has its living repre-
sentative, C. subterranea. Leach., on the Devon coast
attesting the passage from marine, brackish and fresh
water. Some of the types are now residents in
Southern Africa and India, their association with types
of the temperate zone may be traced to an approxima-
tion of high land to the seas or lakes into which the
rivers carried them. A similar condition of plant-life
may now be seen at Teneriffe, which lies at the very
threshold of the tropics. Humbolt, in a description of
12
his ascent to the peak, says he passed five different
zones, distinguished by their vegetation, the first being
that of the vine and palm, the thermometer stand-
ing, at 67° in January, about noon ; the next belt, about
5,780 feet above the level of the sea, consists mostly
of forests, oaks, myrtles, olives ; the next zone extends
more than 8,000 feet above the sea level, and is a
region of pines ; the fourth and fifth zones are covered
with the leguminous Eetama and several species of
Graminece, a few of which and lichens struggle for
existence among the volcanic matter at the summit. In
the corresponding beds of Puy, in the centre of
France, a palm, Phoenix Aymardi, has been met with
bearing a male inflorescence ; as it belongs to a family
chiefly African it gives force to other attested proofs
how closely allied is the eocene flora of Europe with
that of the neighbouring continent, which its southern
extremity touches. The climate of that period was
not dissimilar to that of Central Africa, of the present
day, subject to intermittent rains at intervals of con-
siderable length evidenced by the meagre, stunted cori-
aceous trees. The difference of latitude had now a more
decided influence upon plants. There was a gradual
invasion of cold, which was more intense at one time than
another, supporting the theory that there was a glacial
period during the eocene as well as the well-attested
pliocene age. The succeeding miocene was under the
influence of a more humid climate, and its vegetation
unfitted for long droughts. In the southern and central
parts of France the rniocenes are extensively developed.
13
The calcareous concretes of Brognon, near Dijon, con-
tain unexhaustible mines of vegetable remains, includ-
ing a large-leaved palm, Flabellaria latiloba,
met with also near Lausanne associated with ferns, one
of which appears to be arborescent, oaks, laurels, a
jujube tree, and fig tree. The miocenes are supposed
to be represented in England by the lignites and clays
of Bovey Tracey, in Devonshire (but, perhaps, the
result of Mr. Gardner's examination of the Bournemouth
Beds and a correlation of both may relegate them
to an earlier geological period), in Ireland by the
basalts of Antrim, and of the Giant's Causeway, and the
Island of Mull in Scotland. The miocene flora of
Greenland comprises more than a hundred and thirty
species, of which some fifty-six only are identical with
those of the same age in central Europe, and more than
half the number do not now grow within ten degrees
of the South of Greenland. M. Herr shews that in the
flora of the Swiss miocenes about nine per cent, of the
vascular plants are homologous to existing species, and
of seventy-two species thirty-three live in America, six-
teen in Europe, and twelve in Asia, the remaining eleven
are scattered about elsewhere. Prominence is given to
the Atlantic types by the numerous evergreen oaks,
maples, poplars, Eolinice^Sequoice^ Taxodia, andternate-
leaved Pines, thus the northern hemisphere has played
an important part in the distribution of plants, a greater
number having migrated from north to south than ia the
reverse direction, for large assemblages of plants seem to
admit of being traced back at some time of their history
14
to the northern hemisphere. It is remarkable while
the eocene flora of Europe was largely Australian in
character the miocene has an American facies. The
retreat of the great miocene sea and the elevation of
the Alps and Pyrenees were the two great events of
the pliocene age. The presence of mountain-ranges
covered with snow would materially lower the tempera-
ture, and had doubtless a considerable influence ; but
the glacial state of Europe cannot be accounted for by
this phenomenon alone ; it may have been aided,
according to Count Saporta, by the diffused sun-light
and a densely-clouded atmosphere reducing the contrast
between the polar summer and winter, or, according to
Professor Geikie, to an alteration of the position of the
poles and the winter of our hemisphere happening in
aphelion. That a gradual depression has taken place
is clearly shown by the norwich red and coralline crags,
the latter, which is the older, differs less in the character
of its fauna than the other two, as it contains twenty-
seven molluscs now living in the Mediteranean and one
West Indian species ; thirteen only occur in the red-
crag associated with three fresh southern species, while
the whole disappear from the Norwich beds, and are
replaced by others of a boreal type, sixty-nine of which,
out of eighty-one, are still living, and among them are
no species of southern latitudes, we may infer, therefore,
that the temperature of the sea must have gone on
gradually diminishing. In the immediate overlying
forest-bed of Cromer which extends along the
Norfolk coast for about forty miles may still be
15
seen the erect trunks of trees attached by their
roots to the original soil; these trees are covered
by a clay-bed containing thin layers of lignite ;
between the trunks of the trees and these lignites are
found cones of the scotch and spruce firs, the seeds of
the yew, the horn wort, Ceratophyllum demersum,
the seeds of the buck-bean Menyanthes trifoliata, the
Hazel, Corylus Avellana the white and yellow water-
lilies, and with them are found the teeth of elephas
antiquus and two other elephants, E. meridionalis
and E primigeneus, hippopotamus, ox, horse, stag,
elk, roebuck, Cervus poligniacius, Cervus verticornis,
two species of beaver, narwhal, walrus, a large
whale, &c. The vegetation taken alone does not
imply a temperature higher than that now prevail-
ing in the British Isles. Half the mammals are
extinct, the rest still survive in Europe. The discovery
of a glacial epoch, and subsequently that of a mild and
temperate climate, shews us that the greater part of
the temperate region was buried under ice at one period
and that at another, Greenland and the Arctic circle,
probably to the north pole, was not only free from ice,
but covered with a rich and luxuriant vegetation, when
Europe and the contour of its surface must have been
much the same as it is now. The geographical range
of the fluviatile and land-shells of the pleistocene
period, many of them being now confined to Scandinavia,
leans to the conclusion that the climate was still very
cold, especially in the winter. Of the mammalia the
reindeer and the musk sheep now confined within the
16
limits of the polar circle occur in the pleistocene beds
of the valley of the Thames and of the Avon. In France
and Germany they are associated with the mammoth and
the woolly rhinoceros. On the other hand an elephant
and rhinoceros have been found at Grays in Essex,
together with a shell, Cyrena fluminiaUs, Moll,
now extinct in Europe, but to be met with in the Nile
and some Asiatic rivers. The fossil plants of Atane-
kerdluk, in the Waigate, near Disco, give a most
valuable insight into the nature of the vegetation which
formed a forest of this age. Captain Ingelfield observed
a trunk standing upright surrounded by a closely
packed mass of leaves, fruits, and seeds, all in good
condition, shewing that they had not been drifted from
any great distance. Many of the species have their
living representatives ten or twelve degrees below Atane-
kerdluk. Mc'Clure found a large accumulation of
trees ranging from the sea-level to an elevation of
upwards of three hundred feet. A cone of one of these
trees was brought and found to be an Abies resembling
A. alba. A very different climate to the present must
have then existed to sanction the growth of conifers.
Captain Belcher brought an Abies alba, Moll, from
near the narrow strait opening into Wellington Sound,
70° 32 ' N. lat., 92° W. long. The late Sir William
Hooker observed a difference of structure from any
conifer with which, in his large experience, he was
acquainted, and considered the peculiar condition of
an exceedingly cold seasonal climate, where a few short
hours of sun succeeded by many of its absence would
17
intermittently affect the functions of the plant ; hence he
accounted for the occurrence of two zones of tissue,
on each ray of annual growth, one consisting of the
ordinary tubes of wood-fibre with discs common to
all conifers, the other consisting of tubes with no
discs but covered with spiral striae giving the appear-
ance of each tube being formed by a twisted band.
The deflexion of the currents of the sea, from what-
ever cause, materially affects the climate of a
country coming under their influence ; had not the
gulf-stream for instance returned to our shores at the
close of the glacial epoch the temperature of Great
Britain would now be that of Labrador ; we should be
scarcely receiving any appreciable increase of heat
from the equatorial region by means of aerial currents,
for heated air rising from the equator as soon as it has
reached the intense cold of the upper regions soon
parts with its caloric. The warmth, therefore, which
the south-west winds bring us, is not derived from
equatorial zephyrs, but from the great oceanic current
which takes its rise in the southern ocean, and passing
on north of the equator, imparts its genial influence
beyond the boundary of the polar-circle. This current
is fifty miles broad and a thousand feet deep, flowing
at the rate of four miles an hour. The enormous
extent to which the heat of the earth is affected by
means of oceanic currents throws some light upon the
mystery of geological climates. There is no better
instance of climatal effect upon plant-life than the palm ;
which dwindles down to a dwarf shrub at its extreme
18
northern limit, yielding in vigour and stature in pro-
portion to its distance from the equator where it attains
a height of two hundred feet, towering over every
other tree of the forest. At lat. 43° N. in Europe it
can only be recognised by its characteristic foliage.
In America its limit is 35° N. lat., being represented
by Sabal Adamsonii, Guern., a shrub with small leaves,
in striking contrast to the lofty Sabal umbraculifera,
Mart., of the Antilles. A similar degeneration is met
with in the southern hemisphere, and in proportion as
the distance from the equator increases so does the
palm diminish in height, and the trunk become stunted
and thickened. In Chili at 36° South lat., the last
palm, Jubcea spectaUlis, Humb., and in Africa at 35°
55 'S. lat., Phoenix reclinata, Jacq., grows, whose short
axis gives no idea of the magnificent date, which is the
type of that family. It is curious, the palm which
grows on the highest latitudes of the northern hemis-
phere has fan-shape leaves, and that of the southern
hemisphere has pinnate leaves such is Kentia sapida^
Mart., which grows in New Zealand at 3S° 22' S. lat.
Let me, in conclusion, say I have laid before you
abundant proofs of the great variations animals, and
especially plants, have undergone in past ages. There
are many missing links no doubt still to be filled up.
Every new discovery is a fresh link to bring the
organic elements of geological formations, widely apart
as to time, in connection with, or part of one great
harmonious organic system. The various changes
which the earth has experienced through depressions,
19
elevations, formations of continents, and breaking up
of others form one factor, of many perhaps, in bring-
ing about the present aspect of animal and plant-life.
By T. R GROVES, Esq., F.C.S., &c., &c.
|HIS prematurely ruined structure, described by Leland
in his well-known itinerary "as a right goodlie
and warlyke castle, having one open barbicane," dates
from no further back than 1539, the year when Henry the Ylll.
compelled the surrender of the larger monasteries, and when
consequent on the vigour of his assaults on Popery, he began
to fear a coalition of Catholic sovereigns against his kingdom.
Portland Castle, on the opposite side of the bay, had been
built a few years previously, the two being mainly intended to
provide protection from foreign cruisers for English ships fre-
quenting the "Roads," and prevent the assembling of hostile
navies therein with a view to invasion.
A ground plan of Sandsfoot Castle was published in 1789 by
Delamotte, of Weymouth. It appears to be authentic, but from
what source he obtained it I am not aware. No good elevation
of the castle in perfect state is known to exist, nor is there any
adequate description of it in that condition.
As a ruin it has been often engraved, but the artists have
usually shown themselves more desirous of attaining picturesque-
ness of effect than accuracy of detail.
Grose, who wrote during the latter half of the last century,
gives, in his "Antiquities of England," the best verbal descrip.
21
tion we have of it. He says, " The body of the castle is a right
angled paralellogram, its greatest length running from north to
south. At its north end was a tower on which were the arms of
England, supported by a wivern and an unicorn. (These arms,
carved in stone, were many years ago removed from the gateway
of the castle and affixed to the north wall of the chancel of
Wyke Eegis church). The north part seems to have been the
governor's apartment, and is all vaulted. Near its south end is
a lower building, said to have been the gun room ; this being
broader than the other part of the edifice, forms flanks, which
defend its east and west sides, and on the south the front is
semi-circular ; before there was formerly a platform for cannon.
On the east and west sides there are embrazures for guns, and
below them two tiers of loopholes for small arms, the lowest
almost level with the ground. The north front is nearly des-
troyed, but the remains of an arch or gateway show that the
entrance was on that side. The whole edifice seems to have
been cased with squared stones, the walls were thick and lofty,
and the buildings, though small, were not inelegant. Since the
«' restoration " it has been neglected and suffered to fall to ruin.
The north, east, and south sides were, at a small distance, sur-
rounded by a deep ditch and earthen rampart, through which,
on the east front, was a gate faced with stone, part of which is
still remaining."
In this description there are several inaccuracies. The lower
building on the south side is not semi-circular, but octangular,
its eighth side forming the southern end of the main body of
the castle. The ground plan I have referred to shows that five
of the sides were pierced for embrazures, three of which pointed
seawards, the other two covering respectively the shore to the
right and left. The sixth and seventh sides are not fully
developed, and were not pierced for cannon ; the flanking effect
must, therefore, have been produced by loopholes for small
arms in the upper story, of which indeed indications are given
in Buck's engraving (date 1733).
There is reason also for objecting to his description of the
22
east and west sides of the main building. The lowest tier of
apertures on the west sides are evidently those of windows for
lighting the cellar of the castle ; the tier next above these are,
or rather were, loopholes, but the facing stones having been
removed the contraction of the openings that originally existed
is no longer apparent. The uppermost tier is simply a range of
windows — the places where the iron bars were inserted being
plainly visible.
Prom the east side the cellar received no light, consequently
there is one tier of perforations less. On this side was a door-
way and four loopholes on the ground floor, and four windows
above. I doubt very much whether there were on either the
east or west side embrazures for cannon. The ground plan cer-
rainly gives a figure of what appears to be a cannon lying in
one of the eastern openings, but it must I think be an error, as
at the point in question, immediately behind the supposed
embrazure is the head of a staircase leading to the cellar. The
castle on the land side was in fact very weakly fortified. It
relied perhaps for defence in this direction on its ditch and ram-
part, the latter doubtless furnished with cannon, especially at
the bastions at its east and west angles.
The "open barbicane" mentioned by Leland is not visible.
He must, I think, have inaccurately applied the word to the
gun room at the southern end. The term is rightly employed to
indicate a port in advance of the main building for the purpose
of protecting the entrance gate and drawbridge, if any.
Grose omits to mention the grooves in which slid the portcullis,
and which are still visible at the north and principal entrance.
The arrangements of the interior will best be understood after
actual inspection, I will, therefore, refrain from describing them^
It is evident that a very large portion of the octagonal gun.
room has fallen owing to the sea having undermined its founda-
tion. A large block is now lying on the rocks below, under-
going the gradual disintegration by the action of the waves
that has in my time dispersed many still larger fragments. In
my father's time, sixty years ago, a carriage could be driven
23
between the castle and the cliff, and in 1859, if an ancient map
may be credited, the castle, surrounded on all sides by a moat,
stood in the centre of the field.
The dilapidated (a word here most correctly applicable) con-
dition of the outer walls is said to have been occasioned by the
stones having been torn from their places and carried to Wey-
mouth for building purposes. Two houses in St. Thomas' -
street have been pointed out to me as having been mainly con-
structed out of the spoils of Sandsfoot Castle. One is half
inclined to wonder how such a thing could have happened seeing
that the building has never passed out of the hand of the Crown.
But there were giants in those prse-reform days — at peculation
and robbery !
It seems that round shot of stone were used, at least occasion-
ally, for the service of the guns. Some schoolboys, playing
about the castle, crawled into one of the large drains that opened
on the cliff, and found there a stone shot of some six
inches in diameter. A similar shot was found at Portland, and
brought to Sir John Coode, who had the curiosity to know
whether it was really a shot or only a natural concretion. He
therefore placed it under a steam-hammer, and gave it a blow so
judicious that it cracked into two exactly equal pieces, when lo !
in the centre was found a perfect specimen of a petrified Cardium
of some sort. The split shot is to be seen at the Engineer Office,
Portland. There can be no doubt I think of the stone being
really a shot — its perfect sphericity would seem to prove that —
but there is reason to suppose that in order to save labour the
ancient artificer had selected a stone already partially rounded,
a concretion in fact founded on the shell of the Cardium.
Sandsfoot Castle can scarcely be said to have a history. It
must have changed hands again and again during the Civil
Wars, but existing records make no mention of any siege what-
ever— a fact which strengthens my argument that the castle was
indefensible on tho north or land side. Probably it followed as
a matter of course the fortunes of the neighbouring fortified
town of Weymouth and Melconibe Regis. The names of some
24
half dozen of its Governors are known, but no interest would
attach to their enumeration. The same must be said of the
references, few and far between, to the existence of the castle
and its garrison, in the borough archives — archives which are
alas in private hands, and probably about to suffer dispersion to
the four winds of heaven under the very noses of a body of
men whom I fear I must characterise as indifferent to the history
of their borough, and more antiquarian in their notions than in
their tastes.
BOUND OAK
By The Eev. 0. P. CAMBRIDGE, M.A.
IOTTND OAK, or, in Dorset dialect, " Bound Woak "
and " Girt Woak " (Great Oak), stands on the boundary
line between the parishes of Bloxworth and Bere Eegis,
close beside the public bridle path leading from Bloxworth to
Bere, through Bere Wood (formerly Bere Forest), over Wood-
bury Hill.
Although considerably dilapidated, " Bound Oak" is still in a
state of vigorous growth, which is, however, chiefly confined to
the tolerably complete remaining half of this fine old sylvan
relic. In the autumn of 1878 the whole of this portion of
the tree was covered with an abundant crop of acorns. The
girth of the trunk, at about eight feet from the ground, where
the body becomes bipartite, is twenty-two feet six inches,
but the whole of the centre is hollowed out by decay, a portion
of the wall having also disappeared, leaving a dome-like cavity
capable of holding several persons. The total height of the tree
is somewhere about fifty or sixty feet. From the side opposite
to that shown in the accompanying figure, a very large limb fell
about twenty-five years ago. This limb, falling on the Blox-
worth side, was taken possession of by my late father, the then
Lord of the Manor of Bloxworth ; the timber of the fallen limb
was for the most part in a remarkably sound condition, of an
26
exceedingly dark colour, and the greater portion of it prettily
mottled.
It is difficult, in the absence of documentary evidence, to
estimate the age of " Bound Oak," but it can hardly be leas than
five or six centuries. In all probability it owes its immunity
from the destructive axe, to the fact of its standing so exactly on
the boundary between the two parishes as to preclude the
possibility of its being meddled with by the landowner on either
side without the tolerably certain result of a law-suit.
A lively imagination might easily conjure up many interesting
associations and romantic scenes in connection with " Bound
Oak," but I am bound to say that no record or tradition of these
exists, so far, at least, as I have been able to ascertain. Still,
as such undeniably ancestral trees are now few and far between,
I have thought that the one under consideration, though devoid
of any stirring associations, might be worth a note in the Tran-
sactions of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field
Club.
<w
of
By The Rev. W. BARNES.
Britisli legend of Caer Paladr or Shaftesbury is given
in a Welsh Brut (chronicle), the "Brut ab Arthur/?
thus — " Ac wedi Lleon daeth Ehun Baladr Bras, ci
vab, ac eve adeilad Gastell Mynydd Paladr; a elwir yn awr
Caer Sefton. Ac yna, tra adeilyt y gaer honno, y bu eryr yn
prophwydaw; ac yn dywedyd daroganau yr ynys hon." In
English — "And after (King) Lleon came Ehun, of the Stout
Spear, his son, and he built the castle of Mount Paladr, which
is now called Caer Sefton (put for Shafton) ; and there, while
he was building this stronghold, there was an Eryr (eagle ?) that
prophesied (or foreboded), and gave some prophecies about this
island." Eagle's prophecy is given in the Myvrian Archseology
vol. ii., pp. 124—126. In PoweU's " History of Cambria " it is
said — "Concerning the words of Eryr at the building of Caer
Septon, in Mount Paladour, in the yeare after the creation of
the world, 3,048, some think that an eagle did then speake and
prophesie ; others are of opinion that it was a Brytaine named
Aquila (Eryr in British) that prophesied of these things, and of
the recoverie of the whole ile againe by the Britaines," and Eryr
(eagle) is very likely to have been the name of a man, as it often
was with the bards an epithet of a warrior. Ehun is reckoned
28
as the ninth king of (all) Britain, his father Lleon Q-awr (Lleon,
the Mighty or Gigantic,) being the eighth, and his grandfather
Brut Darianlas (Brutus Blueshield) the seventh. He, with
Khun, is named by Lewis Glyn Cothi, a bard of the fifteenth
century, in an ode to Hywel ab Henri, thus —
" Da ydyw dy ryw, a da y w dy dras ;
Dy ran olau oedd Vrutus Darianlas :
Rhan o Doneuan, hyd yn Euas dud ;
Rhan Beli, drwy'r brud, a Rhun Baladr Bras."
In English —
" Good is thy lineage, and good thy kindred ;
Thy utmost line was that of Brutus Darianlas,
The line of Doneuan, to the region of Euas ;
The line of Beli, by the annals, and Hhun Baladr Eras."
Khun, which means lavish (of gifts ; magnificent), was the name
of at least two later Princes, one of them of the time of Lly warch
Hen, the Prince bard of the 6th century (A.D. 530), who, i*
seems, had helped him in war. He says in his elegy on Urien
Eeged —
" Have I not given to Rhun, the praised leader,
A cantrev, and a hundred kine ?"
A cantrev being a political Hundred (of homesteads), a proof,
among others, that Britain was marked out into Hundreds ere
the Saxons came hither. This bit of history was written in the
Brut Arthur (pronounced Breet Artheer) from earlier history,
after Saxons had settled at Caer Paladr, as it says' 'which is
now called Septon " — a form of the name Shafton ; but it
implies that it was not called so in the earlier time when Khun
built it. The guesses at the names of the "Caer Paladr" and
of the king, by some old writers, and the shapes in which they
have given them, are very queer, and I know not whence they
were first taken. Some call the king Rhudubrasius or Cicultr,
and Holingshed gives his name as Lud, or Lud Hudilras, son of
Leil, the eighth king. These names cannot be in their true
Welsh shapes, whetever they may be. Some write the British
name of Shaftesbury as Palladur or Pall-a-dour for "Pal-a-dwr,"
which they read " the Waters of Pallas," on the understanding
29
that the British Shastonians worshipped Pallas and had a
temple of Pallas. If Pal meant Pallas, then "Pall-a-dwr,"
which should be "Pal-a-ddwr," would mean Pallas and Water
(nonsense) not the waters of Pallas : or if you took it as Pal-y-
dwr it would mean Pallas of Water (nonsense) and of what
" water ?" That of the Motcombe spring ? There is not, how-
ever, in Welsh lore any token of a worship of Pallas. Now,
I do not believe that a bird, Eagle (Eryr) foretold with a
voice of words, but Eryr (eagle) might be the name of a sooth-
sayer, or some one might have taken an augury from an eagle,
but the stronghold must have been built by some one, and his
name might have been " Ehun Stoutspear," and such a name
sounds of an olden time. Anno Mundi 3048 sounds too early
for a ready belief in its truth ; but then to see how many years
it was ere the year of our Lord we should learn how far back
the Bardic lore put the creation of the world. But the name
Caer Paladr is marked as the true name by the Saxon name,
Sceaftesbyrig, which is simply the British name turned into Saxon,
for Byrig is Caer, and Sceaft is Palacbr, and as the Saxons must
have heard the name from British lips it is pretty clear that
they found here a British population, and that their abode is
most likely to have been called "Caer Paladr," from the name
of the king. A.D. 871 King Alfred came to the throne, and he
founded at Shaft esbury an abbey or a nunnery, and set over it
as the first abbess his " medernesta-dehter," as he calls her — his
midmost daughter, Ethelgede. By his will he leaves to his mid-
most daughter the Home (Manor) at Clear (King's Clear, Hants),
and at Cendefer (Chilton Candofer). He gives " thare
medemesta dehtere thare ham aet Clearan and aet Cendefer."
He also leaves to each of his three daughters a hundred pounds,
" and minre y'ldstan dehter and there medemestan " (Ethelgede)
"and thaere gingstan aelcum an hund pund." (To my oldest
daughter, and to the midmost, and to the youngest to each a
hundred pound), and in those days when a pound was a pound
weight of silver, and silver was of a far higher worth than it
now is, this was a fine legacy. Asser, Alfred's learned friend,
30
writes of the Shaftesbury Abbey : — " Another monastery also
was built by the same king (Alfred) near the eastern gate of
Shaftesbury, and his own daughter, Ethelgifa, was placed in it
as abbess. With her, many other noble ladies dwell in that
monastery." Here we see that Shaftesbury was a walled and
gated town ere Alfred built the monastery. Asser calls Ethel-
gede Efhelgifa (Saxon Ethelgifu or Ethelgeafa, Noble gift), but I
will stand by the will of King Alfred. As Abbess of Shaftes-
bury there Ethelgede lived and died, and was buried, and, as we
may believe, in the ground of the Abbey Church. King Alfred
had land at Sturminster Newton, and left it with other lands to
his youngest son. His will says : — " And pam gingran minam
eunathaetland aet Sturemynster." The abbey last - 1 under many
noble abbesses till the Reformation, when it was sold and soon
demolished. Henry VIII. sent many of the finest buildings of Eng-
land to the wrecker of works of art. From a princess who was
buried at Shaftesbury let us glance at a prince whose body was
received by its abbey — Edward, the so-called martyr, though in
the true Christian meaning of the word, martyr he was not'
Edward was the son of Edgar, and was stabbed at Corfe Castle
from the bad will of his stepmother, Elfrida, whom his father
had wedded A.D. 965. The Saxon Chronicle says, under the
year A.D. 978, "Her wearth Eadweard cyning ofslegen on
aefentide, aet Corfes geate ; and hine man tha bebyrigde aet
"Wareham, butan alcum cynelicum worthscipe ': — '"'Here was
King Edward slain at eventide at Corfes gate, and they then
buried him at Wareham without any kingly honour." A.D. 980
Aelfere, Edward's ealdorman, took his body at Wareham and
bore it with great honour to Shaftesbury, where it was laid in the
Abbey. " A.D. 980 Aelfere, Eadweardes ealdorman, gesette his
lichoman aet Waerham, and geferode hine mid mycelum
weorthscipe to Sceaftesbyrig." By Corf's Gate, where Edward
was slain, we are not to understand the Grate of a Castle, but the
Gap in the hill, through which runs the Corfe stream. Edward
the Martyr was of the kin of King Alfred, and thence we can
understand why his body was brought from Wareham to the
31
Abbey of his good forefather and of the Abbess, his honoured
daughter Ethelgede. In the monastery was a chapel called St.
Edward's Chapel, in which most likely was his tomb, and a
church was afterwards built to his name (St. Edward's) in the
town, In the year 1035 the Danish King Cnut (or Canute as our
books mostly call him) died at Shaf tesbury and was buried a t
Winchester, then the capital of Wessex and England. William
of Normandy made Lanfranc Archbishop and so many Norman
clergymen were thrust upon the church ; and on looking over the
names of Abbesses, which are given in the " History of Dorset,'?
I see that, whereas, down to the Norman Conquest, 1066, the
names of the Abbesses are Saxon, we find that soon afterwards
Norman names came forth — 1107, Cicilia, daughter of Bobert
"Fitz Hamon, Amicia Russell (Roussel), Agnes de Feriers,
Margaret Auchier, That a British population were found a^,
Shaftesbury at the settling of the Saxons, and dwelt on beside
them, we may well believe. The laws of King Ina of Wessex,
688, show clearly that, in his time, Britons of sundry ranks, free
as well as unfree, were living in Wessex under his law. Now
Shaf tesbury has had 12 or 13 churches — 1, St. Mary (the Abbey) ;
2, S. Peter; 3, Holy Trinity ; 4, S. Lawrence; 5, S. Martin; 6,
S. Andrew ; 7, S. Eombald, now in St. Peter's Parish ; 8, S.
James; 9, All Saints'; 10, S. Edward; 11, S. John; 12, St
Mary, now in S. James' Parish. Why should Shaftesbury have
had so many churches ? and Sherborne, an old Saxon town, till
of late only one ? It is markworthy that our cities which w ere
British or Roman and that had a British population at the
incoming of the Saxons have seemingly had more than enough
of churches. Mr. Kerslake, some time ago, caught a glimpse at
Exeter of an historical truth that there were for a time two
quarters, a British and an English quarter. When the Saxons
became Christians, as the Britons were long ere the coming of
Hengest, they did not go into communion with the Britons, and
built themselves churches, and so there were British and Saxon
churches, two sets. But what clue is there to the British
churches, as such, and not Saxon ones. The dedication, as that of
32
S. Petroc's Church at Exeter, Petroc being a purely Welch
saint. Of the dedications of olden fanes at Shaftesbury I think
that St. Martin, St. Laurence, and St. Mary (the small one) may
be of British foundation. St. Martin was a Gaulish, and so a
Celtic saint. There was once, by the History of Dorset, a small
free chapel of S. Michael, a common Celtic dedication, as that of
S. Michael's Mount, Cornwall, and in Britanny. There are in
Wales more than twelve parishes, or hamlets, of the name
Llanfihangel "Michael's Church," and several other dedications
to St. Michael in Cornwall. St. Michael's Chapel, on the Tor,
at Glastonbury, holds, I can believe, the place of a British
dedication, for Glastonbury (Ynys avallon) was a holy spot
with the Britons. S. Laurence may be a Eoman dedication
brought to the Britains by the early missionaries, or it may be
Norman. It is not a Saxon one. The foreboding of Eryr was
that the Britons, after a loss of much of Britain, should again
have sway over the whole of it, and I want to ask whether, if the
Prince of Wales should become King of Britain, " Unben yr ynys
Prydain," this prophecy will not be fulfilled ? As we walk down
on the site of the abbey and about the olden streets and nooks of
Shaftesbury we may well say to ourselves, " Lightly tread, tis
hallowed ground."
DUENSETI.
I am thankful for the kindly attention which the Dorset Field
Club gave to my paper at the Shaftesbury meeting, and am
glad that Mr. Kerslake confirms my opinion as to the British
population in Dorset, and I fully believe that he is right as to
the " Durnseti " for " Dunseti." Dorset, as is shown by Saxon
charters, as well as by earlier writings, was on Saxon lips
Durnsaet or Dornsaet. King Alfred's Will also affords a clear
token of a two-kinned population in our south-west of Britain in
his time. He gives to his youngest son the land at " Dene "
(now Dean) and at "Meone" (Meon, Hants), and at "Ambres-
bury ' 7 ( Amesbury , Wilts), and at ' ' Deone, ' ' and at ' ' Sturemynster ' '
33
(Newton), and at "Grille," and at "Oruaern" (Crewkerne), and
at " Hwitan-cyrcan " (Whitchurch, Dorset or Hants), and at
" Axanmuthan " (Axmouth), and at " Branecscumbe " (Brans-
combe) and at " Oolumtune " (Oolumpton), and at " Twyfyrde ''
(Twyford), and at " Mylenburnan " (Milborne, Dorset, or
Somerset), and at four other places, all which lands lay between
the east side of Hants and Cornwall. Then he says " That is
all that I have in 'Wealcynne,' " but " Triconscire " (Cornwall) ?
"Wealcynne" meaning " British Mn " or British race, for the
Saxons called all the Britons Wealas (foreigners), though -we
now confine the name "Wealas," or "Wealisc" to the Cymry
(the Welsh). From this word we have the word "walnut," in
Dorset "welshnut," or foreign nut, as brought from abroad.
Here, then, we learn from King Alfred's own words in his will
that Wessex was yet called "British kin," although he had
land in it. The mention of the battle of "Ethanduna"
by the Rev. J. J. Reynolds has brought to my mind a question
at one time not clearly answered — Where was Ethandun ?
Ethandun would mean Furzedown or Furzydown, which might
help to mark the spot by a down that would have been furzy in
the time of King Alfred.
IN BLOXWORTH CHURCH, DORSET.
By the Rev. 0. P. C.-LMBRIDGE, M.A.
]HEN, after the Eeformation, preaching became
obligatory upon the clergy, it is said that Hour-glasses
were very generally placed in the parish churches to
regulate the length of the sermon. If this be so it is remark-
able how, almost completely, all traces of this Eegulator have
disappeared ! The length of the sermon was intended to be
limited to one hour ! but we are all, probably, familiar with the
old story of the Divine who used to treat his congregation to
" one turn more " of the glass. In fact two, three, and even
four hours are said to have been not an unusual length, entail-
ing "turn" upon "turn," on the principle we may suppose
that " one good turn deserves another." Under such an inflic-
tion it would not be unintelligible that congregations (like the
old lady's servants roused from sleep at an unseasonable hour
by the crowing of the cock) should, in some way, have connected
the infliction with the so easily turned Hour-glass, and thus
have almost universally compassed its destruction.
I have heard of no more than four or five churches in which
the Stand alone remains — Cuiiand Church, near Buckland St.
Mary, (in which I have myself seen it), and Holwell Church,
near Sherborne, are two — but no information has reached me of
any church, excepting my own at Bloxworth, in which both
Stand and Hour-glass are still in existence. It is a rough draw-
ing of these that I now place before you. The Stand is of
ANCIENT HOUR GLASS AND STAND IN
BLOXWORTH CHURCH.
35
wrought iron, ornamented with fleur-de-lys, and fixed upon a
single iron upright, or stem ; the workmanship is rather rude,
but bold and effective. The frame of the Glass is of wood
rather roughly cut, and the Glass is of a greenish hue. The
whole height of Stem, Stand, and Glass is near about two feet,
that of the Glass and its frame about 10 inches. Traces of
colour, still remaining, show that it was originally decorated ;
but this has mostly worn off.
About eight or nine years ago, while the chancel of the church
was under restoration, the old Parish Clerk, concerned for the
safety of the Hour-Glass, placed it in a chest in which the
Church Bible and Prayer Book were kept. Afterwards, for-
getting that the Glass was there, he one evening replaced the
Bible (weighing about 22lbs.) rather heavily upon it, and with
an unfortunate result ; the Glass being broken in two at the
narrow part. A glass-blower was called in and re-united the
parts, but in so doing obliterated the passage for the sand,
which has now consequently ceased to run.
A duplicate of the Glass, handed down from Parish Clerk to
Parish Clerk from time immemorial is now in my possession.
In Hook's Church Dictionary, 7th ed., p. 375, it is mentioned
that "in some churches the Stand for the Hour-glass, if not the
instrument itself, still remains."
Believing, therefore, that the Stand and Glass now under con.
sideration are unique, I have thought it might be not wholly
without interest to some of the members of our Society, to bring
it to their notice.
Since the report of the above was published in the local journals, I have
received communications from several persoas informing me of the existence
either of the Hour-Glass, or the Stand in the following Churches, viz.,
Inkpen, Co. Berks ; the Stand alone. Cockerham, near Lancaster; "the
G-lass without the Stand, now used to time the Ringers in the Belfry."
[Revd. T. Archer Turner]. St. John Baptist's Church, Bristol ; St. Allan's,
Wood-street, London; and Brooke Church, Norfolk, "contain Hour -Glasses."
[R. B. Prosser, 31, St. Paul's Road, London, on authority of " A Handbook
of English Ecclesiology " — Cambridge Camden Society (Masters, 1847),
where many places are mentioned as still preserving the Stand alonej. At
Stoke d'Abernon, Surrey, "a very curious Stand." [R. B. Prosser]. Hurst
Church, Co. Berks, " the Stand alone, circular, and elaborately painted."
[T. Archer Turner]. Ellingham Church, near Ring wood t also retains the
Stand. [Frederic Fane.]
By Professor BUCKMAN, F.L.S., F.G.S., &c.
[IS fungus is described as follows by Mr. Berkeley : —
"MOBEL, the common name of Morchella esculenta^L>,
which, under a variety of forms occurs in various
parts of the world. It is occasionally plentiful in this country,
but the greater part of what is sold by the oilmen comes from
Germany. A large quantity is collected in Kashmir. As it dries
very readily and may be kept for some time it is much used by
cooks to flavour gravies. It is also dressed in various ways when
fresh, and makes an excellent dish if stuffed with finely minced
white meat.
When plentiful it may be advantageously employed instead of
mushroom to make ketchup.
Morels are particularly fond of burnt soil, and the collection of
them is so profitable to the peasants in Germany that they
were formerly in the habit of setting fire to the woods to
encourage their growth, till the practice was made punishable by
special law*.
In a recent short tour in Germany we frequently met with
the morel at Table d'Hote, one dish at Mayence was very satis-
*The Treasury of Botany, p. 755,
37
factory, it was called "Kalbs Roulade Morscliel Sauce." For
myself I may say that I am very fond of the morel, and have
eaten them cooked in various ways, and especially according to
the recipes of Mr. Cooke.f
Some of the best I have met with were found in Oakley Park,
Cirencester, where, year after year, I got a supply from beneath
a cluster of fir trees. "Whether they grew after the burning of
wood, in the German fashion, I am unable to say.
I meet with every year on a sandy hedge-bank at Bradford
Abbas, and for some years the specimens were as near as may
be of the size I have figured it, but last year, on the same hedge
bank — and this year the same — some enormous specimens have
been found, and, upon sending a sketch to Mr. Worthington
Smith, he concluded that it was an example of Morcliella
crassipes, Persoon, and he sent me a tracing of one he had
figured under this name in the " Journal of Botany," vol. vi.,
1868.
I have since had large and smaller specimens, i.e., the
M. esculenta and M. crassipes forms sent to me by the Rev. B.
Messiter from Caundle Marsh, and last year and to-day by C.
W. Dale, Esq., from Grlanvilles Wootton, and have partaken of
their them both in the large and small state, and canpronounce
qualities as being much on a par, the quality depending more
upon the condition in which the fungus is obtained than upon
its size ; it, anyhow, in as far" as a satisfactory result of fungus
as food is concerned, will depend more or less upon the cook.
From these remarks, then, we cannot admit the two species,
M. esculenta and E. crassipes, but incline to the opinion that the
latter is but a large specimen of the former.
Anyhow, I recommend these fungi as a luxury — they are
agreeable and wholesome — highly digestible, and nutritious.
Where known, as on the Continent and in good houses
in England, they are understood and appreciated,
though we can well understand that under the name of " Toad-
stools and Cankeroons" they are destroyed by rustics as though,
fSee a plain and easy Account of British Fungi, p. 187.
38
by so doing, they were conferring a "boon upon society. Let us,
however, hope that increased knowledge upon their nature and
qualities will end in these being appreciated as delicacies with
us as they most certainly are both in France and Germany.
AT BRADFORD ABBAS.
By A. U. KENT, Esq.
\R. DAVIDSON, in his paper on the Brachiopoda of the
Inferior Oolite of Dorset, described about 40 species,
of which most of them occur at Bradford Abbas.
It was, however, subsequently reserved for Mr. Walker to
add a new -species in Terelratula Mortirei, upon which he founded
a very valuable paper to the Geological Magazine of December,
1878, and from which we copy the following notes : —
"I picked up this specimen from the horizon of the RJiyn-
conella parvula"
" It belongs to a small group of which it is the earliest
representative, followed in the fullers earth by the Ter. reticulata,
and the closely-allied or identical Terelratula hylrida, and in the
Great Oolite by Terelratula coarctata*"
This specimen has been figured from France, but not from
England. Mr. Stephens, however, was so fortunate as to find a
single specimen at Bradford, and Mr. "Walker another afterwards,
and it fell to my lot the other day to meet with two specimens,
and these four are at present the only ones known to English
* Walker, in the Geological Mayazine, December, 1878.
40
Geologists f and one of these specimens I have been so fortunate
to find is the largest of the series. It is ten lines long and seven
broad, in which it differs from Terelratula coarctata, which is
usually as broad as it is long.
The Terelratula coarctata is remarkable for presenting both
longitudinal and transverse lines ; whilst Terelratula Morierei has
transverse lines with only a slight indication of longitudinal
striae.
These fossils occur in a thin band of marl, which separates the
ammonite bed from the upper freestone ; and in getting the
stone this is thrown aside in spoil heaps, and the Terelratula in
question, with several other delicate fossils, are exposed ; and,
therefore, it is not improbable that a careful search will enable
us to find fresh specimens. At the same time it can only at
present be considered as very raref
The following figures will well illustrate the forms of the
Terelratula Mortirei and Terelratula coarctata.* The former being
now figured as British for the first time.
a.
- I. c. d.
Terelratula Moritrei natural size ; a, Dorsal view ; I, side ;
c, ventral ditto ; d, an enlarged portion showing the lines and
dotted markings.
a. o* v. u.
fSince the above paper was read three or four other specimens have been
found in the Bradford Abbas quarry. — EDITOX
* Our drawings are from a specimen in the cabinet of Professor Buckman,
presented by its finder, A. Kent, Esq. — EDITOB.
4i
Terebratula coarctata natural size ; a, Dorsal view ; I, side
view ; c, ventral ditto ; d, an enlarged portion with the different
markings.
We copy the following description of this interesting shell
from the annals of Natural History for 1852, Vol. IX. (second
series, p. 256, pi. xiv., f. 3), by Thos. Davidson, Esq., F.K.S.,
&c.
TEREBATULA MOEIEREI, Deslongchamps.
Shell inequivalve subpentagonal, longer than wide; valves
convex, with a deep, longtitudinal, angular sinus or depressions,
so that the junction of the two sinuses in front, a deep, angular
notch is produced ; beak rather short, recurved and truncated
by a largish circular entire foramen ; ridges well marked,
leaving between them and the hinge a well-defined space ; area
valves ornamented by numerous squamose concentric, projecting
imbricated ridges, regularly and closely covering all the surface
of the shell. Loop unknown most probably short. Structure
perforated. Length 9, width 8, depth 6 lines. ,
This curious form of Terebratula was discovered by M. Moriere,
at St. Honorine des Perthes, near Port-en-Bessin in Normandy,
in beds named by M. de Camont Calcaire marneur de Port en
Bessin, which according to M. Deslongchamps, correspond to the
inferior Oolite of Caen. This shell having been presented for
M. Deslongchamps' examination he at once perceived all its
remarkable distinctive characters and forwarded his notes and
illustrations (fig. 3 of our plate) requesting me to publish the
species, which is dedicated to M. Moriere, the discoverer.
Terebratula Horierei cannot be confounded with any other
Jurassic form ; at first sight it bears some resemblance to Tere-
bratula coarctata, but the deep sinus in both valves and the con-
centric squamose ridges at once distinguish it.
By JOHN FRANCIS WALKER, M.A., F.G.S., &c.
NOTE. — The following paper is so important in connection with
the geology of this district that we have great pleasure in
presenting it to our readers in its entirety. It is from the pen
of our friend and former pupil, J. F. Walker, Esq., M.A.,
F.Q-.S., &c., and is extracted from the Geological Magazine for
December, 1878.
THE EDITOE.
Bradford Abbas, September 29, 1879.
VALUABLE paper by T. Davidson, Esq., F.E.S.,
appeared in the " Proceedings of the Dorset Natural
History and Antiquarian Field Club " for 1877, " On
the species of Brachiopoda that occur in the Inferior Oolite
of Bradford Abbas and its vicinity." Since then, during a recent
visit to this locality, I have added a few species to this list,
including two which have not been discovered in England before.
I propose to give a short account of the species, and also a table
showing the relative distribution of the Brachiopoda in the
Inferior Oolite and Fuller's Earth deposits at Cheltenham and
France, compared with this district.
43
The most important discovery is that of the well-marked
species Terabratula Mbrierei, which has hitherto only been found
in France. It was first described and figured by Mr. Davidson in
the Annals of Natural History for 1852, vol. ix. (second series),
p. 256, pi. xiv., fig. 3 and a, b, — the M.S. name of Terebratula
Morierei having been given to it by Deslongchamps after its
discoverer M. Moriere. It was afterwards described and figured
by E. Deslongchamps in 1857, " Catalogue descriptif des
Brachiopodes du systeme Oolitique Inferieur du Calvados," p.
37, pi. iv., fig. 6, a, J; and in 1837, in the Paleontologie Fran-
<;aise Terrain Jurrassique, Brachiopodes, p. 244, pi. Ixv., figs.
1-8. It is a very rare species, having been found in France
in only one locality, Ste. Honorine desPerthes (Calvados), in the
white Oolite of Port-en-Bessin, which contain Terebratula
Phillipsii, Morris, and Rhynchonella plicatella. Sow. ; these species
occur with it in England.
There appears to have been some doubt whether in France this
species had been found in position, or in a loose block which
might have fallen from the Great Oolite above. M. Deslong-
champs regarded it as an Inferior Oolite fossil, but the finding
of this species settles the questions with regard to its age, as no
Great Oolite occurs in the quarry from which I obtained this
specimen.
Whilst examining the well-known quarry at Bradford Abbas,
on the farm of Prof. Buckman, I picked up this specimen from
the horizon of Rhynchonella parvula, E. Desl., but did not recog-
nise it until I commenced to clean it; it corresponds in all
respects with the figured specimens, showing the deep sinus in
both valves and peculiar concentric projecting imbricated ridges
which well distinguish this species. It belongs to a small group,
of which it is the earliest representative, followed, in the Fuller's
Earth rock, by Terebratula reticulata and the closely-allied or
identical species Terebratula hybrida, and in the Great Oolite by
Terebratula coarctata. The specimen is about the size of figure 7
in pi. 65, Pal. FranQ. Brachiopodes Jurassique. It is well pre-
served, both valves being perfect. I also obtained from the
44
LIST OF BRACHIOPODA FOUND IN THE INFERIOR OOLITE AND FULLER'S EARTH.
Explanations. — r=rare, s=scarce, c=common,
* other localities only.
*Lirtgula Beanii, Phillips (Yorkshire)
*Discina reflexa, Sow. (Yorkshire)
Dundriensis, Dav. (Dundry)
Etheridgii, Dav. (Nails worth)
Crania Saundersi, Moore (Dundry)
canalis, Moore (Dundry)
Spiriferinal Oolitica, Moore (Dundry)
minuta, Moore (Dundry)
Thecidium Bouchardi, Dav. (Dundry)...
Dickensoni, Moore (Dinnington)
triangulare, D'Orb
duplicatum, Moore (Dundry)
serratum, Moore (Dundry)
JForbesii, Moore (Dundry)
septatum, Moore (Dundry)
granulosum, Moore (Dundry)
Argiopel Oolitica, Dav. (Dundry)
JZellania Davidsoni, Moore (Dundry)
Laboucheri, Moore (Dundry)
globata, Moore
Oolitica, Moore (Dundry)
Terebratulina Dundriensis, Dav. (Dundry)
Terebratula submaxillata, Morris
perovalis, Sow
var. ampla, Buckman
var. Kleinii, Lamark
Phillipsii, Morris
var. Phillipsiana, Walker
vtntricosa, Zeiten
Buckmani, Dav
var. Buckmaniana, Walker
* trilineata, Y. and B. (Yorkshire)
Haresfieldensis, Dav
sphteroidalis, Sow
globata, Sow
var. Birdlipensis, Walker
Fleischeri, Oppel
Eudesii, Oppel
conglobata, E. Desl
Ferryi, E. Desl
Etheridgii, Dav
Wrightii, Dav
simplex, Buckman
plicata, Buckman
Jimbria, Sow
galeiformis, M'Coy, MS. (near Minchin-
hampton)...
jreticulata, Sow. (Whatley, Frome)
t hybrida, E. Desl
infra-Oolitica, E. Desl
StepJiani, Dav
decipiens, E. Desl
Cranice, Dav
Whitakeri, Walker
SOMERS'l
AND
DORSET.
I.O. F.E
;HELTEN
HAM.
1.0. F.E
FRANCE.
I.O.JF.E
LIST oir BBAOHIOPODA— continued.
SOMERS'T
AND
DORSET.
CHELTEN-
HAM.
FRANCE.
1.0.
F.E.
1.0.
F.E.
1.0.
F.E,
Tcrcbrcttuld provinciulis E D esl
r
r
8
r
c
a
c
r
c
c
c
r
r
c
r
c
s
8
r
c
r
c
8
0
C
r
c
f
r
r
c
c
r
r
r
c
8
0
0
o
c
c
c
c
8
C
r
c
r
8
C
C
C
0
0
0
r
c
0
0
j
0
r
c
0
0
0
c
r
c
c
c
c
0
0
?
r
0
0
?
curvifrons, Oppel •
MoTi&Tci Dav. . . . ,
* WiirttcnbcToicdf Oppel (Germany)
^omdloodstyr Hehl Ziet (Germany) ....
Wcdtoni, Dav.
subbucculcntd Chap et Dew
Huffhesii, Walker
var. Manddalohi, Oppel = W. carinata
dlvcdtd Quensted
*var. Blakei, Walker (Yorkshire)
Leckenbyi Walker
cardium, var. Leckhomptonensis, Walker
Anglicd, Oppel
Terebratelld bivallatd E. Deal
sulcifrons Bsnecke
Hhynchonelld frontalis, E. Deal,
Wrightii Dav.
subtetrahedra, Dav
Quadruplicatd Zieten
Lycetti, Dav
Tingcns Herault ••
subri nge ns, D av .*.
subobsoleta Dav
subanguLata Dav.
Smithii Walker .
Tatei Dav
parvula, E. Deal
Stepfiani, Dav . .
spinosd Sow
*Crossiit Walker (Lincolnshr & Yorkshire]
scnticosd, v. Buch. ...
*acuticosta, Hehl Zieten (Germany)
*Stiufensis, Oppel (Germany)
quarries at Half Way House a specimen of Rhynchonella sub-
decorata, and one or two specimens of Rhyn : ringem unusually
large for English specimens. Also three specimens of a
WaUheimia which appears to be Waldheimia sMuccuknta, Chap .
46
et Dew., and probably the same as the species figured, but not
named, by Mr. Davidson in his paper on the Dorset Brachiopoda,
pi. iii., figs. 14-15. Waldheima subbucculenta is stated to occur in
France in the lower part of the Fuller's Earth, but probably
what in England would be called the upper part of the Inferior
Oolite. It is a species which is closely allied to W. Waltoni,
Dav., and somewhat resembles W. indentata and W. perforata of
the Lias ; W. "humeralis of the Kimmeridge ; and pseudojuremis of
the Neocomian. It is a long narrow, flat, shell tapering towards
the beak and front margin, foramen small, beak ridges well
defined, and a dark line on the smaller valve indicates the pre-
sence of a septum, showing that the loop was long. It will be
figured with, the other species in the appendix to Mr. Davidson's
supplement to his great work on Jurassic Brachiopoda.
In a quarry near the church at Misterton, near Crewkerne, I
found a band of clay lying on the top of the Inferior Oolite
stone, containing numerous specimens of a variety of Waldheimia
Meriana, associated with T. decipiens. It is probable that some of
the specimens found in this district, referred to T. Eudesii, Oppel,
may belong to Terebratula conglolata, Desl.
I have thought it necessary, in drawing up the preceding table,
to give the species found in the Fuller's Earth as well as those
found in the Inferior Oolite, as these beds are closely connected,
and the division may have been drawn differently in France and
in England.
Remarks. — The specimens which occur at Dundry are identical
with those in the Sherborne district; but the small shells
Thecidea, Zellania, etc., have not yet been found in the latter
locality, but will be sought for the next time Prof. Buckman's
quarry is worked for road-metal. Several Theddea, etc., and
more Khynchonell® may occur in France, but as these have not
yet been described in the Paleontologie Fran9aise, the list may
be incomplete. Terebratula maxillata and Rhynchonella concinna
have been stated to occur in the Fuller's Earth of Sapperton
Tunnel, near Cirencester, but a blue band of the Great Oolite
was cut through in making the tunnel, and the fossils from it
47
were mixed with those from the Fuller's Earth, being nearly
the same colour. It will be observed that the species peculiar
to the Oolitic Marl of Cheltenham district, as Rhyn. Lycetti,
Dav., Rhyn. subobsoleta, Dav., Waldheimia Leckeribyi, Walker,
Terebratula fimlria, Sow., Terebratula submaxillata, Dav., etc., are
wanting both in the Dorset district and in France ; and that
several species, as En. ringem. Herault, Eh. parvula, E. Desl.,
Rh. plicatella, Sow., Rh. senticosa, v. Buch., Waldhemia subbuccu-
lenta, Chap, et Dew, W. Waltoni, Dav., W. emarginata, Sow.,
Terelratula decipiem, E. Desl., T. Ferryi, E. Desl., T. Morierei,
Desl. and Dav., T. Stephani, Dav., T. sphceroidalis, Sow., occur in
France and Dorset and Somerset, and not at Cheltenham. Prob-
ably some Palaeozoic barrier separated these two areas during
the deposits of these zones, and the exact equivalents may not
be able to be found on comparing the different horizons of the
Inferior Oolite of these districts. The Oolite marl being absent
in France and Dorset ; the bed containing Rh. ringem has not
been found at Cheltenham. It is also worthy of remark that
the Brachiopoda of the other Oolitic strata, and the Lias of
Somerset and Dorset contain several species which do not occur
in other parts of England, but are common in France.
By the Sev. W. BARNES.
|OUT HILL, Somerset ' Toot.' The meaning of Tout or
Toot has often, I believe, been asked or sought, and
some writer has found a religious mystery in it in the
belief that the Touts were chosen hills for the worship of a Celtic
God, Teutates or Mercury. I cannot make out of that word, in
Celtic, anything but Tew-tat, in Welsh of our time Dew-dad —
"God the Father;" the one God, not Mercury. The Touts
were pretty clearly spy-hills or outlook-hills. The old English
word Toten, or Tote is to spy, to look, out. "To toten all about"
"To spy all about," Peres, the ploughman's Crede, about
A.D. 1394.
" How often dyd I tote
Upon her prety fote (foot)."
(John Skelton, A.D., 1522, edited by Skeat).
And we have the word still in use in the verb "To tout," and
Touters are sent out from inns, or to steamboats, and,- I
believe, from shops, to tout, look out or spy for customers. There
are two, if not three, Touts in Portland, and we have Nettlecomle
Tout, and there is one called Cleve Tout, in Somerset, and most
likely Tothill or Totton may be by a tout.
In some old depositions which I have on trials for witchcraft
it is said by a witch that she and others of her craft sometimes
met by night near Marnhull and on Leigh Common, and, ere the
doing of some stroke of witchery, they had the warning " Tout,
tout, tout, out and about ; " " Look out, look out, look out, out
and about." We can well believe that in times of trouble there
were touters on the touts,
PREFACE.
The manuscript from which the following is transcribed,
was written in the early part of James the First's reign ; for
Sir George Morton, to whom it is addressed, died A.D. 1611-
The writer, John Budden, was son of John Budden, of Oanford,
in this county. He entered into Merton College, Oxford, in 1582,
and was admitted a Scholar of Trinity College in the same year ;
after taking his M.A. degree he was made Header of Philosophy
at Magdalen College, and was elected Principal of New Inn in 160 9.
His next step was the King's Professorship of Civil Law, and
soon after he was made Principal of Broadgate (Pembroke)
College, where he died June 11, 1620, aged 54. He published,
among other works, " Eeverandiss. Patris ac Domini Johannis
Mortoni, Cantuariensis olim Archiep. Magni Anglise Cancellarii,
trium Eegum Consiliarii, Yita obitusque," London, 1607. The
name of Thomas Budden appears on the county records as holding-
a farm, value £60 per annum, in the parish of Hinton Martel, in
the reign of Henry the Eighth. Like many of Cardinal Morton's
biographers, Budden appears to have drawn largely upon More's
Utopia. Historical records, both public and private, were not
so accessible to the Historian as they are now ; our national
archives were then kept under strict and jealous guardianship.
Such biographies as Lord Campbell's " Lives of the Lord
Chancellors," Dr. Hook's " Lives of the Archbishops of Canter-
bury," and Mr. Mozley's more recent one, " The lives of King
Henry VII., Prince Arthur, and Cardinal Morton," had not then
T •, ,
been written.
11.
John Morton, the subject of this memoir, was born at Milborne
about the year 1420, he was the son of Richard Morton, of Mil.
borne St. Andrew's, and Elizabeth, daughter of Richard
Turburville and Cecilia Beauchamp. He was educated at the
Abbey of Cerne, and subsequently at Baliol College, Oxford.
In 1446 he was nominated one of the Commissioners of the
University, and soon after was appointed Moderator of the Civil
Law School. In 1453 he was made principal of Peckwater Inn.
About this time he held several preferments — the sub -deanery of
Lincoln, and the incumbency of Bloxworth in this county, among
the number. He appears to have devoted his time at this period
of his life not so much to ecclesiastical matters as to law and
politics.
Although the cause of Henry the Sixth was a failing one,
Morton took office under that Prince. He was present with the
king at the battle of Towton, where he had to fight for his life ;
and after an exile of nine years, he landed with Warwick from
Angers, and in the following year, 1471, after the battle of
Barnet, he met the Queen-mother at Weymouth, where she dis-
embarked from Prance, and conveyed her to Cerne Abbey. The
death of the young prince at the battle of Tewkesbury, and that
of Henry, in the Tower, shortly after, placed Edward IY. firmly
on the throne, and Morton took a favourable opportunity to sue
for pardon. Edward was much struck with his submission, and
without requiring from him any unbecoming concessions, he
continued him a Privy Councillor, appointed him Master of the
Rolls, conferred on him great ecclesiastical preferment, crowned
with the Bishopric of Ely, and by his last will made him one of
Ms executors. Dr. Hook, speaking of him at this part of
Ms career, says " by Ms business habits, and engaging manners,
he soon obtained the confidence of Ms sovereign, and as Master
of the Rolls he diligently laboured to bring the documents into
form and regularity, after having been thrown into confusion
during the civil wars ; the Privy Council during this period
having left no records of any value to the historian." At the
death of Edward, Morton was still a Privy Councillor, and
111.
attended tlie Council Meeting at the Tower which. Shakespeare
has immortalized, and which Dr. Hook says, "wehaveupoa
the highest authority, from Morton himself, who narrated it to
Sir Thomas More, if he did not himself pen the narrative."
Hastings on this occasion having been taken off for execution,
Morton was made prisoner and confined in the Tower, from whence
he was removed by Eichard's orders to Brecknock Castle, being
fearful lest the confinement of so popular a prelate might stir up
a tumult among the Londoners. Having escaped from Brecknock
he passed across England to the Isle of Ely, and joined the Earl
of Richmond in Bretagne. He assisted in planning Richmond's
invasion, and was probably the first projector for putting an
end to the civil wars by marrying Elizabeth, Edward the
Fourth's daughter, to Richmond ; by whom he was made Lord
Chancellor, which office he held to the time of his death —
thirteen years after — during which time, Lord Campbell says, "he
greatly contributed to the steadiness of the government and the
growing prosperity of the country. Although he appeared merely
to execute the measures of the king, he was in reality chief
author of the system for controlling the power of the great
feudal barons, and he may be considered the model, as he was
the precursor, of Cardinal Richelieu, who in a later age accom-
plished the same object still more effectually in France."
Among other laws and important statutes which were passed on
the recommendation of Morton was one, to extend the jurisdic-
tion of the Star Chamber, which Lord Bacon and Lord Coke
call a " Court of Criminal Equity," and which, not being
governed by any certain rules, they considered superior to any
other Court to be found in this or any other nation. But the
most important piece of legislation with which he was connected
was the statute protecting from the pains of treason all who act
under a de facto king. About this time parliament imposed a
t ax for defraying the expence of a war, to repair the dishonour
they considered the king had sustained by the loss of Bretagne,
and, finding by the Lord Chancellor's speech that the king's
inclination was that way, appointed Commissioners to gather and
iv.
levy a Benevolence. This tax, originated by Edward the Fourth,,
was abolished by Richard the Third by Act of Parliament,
to ingratiate himself with the people ; it was revived by Henry,
who raised thereby large sums. Morton was said to raise up
the Benevolence to higher rates, by a means which some called his
Fork, for he inserted an article in the instructions to the Commis-
sioners who were to levy the Benevolence, that if they met any who were
sparing, that they should tell them, that they must needs have, because
they laid up ; and if they were spenders, they must also needs have,
because it ivas seen in their port and manner of bearing — so neither
escaped. Cardinal Morton, being much broken by age and
infirmities, after a lingering illness, died at Knoll, in Kent, on
the 13th of September, 1500.
J. C. M. P.
From a MANUSCRIPT (circ 1610) in the Possession of the PRESIDENT.
To the Worthy and well-esteemed Knight , 8 IE
GEORGE MORTON, Ms espeatiall frinde, all
health and happinejfe
WORTHY S'B,
The life and death of John Morton, a man famous
in the com'onwealth of England (and that I may include all in
one word) — of great merit and high deseruing in those dayee
— is here, under your patronage, exposed to publicke ouerlook-
ing, and, like some delicate protracture, set forth to the view of
all passengers.
Hee was of yr name and blood — yea, very neere in affinitie—
and, because some foure yeare since I reme'ber I promised the
same, to avoide the imputation of obliuion and Ingratitude- —
yea to be deliuered of the very feare of such faults — I will pro-
ceed, as I am bound, in a kinde of satisfaction, to yr good
opinion conceaued of mee, as far as, by my Industry, the memory
of the long since departed may be reuiued.
It falls now to yr share, euen out of equity and generous dis-
position, to entertaine this Genius (as it weare) of yr house and
family, y* soe the name of Morton may be the better illustrated
and renowned. And to accept of me (which I still hope for)
as an absolute frinde, whose very soule, in all befitting endea-
56
uotirs, would be glad to merit well, in the world and in this
particular relation, to deserue soe much at yr hands.
Yrs truly, and inwardly devoted
JOHN BUDDEN*
The life and death of John
Morton, Cardinall ArchBp :
of Canterbury, High Chancellour
of England, Councellour of
State to Three Kings,
famous for religion,
pollecy and Inte-
grity of life.
In that part of England, bordering on the South, wh the
Durotriges in times paste possessed, and now (though the
character is chainged, yet the reason of that significant title
remaining,) the people ar caled the Inhabitants of Dorcetsheir,
as neighbouring the sea coast. Not ffar from a certaine towne
called Beere was John Morton borne. In a countrie p'fitable
for pasture and husbandry, ffamous for people and commercers,
renowned for ciuility and riches, and much com'ended for enter-
taynement and hospitality.
Sd Arme£ See was, according to our computation, in the same rancke,
and forme wch wee call gentlemen, and, that I may exemplifie his
state and condition, I will play the herauld a litle to blason his
coate of Armes, wch was quarterly Gules and Ermines, in the
first and last two Goats' heads, argent erased, homes or.
* " Early in the 17th century, when the Tudor dynasty had passed away,
and a considerable change had come over public opinion and sentiment,
there arose a disposition to review the personages and events of the period
which brought in Henry VII., and his marvellous progeny. Next to his
royal master, Morton is the chief object of this very natural interest. Lord
Bacon gave his life in that of Henry VII. and evidently felt a great admira-
tion for him. Budden, a relative (?) of the Morton family, collected tradi-
tions about him, and said so much, and that so well, that the regret is he did
not say more."
Henry VII., Prince Arthur, and Caidinal Morton, by T. Mozley, M.A.,
Rector of Plymtree, page 20.
51
bring- His childehoode, euen as far as his first youth, was spent at
' up* home under the tutelage of worthy parents and discreet schoole
masters, ffro' thence as to a more uberant soyle he was remoued
to the University of Oxford, wher he prospered soe well that in
short space he became a man fully furnished wth all the excel-
lencies both of learning and vertue.
lescrip- His speech (as that personating Eaphaell in More's Utopia*
.on*
doth demonstrate) well-pollished and effectuall, his will incom-
parable, his memory rather wonderfull than inimitable, his study
in both the lawes soe absolute, that it was disputable in which he
excelled ; his body of a mediocrity in stature, and comelinesse, in
grassitude his strength aboue the measure and firmenesse of his
outward p'portion, as if it had binne inbred to labour and made
absolute by exercise, his countenance com'anding a reuerence,
and to wch thou couldst not but vouchsafe an obeysance, in hig
gate, a comelynesse tempered with gracefullnes, and his person
not difficult of accesse, yet soe disposed that neither his seuerity
affrighted, nor affability embouldened any one. To this (besides
. many guifts of nature) he had a kinde of artificiall cunning to
insinuate with the f auour of greatt men, and reconsile the opinion
of the best judicious towards him. To conclude, whatsoever he
undertooke he gaue his mind to facelite and bring to perfection.
* ; ' Sir Thomas More gives the following description of Morton in his
Utopia: — "John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was also a
Cardinal, and the Chancellor of England, was a man not more to be
venerated for his high rank than for his wisdom and virtue. He was a man
of middle size, and in the full vigour of a green old age. Though serious
and grave in his deportment, he was nevertheless easy of access ; and though
his manner was somewhat brusque when suitors came before him to solicit
his favour, he acted with an object — that object being to ascertain their
abilities and presence of mind. Upon those who exhibited readiness of
•wit without pertness, he found pleasure in bestowing his preferments ; for
in this respect they resembled himself, and he regarded persons so endowed
as likely to be useful in public affairs. He was a man full of energy, but
of polished manners. He was eminent as a lawyer, being a man of great
grasp of mind, and blessed with a prodigious memory. By study and
discipline he had improved the talents with which nature had thus endowed
him. The king depended much upon the Archbishop's judgment, and the
Government seemed chiefly to be supported by him ; for he was a man who
had passed for the schools of learning into the courts of princes, and through-
out a long life he had been versed in public affairs. Under various muta-
tions of fortune he had dearly purchased for himself an amount of practical
wisdom which, once acquired, is not easily lost." — Mozley, p. 17.
52
Caledtothe When he had thus spent his youth and pride of years, he was
caled, or if you will, cast by the hande of fortune fro* the
schoole to the court, where imployed in many waighty affaires as
the variety of times, and busines tumbled and tossed him, he
spent his manhood in many difficulties, and seasoned his wisdom
(wch by that means was ever after made solide and imassaultable)
wth great experience.
His Prefer gut the first stepp wdl he made into the house of preferment
was the profession of the ciuell lawe, prouing an advocate or
proctour in the Arches, the principall Court of eclesiasticall
gouernment, wherein he was soe industrious, and elaborate, that
he obtained the name of the well sownding bell of St. Marie's,
and glad was that client whose cause he tooke in hand.
Canon— Not long after he p'ceeded in Oxford to such degrees of both
lawes, as carried the marks of reputation and worshipp. There
such as stoode in need of his helpe and advise receaued the
fruite of his learning and skill, in greate abundance. Ther (and
what can be more pleasing to a free and generous minde) he
obtayned the frindship of the mighty, the loue of the best, the
wealth of the rich, the imparting of f auours from the officers — the
good opinion of all, and enlarged his renowne to the uttermost.
There he was a supportation to his frindes, a helpe to straingers,
a refuge to the oppressed, a terrour to his insulting enemies, and
a sweete moderatour of doubtfull controversies. There he was
a fortunate determiner of causes, a punisher of guilty and obstinate
delinquents, an equall servant of iustice, to administer every
man his right.
Beloved of "While he was thus imployed, and of every one, well allowed
Boucer or and reputed, Thomas Boucer, Archbishop of Canterbury, tooke
r* notice of his good parts and generall acceptation in the University
for religion, piety, integrity, and iustice, and aduanced him to
some places of honour, besides the reward of many and great
benefitts. At last recommended to the regard of Henry 6, he was
made one of his Priuy Councell, and soe demeaned himselfe that,
to the admiration of his ccmpetitour, both in the ebbings and
flcwings of fortune, he suffered noe manner of blastes to ehoue
53
him a aside from his uprightnesse ; but stoode firm (wch I must
speak wth admiration) to the dislocated King, and when he
seemed stripped of prosperity by the ouerdaring hand of a pre-
uailing adversary, he took in good part the communication of
affliction, and went arm in arm wth his distressed prince into the
house of deiection.
Presently> after °r encounters of Towton, wch may welbe called
the English Pharsalian bataile, he accompanied Queene Margett
(a woman extraordinary for witt and courage aboue her sex ; yea,
an heroine virago of her time), wth her sonne, Prince Edwarde,
into ffrance, desiring if it were possible, to meete wth some better
fortune in a forren nation. From that time he neuer returned
into England all the while King Henry was keept prisoner in
the tower, until! that day of terrour called Barnet feild, wherein
such was the rage and fury of their impetuous assaulting one
another, y*1 it was not disputable amoungst them whoe should
Eaigne but whoe should live.
After the fight, and y* now the Lancastrian forces weare dissi-
pated and ouercome, yea all Kinge Henries frindes as it weare
thrust into the house of slaughter.
korton re- Edward the 4 was glorified wth the victory and sweetenesse of
|'o1Ed.e4dfaJa new establishment, but yet (if I may say soe) the conquest of
j made Bis- ^s Passion and affection exceeded the glory of that triumph, for
nlopof Ely' upon the consideration of Morton's vertues and fydelity, being
induced by many worthy examples of his well deseruing, he not
only pardoned the fault for being his opposite, but tooke him
to fauour and mercy, and not long after, as it weare, rauished
wth his plausible demeanour, aduaunced him to the Bishopricke
of Ely, a place in those days (besides the great reuenewes and
wealth belonging to the same) of Kingly prerogatiue, as hauing
annexed unto it the dignity of a Count Palatine, wch Hen 8, his
nephew from Elizabeth his daughter, repining at, and desirous
to drawe all authority into his owne hands, by act of parlament
dissolved, and as it wear, cut of by the head.
After this King Ed. soe sat in the chaire of quietnesse and
peace, that not only the seeds of his ciuill dissentions weare
54
trode under the clods of his victories ; but he was able to
make war abroad (as he indeed attempted against his insulting
adversary of ffrance and dissembling frinde of Burgundy).
As for the home suspition of any further innovation (as I
eayd be four), he continued all his lifetime in a glorious
maiestic, formidable to his most daring enemies, and accept-
able to his welbeloued subjects ; but at last, in his fluent
current of p'sperity, he repayred to Westminster, where he was
suddenly over-taken by that great disturber of mortality — a
greivous sickness.
Whereupon, when he perceiued all men to deplore his estate
and misdoubt his irrecouerable recouery, he thought it best to
make his will and establish his affaires by an orderly course of a
laste testament, in which (amongst other worthy councillors he
appointed John Morton a piincipall Execator; thus truly sollicitous
for the safety of his princely children and the agreement of his
dissentious lords, between whorne, even in his sorest fits, the
sparks of disseention burst out into flames of revenge, he made
a kinde of attonement, and, wth his Hue's expiration, coniured
the one to the sweet imbraces of loue and friendship, and com-
mitted the other to thiere ouerlooking and gouerment.
Thus was Prince Ed., of his own name appointed his suc-
cessour, and proclaimed heire to the kingdome, had not that
montter in nature, the Duke of Grloscestre (whose prefidious
memory is execrable through the world) dissappointed the same,
and through exorbitant treasons and hateful immanity brocke all
inclosures of duty and religion, wch weare wonte to tie men to
strickt performances and true allegiance.
This is that Richard wch was branded wth the name of a
tyrant for p'iecting to himselfe the supreame authority, not
caring wth what a murtherous hart and sacraligeous hand he
reached at the crowne, for wch- purpose Anthony Woodvill
Earl Biuers, uncle to the young prince, was first of all dis-
patched at Pomfrett. A man to speake the truth of great
uprightnesse and high courage, wch made him soe formidable
to The Tyrant in all his designes ; yea, as he supposed a maine
55
obstacle to his unreasonable pretences ; wfch him he overthrew
William, lor Hastings, putting him to death in the tower, and divers
others ; amongst whom John Morton, Bishopp of Ely, was com-
mitted to the custody of Henry duke of Bucchingham, and had
not the insatiate tyrant been glutted wth the bload of others or
the reuerende sanctity of the man, togither wth his grauity,
diuerted the execution of his wrath as it fearef ully houered ouer
him. But soe it pleased God that this usurper's fury was
somewhat mitti gated, and the Bishop's life was preserued to the
eternall good and prosperity of England's com'onwealth.
Here I cannot overpasse the wonderfull care of the Univ'sity
of Ox., which, like an Indulgent mother from the loue she bore
unto her distressed childe studied his recouery, for, as she in one
way rejoiced at the well-deseruing honours of the Bishopp soe
now shee deplored his independing misery and prsent captiuitie,
to which he was subiect, whereupon to prvent his finall destruc-
tion and untimely murther, and by one meanes or other to obtaine
his liberty, if not reconcile him, to fauour wth a generall consent
they thus wrought unto the king,
ixford'spe- To the most Christian
ition for
P. Morton Prince Eichard by the
Grace of God King of
England, France, and
Lord of Ire-
land.
Ther ar many reasons (most mighty Christian Prince) wch
ought in a manner to comple us to implore yr noble clemency
toward that Eeverende father in Christ, or lor Bish. of Ely. ffirst
in that he was one of or best beloued and principall children,
and so dismissed from us ; secondly, that he euer shewed himself e
most ready and incumbent in all or affairs, and a worthy patron
or protectour of or causes whensoeuer or businesses soe fell out
Thirdly, in that he ever proued a very pillar and supportation to
the church and sanctuary of God. But although thes may be
reputed sufficient, yet should they neuer have perswaded
us to importune y* royall clemency for his pardon if we did
56
not perswade orselves to support the honor and security of yr
sacred person, because wee ar as much, bound (if not rather
more) to the exceeding greatnesse of yr bounty as to any of
the princes, yr prdecessors ; wherefore when we stood in doubt
of his demeanour toward you, or wth what minde he was
transported either to further or contradict your proceedings, wee
determined that it was unlawful]. wih yr hassard to take care for
his recouery. But now fully resolued that like a man he fell
through humaine fraility, and noe setled malice or inueterate
dispight, or very bowels ar moued to impetrate yr mercy for him.
As Eachell mourned for her children and lamented the
miserable calamity of her distressed infants, wee may be
the rather most gratiously pardoned, for if a piety and gentill
yealding to remission amoungst enemies is worthy of com'enda-
tion, much more ought or Uniuersity (however obseruant to yr
majesty) p'fessing the study and practise of religion, vertue and
humanity, extend her charity and be prazed for her piety towards
her owne.
Seeing then it is soe, and resolvett to p'crastinate it no longer,
all supplicante and obedient we prostrate ors. before the throne
of yr clemency, beseeching y* maiesty, that seeing he hath
suffered punishment for soe slender blasts of offence, or seeming
faults perpetrated against you (if wee make not the greater
fault in saying soe) it would please you to impart some fauour
towards him for his liberty and remission, if not graceful!
acceptation, in wch the benefit shall not only accrewe to him, to
us, and the whole church, but to yrself e obtaine eternal! renowns
and prsent emolument (as wee hope) by the same ; ffor who
shall heare of the pardon and remission, or, if you please
reconciliation of soe greate a father, of the goodnesse and effect
of soe high a clemency, and not extoll it to heaven, for according
to that of the Poet, Parcere subiectis vt debellare superlos. The
Romans weare wonte to glory, when they heerd theire
Encomions sung for sparing the submissive and propulsing the
contumacious and proud, wherein and whereby also according to
Salust they ratified the obedience of more people, then they
57
obtained co'quest by tlieire armies, as being always rather ready
to pardon then punish.
If then it please yr Maiesty to affect the same glory and
co'mendation (wch you may easily doe in this man's reconcilia-
tion), you shall euen overcome the Romans themselves, and ia
this pointe of clemency excell them. Although we well appre-
hend it in the commemoration of his vertues and high exalted
worth ; yet had we rather leaue it to the consideration of yr
owne wisdome than p'secute it by any tedious and distasting
oratory, least we might hassard yr good opinion for wrestting
yr favour, as it wear rather by force, when we goe about to
praise the man, then by simplicity of deprecation ; that we rather
prsume on the greatnesse of his vertues, than the sweetenesse of
yr compassion ; to conclude we rather appeal to yr kingly iustice
than princely mercy for the same.
Wherefore (most excellent Pr), think this of us, we pray you,
that whatsoever is spoken of in the behalf e of or Bishop is rather
by reason of or duty, then by diffidence of yr mercy, soe that
dissisting from all allegations wch may either extenuate his
faulte or augment his renowne, we altogither submit our hopes,
o'selves, and prayers to yr acceptation, p'mising and p' testing
before the throme of the Divine Maiesty that, though other
things faile us, the eternall memory of such a collated benefit
shall never be blotted out nor diminished, and soe the God of
all preseruation, keepe and secure yr royall person as the apple
of his eye, most mighty Christian King, or only p'tection and
refuge.
ffro' Sfc Marie's in
Oxforde, August 4.
But he whome the Diuell had wholy possessed worse then
Saul's evil spirit, was soe far from any impression or relaxation
by the enforcement of an oration, that, insteed of leniating his
immanity, he sent him prisoner to the Castle of Brecknock,
whereby this worthy prelat's patience was anew put to the
touchstone, wherein he remained awhile, untill by an ouer-
58
reaching wisdome he deceaved the Duke of Bucchingham, and
found means to escape.
This Bucchingham was a man of high honor and auncient con-
sanguinity, ready witt, but open brested, full of trustfulness, but
prsumptuous of his owne hope, not wanting the fault of
ambitious desires, nor co'mendation of gracefull eloquence ; an
arteficiall workeman for popular loue, and yet unable to beare or
dissemble iniuries, impatient of wronng, and one whose fortune
may sometimes be deplored, sometimes accused. Betweene him
and the tyrant weare new differences kindled, about the deniall
of the Earledome of Hereforde, which the duke chalenged as
the proper inheritance of his house, but the King interceded as
findeing some interlacings wfch the Crowne. The King's ingrati-
tude augmented his greife, and the rather, because he was fully
settled in the throne by his assistance, ffor Bucchingham, upon
hope of some promises of the Duke of Grlocester. made him King
of England. Wherein established, he began to examine the
matter better, and at last went backe, as wee say, from his word
in the restitution of such lands as he had. foremerly made the
Duke of Bucchingham beleeve he should haue, wth wch indignity
Bucchingham was both moued and ennained, soe y* fro' thence
forward he caste about for all devises and counsells wch might
tend to the King's overthrowe, and to use his owne wordes, to
take away from amoungst men that diuell incarnate and fend of
hell, odious to God, hateful to good men, terrible to the Kingdom,
and to me (as by woefull experience I have approued), most
ingratefull, which I cannot but stomache and remember wth
great indignity, soe that if he compell me to be his adversary in
the co'mon cause, he shall see me armed in the feild amongst a
well marshalled co'pany of souldiours ; wher shall he finde
securitie of men or place ? But must be sure of destruction, and,
besides the mangling of his honour, to resigne the crowne
(except I presage amisse) to some other better deseruing as the
reward of his vertue.
" To this or the like purpose, spending his meditations,
and resolued to ouerthrow the tyrant, if he could, he comes
59
to the Bishop of Ely under shew of exceeding loue ; but of
purpose to drawe him to his party, beginning with seuerall
familiar discourses, and extending to the full all the parts of
humanity and good-will. But it fell out that the Bishop carried
himselfe after such a manner (which is tfot much to be mareviled
at) as tended to the liber tie of the one, and utter ruine of the
other, this wrought by the ambition of the duke, that effected
by the wisdome of the prlate ; for by seuerall discourses finding
the Duke willing to confer with him about thes secrets, he
brought him along wth faire words and many bewitching
phraises, whereby he perceiued by certain abrupt speeches, yfc
the Duke's pride burst out now and then wtb some flashes of
enuie against the glorie of the King, wch if the matter weare
well-handled, would both easily and very quickly induce him to
fall off fro' his alleagiance ; wheareupon he very cunningly
wrought upon him to goe forward in his prtences, and yet soe
keeping himselfe wthin bounds, that he rather seemed to follow
then to lead him, ffor when the Duke in a certaine conference
began first to commend and extoll the King, inferring how
blessed the realme should be in his raigne, it is thus reported
that the Bishop answered: —
" Surely (most worthy prince) it were folly for me to dissemble,
and if I should sweere the contrary my speeches would carrie
noe credit wth you, therefore I wilbe plaine and open my minde
unto you, if the times had seconded my wishes and aavanced
King Henrie's son to the crowne, and not King Edward, I had
proued his true and faithfull subiect. But after the eternall
p'vidence had decided the controuersie otherwise, and ordained
King Edward to raigne, I thought it neither wisdome nor
charitie to striue with the King for a dead man's cause, and
applied myself to a dutifull subiect, and true chapleine to the
prsent King, and would have bin glad if his children had suc-
ceeded him, but, seeing the diuine disposer of secrets hath
otherwise determined it, there is no kicking, as we say, against
the pricks, nor prsuming to turne the frame of heaven about ;
but as for the late p'tectour, now King," and with that
60
desisted fro' further speech, sailing that he added that he had
allready meadled to much wth the world, and would hence
forward be more chary of his time, to spend it in study and
contemplation.
The Duke, longing to hear what he would haue said, con-
sidering he made a periode of naming the King, embouldened
him to goe forward, and very familiarly assured him that what
breath was spent betweene the two should never receaue further
life or redound to his preiudice, but peradventure to more future
good then he could imagine, ffor the truth was, he prtended to
make use of his great experience and faithfull advice, wch as ha
saide, was the only occasion of p' curing his custody, from the
King, that he might finde his imprisonment like a sweete dwell-
ing of his owne, otherwise he might haue lighted into their e
hands, wth whome he should not have found soe great fauour.
The Bishop right humbly thanked him, and so proceeded.
Truly, my lor I desire not much to taulke of princes, as a thing
very dangerous, ffor although the com'unication may be without
fault, yet it is in the pleasure of the King to accept it well or
ill, wch makes me reme'ber a tale, in Isope, concerning the lion's
proclamation, that on paine of death no horned beast should
prsume to come into that woode, whereupon a certaine beast
having a knobby rising of flesh growing on his forhead, flead
apace, until the fox asked him why he made such haste, and
wheither he went. Surely, said he, it is no matter wheither, so
as I weare once out of these prcicnts and danger of the p'clama-
tion against horned beasts. Why fool (qth the fox) the lion's mean-
ing extend not to thee for that wch growes on thy forhead is noe
home : that is most true, replied the other ; but if he says it is a
home, where am I then ? The Duke by this time laughed
out right, and said, (my lor) I warrant neither the lion nor the
bore shall lay any imputation on these speeches, ffor they shall
neuer come soe much as to be whispered unto them. Surely,
replied the Bishop, if they did, and yfc wch I was about to say
might happen into the mouth of a true reporter explaining my
meaning, as it is before God, it would deserue thanks, and yet
61
inverted or misconstrued p'cure me little good, and you lesse.
Wth this abruptnesse the Duke was the more exagitated to know
what he ment, whereupon o? Morton thus expressed himself e.
My lor, concerning the late p'tectour, now King, I determine
not to dispute his title, but touching the p'speritie of the realme
whereof he hath now the supreame authoritie, and I am a poore
me'ber, I was about to wish that those eminent vertues (whereof
he hath some store, little needing my Emonion or examplifica-
tion) yet might haue pleased God to haue united such, as he
hath planted, and I have f ounde in yr princely grace, worthy the
gouernment of a kingdome indeed ; and here againe he staied
himself e.
The Duke, somewhat startled at these sudden pauses (as if
they weare parentheses), with a kinde of Elation and high
countenance, spake againe.
My lor Bishop, I haue obserued ; and do evidently perceiue,
that by these sudden breakings of, in or conference, you haue
some furthur meaning then you seeme willing to utter; ffor
your speeches make noe direct or perfect sentences, where-
by I may truly understand what yr inward intente is toward the
King, or affection toward me ; yr comparison of good qualities
ascribed to us both (whereof, for my parte, I disclaime the
fruition and lesse look for another com'endation) makes me to
conceiue that you haue some furthur drift, either from loue or mis-
like, engraffed in yr harte, wch yet for fear you dare not, or for
shamefastnes you be abashed, to disclose ; but what neede this
nicety to me, yr contracted frinde, whoe, on my honour, doe
warrante you such assurance of taciturnity as the tred to the
hunter, or deaf e and dumb to the singer.
The Bish. thus the better emboldened through the Duke's
promises, but more animated from his own apprehension of his
disposition to be magnified and extolled, and wthall collecting
wth what inward hate and rancorous malice, he was seducted
against the king fully opened his mind and shewed him the bottom
of his thoughts, prtending thereby either the destruction and
utter confusion of King Richard, by depriuing him of his crowne
62
and dignity, and soe to incense the Duke to some ambitious
prosecutions that he himselfe might haue opportunitie to escape,
w°h he shortly brought to passe, by the high permission of God
to the King's destruction, the Duke's confusion, and his owne
liberty, wth- addition of high promotion, and soe as is before
recited upon confidence of the Duke's fidelity the Bishop
proceeded.
My worthy lor, since the time of my imprisonment, being
in yr grace's custody, I haue found soe many fauours that I
may rather call it a pleasant freedome than unsavery Dures, and
amoungst other the passing my time in study, ffor thereby I
have made use of seueral cautions and positions, and amoungst
the rest one spetiall caution, that noe man is borne to his own
liberty, or absolute disposing of himselfe, because he oweth to
his natiue co'ntry where first the breath of his nostrils sucked
in the sweet of the aire, nay challengeth as great a share
of his duty as any other, which causeth me to consider the
deplorable estate of the kingdome wherein I Hue, comparing
the times past wth the times present, and recounting what a
gouvernour wee now haue, and what a king we might haue, soe
that as the case now stands, all must come to utter confusion a'd
desolation, yet ar not my hopes quite abortiue nor the fier of my
expectation cleane extinguished when I behould yr worthy selfe,
and understand that yr hart is as it we are a magazine and store-
house of wisdom, iustice, and impartiality to which, when I ad
the heate and ardent loue of yrs towards yr country, and of hers
towards you, I am not a little reviued, but come forwarde wth a
more cheerful allacrity to Catalouge yr great learning, pregnant
witt, graceful! eloquence, and personall comelines, thinkeing this
realme most fortunate, yea twise more then fortunate that hath
such a prince in store worthy of a crowne, and most meete to
gouerne the same, as one in whome I say is resident the true
p'tracture of honour and vertue. On the other side when I
reme'ber the good qualities of the late protectour, now called
king ; soe violated and dilacerated by tyranny, soe chainged and
obumbrated by usurpation, soe ouercloweded and shadowed by
63
insatiable ambition, soe abused and stained wth fowle and
enormous impiety, and so suddenly trashaped (as I may say )
from civill and pollitique vallour to outragious and detestable
tyranny, I must needs conclud (however there is danger in the
very thoughts) that he is neither meete to be a king of soe noble
a Realme, nor soe famous a co'monwealth befitting to be
gouerned by soe infamous a Prince.
Was not his first stepp to the diademe in blood, and through
the house of slaughter of diuers noble peers and valiant persons ?
did he not traduce his owne mother for incontinency and dis-
solute liuing ? did he not p'claime his brethren and all their e
children Bastards as borne in adultery ? did he not afterwards
p'ceed wth the murther of 2 poore innocent princes, his owne
nephews, whose blood so cruelly spilt, cries to heauen for
vengance, and will no donbt be powerfull to open the dores of
destruction against him ? Who shall Hue secure under his
tyranny ? Whoe is not affrighted at his i mmanity ? What
place may be trusted to escape his savadgnes ? for he, that did
so little respect the slaughter of his owne kindred will lesse
regarde the confusion of others. Let me conclude in a word;
and to the purpose; if either you apprehend the dutie w°h
Religion, faith, charitie, kindrid, yr distressed country, and God
himself challengeth at yr hands, you must take upon you the
gouernment of the kingdome, both for yr preseruation, of the
glory of the same, and the faceliting that burthensome yoke of
slauery wcl1 hath so long laine on or shoulders, that the best of the
kingdome even groane againe under the pressure of all wretch-
ednesse and misery ; this if you refuse, then I co'iure you by
all the title of reason and sanctity, by yr vow to Grod in yr
Christianity, and by the hope of eternall saluation, to inuent some
meanes and indeauour in the same, that this kingdom now soe
torne and abused, may be repaired againe under a more moderate
gouernement of some better Prince. To this purpose spake the
Bishop, and soe brake off wth some diffusednesse, the Duke not
answering a word at that time.
The next day they mett again, and allthough they continued
64
A marriage aot only in commemoration of the former discourse, but in a
c<by the? larger walke of most searious affaires, yet the period came to
tllis» that if Hen. Earle of Eichmond, nephew to John Duke of
Sommerset, of the immediate line of that famous John of Gaunt,
xt Duke of Lancaster, would marry Elizabeth, the eldest daughter
hH?useof-ean(i next heire t(> E(*w- 4 °* the House of Yorcke, he then, by
ye ^bole consent of the kingdome should be saluted and
appointed king, the secresy of wch businesse and decree was
imparted to Eeighnold Bray, a man of spetiall trust wth Lady
of Yorck. j£argaret Countesse of Eichmond, and mother to the Earle,
whoe according to the confidence reposed in him, effectually
dispatched the same.
But as this busines had a comfortable passage, the Bishope
of Ely found an opportunity to escape, according to his former
proiected desire of liberty, and so chainging his rayment, very
priuately conveighed himselfe into his He of Ely, from whence
sufficiently assisted wth frinds and money, he sayled into the low
countries where how he demeaned himselfe wth all wisdome,
faith, diligence and uprightnesse, the larger stories are plentifull
and impartiall.
In the meane while King Eichard had solicited ffrancis Duke
of Britaine (in whose custody Hen. Earle of Eichmound had
long remayned) to deliuer up his prisoner into his owne hands •
but all in vaine, for the worthy Duke would by noe means con-
sent to soe f acinerous a treason, nor be corrupted wth any reward
whatsoever.
At last the well-instructed orators so prvailed (shewing that
the King deeired nothing but his imprisonment for feare of
setting in co'bustion the whole state) that the Duke of Britaine
was contented to receaue the Earles reuenewes and of all such
as belonged unto him, as confiscated and made over by the king
of England, but the Duke, faling into his accustomed malady or
frency, was unapt either to attend or heare Ambassadours,
where upon Peter Landoies, his principall treasurer (a man more
corrupt, and couetousnes itselfe), and moulded by the working
hand of K. Eichard to the same purpose, undertooke the
65
matter, and had surely betrayed the Earle, if the Bishop of Ely,
acquainted with the same, had not thus preuented the mischief.
he BishopUpon sure intelligence of these p'ceedings both in England and
luainteth Britaine, he sent Christopher Urswick to the Earle of Bichmound
Loundwithwtfc full notice of the danger he stoode in, advising him wth all
.1 matters, e .
aduiseth secrecy and speedinesse to convey himselfe into ffraunce under
1 into couler of some hunting match, to wh he was orderly intentiue.
ffraunce. .
and fortunately obeidient, and soe prsented himselfe to K. Charles
of whome he was not only louingly accepted, but princely sup-
plied with men, money, and munition ; whereof if Ely had not
bin the Author, and as it weare the threed to conduct him out of
the laberinth of his troubles. 0 Eichmond, it had bin ill with
thee, and all thy co'plices, neither had thy fortunes increased,
nor frinds reioyced, neither had former dissention bin allaied,
neither had the roses bin ioyned, nor of thy daughter Margett,
a kinseman raised by eternall happinesse to unite two kingdoms
togither, and make or Hand one monarchy ! Whereupon, when
King Henry had most prudently made a collection of these
inestimable benefits, collated, and transferred unto him by the
only wisdome and endeauours of the Bishop of Ely, as well to
avoide ingratitude as to shew his owne princelynes, he recalled
I El re him home againe, and, in the place of John Alcock, Bishop of
J_Worchester, made him lor High Chancellor of England, and
len John Boucer died, sollicited by ye mouncks and prlates of
• y* see, advaunced him, metropolitan and Archbishop of Canter-
bury.
When he was thus confirmed an Archbis., as it becometh a
good pastor, he most iudiciously gouerned the church and ouer-
looked the clergy, appointing a Synode in the yeare 1486, in
Paule's Church of London, whereunto he summoned the rest of
the bishops, and many other prlats, and wherein many excellent
matters, as is well knowne upon record, weare discussed, and
diuers lawes established, espetially against the clergie of London
ff or theire riotous behaviour ; if or their frequenting of taverns
and cook houses more often and unseemly than befitted men of
their rancke j ifor their weake sermons at Paul's crosse, desisting
66
fro' religion and true diuinity, and filling them wth unsauery
stuffe of church discipline, and veneration of preists ; ffor a
contumacious finding fault wth the absence of Bishops, and that
before the laity whoe weare naturally proud, and ready to appre-
hend, and accuse the clergy, and take exceptions to theire mis-
demeanors, all wcl1 considered the Archbishop inioyned them,
that if anything fault-worthy happened amoungst them they
should first complain to the bishop of the Dioces, and if neither
reformation followed, nor punishment were orderly inflicted,
then to repaire unto him, whoe warranted to correct them most
severely, that prsumed on theire owne greatnesse, or the suppor-
tation of others, soe that he would receaue the blame of all,
espetially if either the sermons weare not framed to the edifiing
of the people, or the Preacher reformed to the good example of
others.
While these things weare debated in theire consistories, there
repayred unto them certaine lords from the king, namely John
Dinham, lor Treasurer of England, John, Eaiie of Oxford, Tho.
Earle of Darby, whoe weare prsently admitted into theire con-
claue, and declared to the Archbishop that ffrancis Duke of
Britan, to whom King Hen. was so much obliged, and fro*
whome he receaued such hospitality, was in some distresse,
as misdoubting the ambition, and intrusion of ye flrench king,
whoe lay a long time in waite to take him unprouided;
wherefor King Hen., in requitall of former gratuities, could
doe no lesse then succour and assist him, wherein he was to craue
the beneuolences of his subiects, espetially the clergy, to whome
he now sent to knowe what he might lawfully demaund, and they
willingly affoerd. Wch the Archbishop fully co'prehending, he
conferred wth his brethren, and wthout further procrastination
concluded to give him £25,000 sterling, and a whole demy.
He collected a great sum of money through the p'vince
of Canterbury, but wheither as a subsidy or gratuity I disput
not upon, wch was performed wth some solemnity of words;
" ffor the glory of God and defence of the Church of England " ;
whereupon out of the Dioces of Canterbury alone (and soe for
67
the rest wee may easyly gesse) ther weare 354 principals numbred.
Thus living, as it weare, in the lap of fortune, and prosperity
the second from the king, and wanting nothing wch the hart of
man could desire, unless (as if he had bin borne to the greatest
honour) the times afforded to affect a Cardinal's hatt, wch wthin
the 8 years of his translation he p'cured. He was sollenly
invested wth y6 title of cardinall of St. Anastasia, and by Alex. 6,
least he might be deferred from his supreame greatnes, orderly
enrowled in the conclave of those purple robed fathers.
At this time peradventure, others weare inflamed wth this new
title and dignity, espetially Bichar, Bish. of London, wth whome
the Archbishop had some charable controuuersies about the
p'vingof wills, and signing of testaments, suggesting that he was
afraid to admit of this cardinall dignity, as mistrusting that he
would usurpe the full authority or complement of Justice (for such
weare his words), and yet he was ready upon some religious
interposition to obtaine the same. He much stomached the
com' on people, excommunicating them, I know not upon what
contumacy, and rebellious occasions, ratining to posterity that if
the victory weare the lesse in such contentions, he might be
esteemed the better for the goodnesse of the cause ; but it is
now convenient to pass ouer, then com'emorate these things, and
therefore I will come to other matter.
It is said he affected Anselmus, a man so famous in the
world at that time, as it was disputable wheither his piety or
learning excelled, in soe much that of all other things he
endeauoured whatsoeuer it cost, to canonise him a sainte, wch
Hen. 7 likewise went about, for his uncle Hen. 6, second to none
of his p'decessor kings for princelenesse of manner and sanctitie
of life, to wch purpose or Morton had full authority to examine
his actions and miracles, and render a true relation of the same ;
but when the king undertooke that it must cost 894,000 duccats
he very indiciously desisted from his purpose.
Not long after Queene Elizabeth most happily brought forth
the lady Margarett, her eldest daughter, having had two male
68
Princes before. She was christened at the font by or Morton,
who celebrated the memory of such an eternall blessing, as if he
prsaged she should proue an immortal seminary of kings,
(which wee hope and pray for), and had full assurance of that
future good, w611 we now participate, ffor fro' her hath already
sprung a race of illustrious princes, whose daughter p'ved gran-
mother to or James (wch exceeds all the rest) the monarch of
Great Britaine.
At this time that tumultuous innouation, and seditious rebellion
of the Cornishmen against the commo'wealth began, as deniing
the payment of certaine impositions laied upon them for the
Scottish prparation, inferring their pouerty, and that they
inhabited the barennest place in the kingdom, getting their
lining wth extraordinary trauell and toyle, night and day in the
mines. Soe y* they weare able to disburse no more, traducing
for the same, Cardinall Morton and Eeginold Bray, because they
wear the king's principal! seruants and councellors of honorable
trust and favour, of high Authority and co'mand in the gouern-
ment, and of such espetiall eminence that theire very names
drowned all the rest. Against these was all the outcry of the
co'mons, they weare only threatened and rayled upon, as the
suckers and caterpillers of the co'monwealth, rather then wise
councellers and faithful! officers. These were co'demned to
loose theire heads after the manner of the Romans by the tearme
of more maiorum, and thus they raged against them as parricides
and uultures praying upon the poore and oppressed ; when as
in truth if we may giue creditt to all histories and times, these
weare such as restrained the insolency and corruption of others,
presuming to much on the king's noble demeanour ; yea if the
king himselfe admitted or consented to anything repugnant to
Justice ; or omitted what was befitting to his honour, such was
the sincerity of Morton and Bray that he relied upon them as
reforming censors, and well-appointed councellours.
But this is the error of ignorant people, and the madnesse of
a rebellious multitude, demaunding they cannot tell what, and
accusing they know not whome ; such is the fortune of great
men in corrupt times, that let them behaue therns, neuer sod
well they shall be sure of enuiours.
Whereupon after the miserable slaughter of these Cornish-
men, and that the fier of rebellion seemed quite extinguished,
the Cardinal! Morton, well stricken in years, retired himself e to
his priuate house, both to rebate the calumny, and reproach of
malitious p'sons, as also to keep open hospitalitie for wellco'ming
of straingers and releeuing the poore ; they resorted unto his
pallace as to a publicke and famous Inn, these weare wellco'med
in thousands, and still depended upon him for Almes and susten-
tation, yea all weare entertayned wth cheeref ullnesse according to
the Apostles warrant, whoe co'mandeth Bishops to be har-
borous and full of commiseration.
By chaunce there met at his table one day, amoungst the rest
certaine lawers, and a traueller wch had bin out of England ; the
disputation was about inflicting theeves wth death, he co'mend-
ing the iustice and seuerity of other countries, which sometimes
hung 20 togither on one paire of gallowes, prouing it was a
part of iustice and not custome to doe soe. They againe
as it should seeme affirming that there was no fundamental!
position of scripture or Auncient gouernment to confirm it.
At last the Cardinall, apprehending what was alleeged on both
sides, played the moderator betweene them, and, with a binding
voice, concluded the matter, by saying it weare most necessary to
correct such, whome neither admonitions, threatnings, nor lawes
could restraine fro' foule perpetrations ; euen after the same
manner that the traueller had discouered to be the judgment of
other cuntries, to the wcil he added that Eoagues and vagabonds
should be looked unto by the same lawe, wch censure was well
approued of by the companey ; yet one amoungst the rest seemed
to distinguish concerning these sorts of Beggers, affirming that
the com'onwealth might well p'vide for such, whose infirmities
of body or impotency by years made unfit for labour; but a
stander by, some table-follower, jester, or parasite replied, that
without further troubling the state he knew a way how this
might be effected, by sending all the beggers who were sick or
70
aged, into the monisteries of the benedicts, that soe lay men might
become mouncks, and women nunns ; whereat the Cardinal!
laughed prsently as approuing the iest. This shall not
serue yr turne, said a certaine holy frier, unlesse you
will advise how wee shall be likewise p'vided for. Why,
answered the iester, this is sufficiently p'f ormed allready, ffor my
lor Cardinall hath well ordered the matter when he set downe how
roagues and vagabonds should be serued, ffor you are the
greatest vagabonds and wanderers in the world. Who, we, said
the ffrier. Dost thou call us roagues and vagabonds ? Thou
art a knaue, a rascall, a slanderer, and sonne of p'dition. Wch,
when the iester p'ceaued was taken in such ill parte, he thought
it needlesse to exasperate the matter, and therefore, more
moderately answered "Good father, be co'tented, f or it is wrighten
"you must possesse yr soules in patience." I am not angrie
thou naughty pack, answered the {frier, or, at least, I sin not,
for the Psalmist saith, "Be angry and ein not." Here the
Cardinall advised the ffrier to be more moderate, and suppress his
fury. No, Lord, said he, I speak but out of a good zeale, as I
ought, for holy men have bin this way transported according to
the saying " The zeale of thy house hath eaten mee up ; " and y*
is sung in or church. The Scoffers of Elisheus — while
he went up to the house of the lor, — the scoffers of his
baldnesse, were punished, as this "Eibauld, scould, and
mocker may be. Well! answered the Cardinall, you may
do this with a good intent ; but surely I suppose it was more
religious, yea and mannerly wisdome, not to contend with a
foolish man, if you think there is that difference betweene you.
No, my good lor, said the frier, I should noe manner of way be
the wiser, ffor Sollomon saith "Answer a foole according to
his folly," as I doe now, shewing him the ditch in wch he
must needs fall if he take not heede, for if the many scoffers
of Elisheus who was only one balde man felt the curse of the balde,
how much more shall this one scoffer of all friers, amoungst
whome are multitudes of balde, be punished euerlastingly ;
besides wee have warrant from the Pope that all wch deride us
71
siialbe excommunicated. When the Cardinall perceaued that
nothing would satisfie or apease this prating frier, he beckoned
to the other to holde his peace, and soe administering occasion of
better taulke, he suddenly rose from the table, dismissing his
guest, and applied himself to the hearing of poor petitioners.
I haue insisted the longer on this relation, either because I
would approue Sr Th. More, in his owne words, who was brought
up in the Cardinall's house, and by his goodnesse settled in the
Universitie of Oxforde, as in his Utopia, may appeare, out of
whose larger discourse I have thus abbreuiated the matter.
Or in regard of the euerlasting memory of so famous a Prelate
by whome you must needs be the more graced, and as it weare
tickled wth the renowne of one of yr affinitie, name, and family,
ffor euen Oxford itselfe, that famous TJnivrsity, besides the
acknowledgement of many receaued benefits, he hath adorned her
monuments wth his armes and diuises both in the Pulpitt of St.
Marie's, the Divinity Schoole, the College gates, and other places
of eminency, all wch make full demonstration of his learning,
vertue, high descent, and munificence in importing great matters
unto them.
The office of Chancellourshipp wch I neuer knew conferred on
any one but of the hiest honour and worthynesse, and for wch
many haue laboured, both directly and indirectly, as a matter of
great consequence and glory, the Univrsity itselfe by a ginerall
consent prsented unto him, wherein he demeaned to their per*
petuall good, and his owne eternall commendation ; bequeathing
by his laste will and testament a certain some of £613 3s. 4d p'
an'um for the maintenance of 20 poor schollers at Oxforde, and
10 at Cambridg, 20 yeare togither. The rest of his substance
he bestowed in mainetaining the poore, releiving of orphans, pro-
moting his frionds and acquaintance, honoring his kindred>
enriching his family, and in repairing or building his houses,
and public edifices, for he set upright his palace at Lambeth,
redy to fall. He built the Castle by Wisbich euen in or grand-
father's dayes, he made a cawsway in the fenne for the better
accom'odating of passengers, and enriching the towns, by wch
72
occasion greate concourse of people weare the rather induced to
fill the markets.
By this time age steales upo' him ; euen to the usurpation of the
last period of his life, wch brought into his minde, that when this
mortality was to be put off, another garment of happinesse, and
eternity came in place to be put on, wch he perceuing not far
o^ made his last will and testament to this purpose : —
" I, John Morton, of sound memory and in health, thanks be
to God, both of body and minde, meaditating wth myselfe that
there is a necessitie of diing imposed upon all men, and that
ther is nothing soe certaine ; nor uncertaine as the manner and
the time. Besides acknowledging that ther is nothing soe
execrable amoungst men as to neglect religion, or their owne
duties, wch errour many sinners fall into, and by reason of for-
getting God while they liued, forget the'selues diing, wch to
p'vent as far as grace is imparted, I thus ordaine my last will
and testament."
In this many legacies and reuenews weare disposed of, to pub-
licke and pious uses out of his own inheritance, he forgat not
Hen. 7, his last lor king, and illustrious benefactour, Queene
Elizabeth his deare lady and mistres, the Princes Margett, Count-
eese of Richmond the king's mother, a woman of exceeding good
parts ; for as a token of his gratuity, and instigation to theire
remembrance, he gave to the king aportuse*of gould; the Queene,
a psalter of gould ; the Princesse theire daughter a cupp, wth cer-
taine tunnes, and £40 in gold ; to Lady Margett Countesse of
Richmond the image and portrature of or lady in pure gold ; to
the See of Canterbury his miter and arche-episcopall crosier ; to
his seruants and dayly wayters, his houshould stuffe ; and to the
diuine mercy he co'mended his soule.
Amoungst other things he gave a charge for the celebration of
his funerall, wch cost 10CO marks sterling, and that they should
* Breviary — Portuses are mentioned among other prohibited booke in the
Stat 3 and 4 Ed. VI. c. 10, and in the Parliament roll of 7 Ed. IV. p. 40,
there is a petition, that the robbing of Portcous— Gray ell, Manuall, &c.,
Bhould be made felonie without clergy ; to -which the King answered Le
JRoy s'avisera,
"By God and by this Portos I you swere."— Chaucer.
73 ,
only lay a plaine marble stone on his grave, wthout further
ostentation of a magnificent tombe. His heires weare Tho.
and John Mortonf , his brother's sons, and his executor was John
ffinucks, Cheif Justice of the King's bench, wth other of
speatiall note among the clergy.
Thus died in the lord this worthy father of great years and
famous memory, after he had serued three kings, wth all regard
and acceptation,
was renowned for piety,
witt, learning, and expe-
rience, honoured for his
grauity, and places of
authority, and florished
through extraordinary
loue of all sorts
beyond any of
his time,
ffinis.
Viuit post funera virtus.
f Great grandfather of Sir George Morton.
THOMAS KERSLAKE.
| HE prospect from where we stand is one of those that
usually take rank under the description of being one
of the finest in England ; and it certainly is one of
the most beautiful of its kind. Other considerable towns boast of
such a view from some neighbouring hill, which must be climbed
to see it ; few towns are, like this of Shaftesbury, so highly
favoured as that its townsmen should be able to step over their
own thresholds, as we have now done, into such a glorious
scene.
But to such a party as the present — the Antiquarian Field
Club of the county of which we now actually see the largest
part — the picture has an interest which, though not so obvious
to the sight, probably rivals that which is more directly
presented by the picture itself. Mr. Barnes, in his paper just
read, has done me the honour to refer to an example, which I
was once so fortunate as to realize, of a phenomenon in the past
social condition of the people of this country, of which I think I
can point out another example in the district now in our sight.
75
The case referred to was that of Exeter :* within which city,
we had been told by William of Malmesbury, that King
Athelstan had found the Cornish Britons and the English
settlers, living side by side, under " equal law." This had been
interpreted, by Sir Francis Palgrave, Mr. Kemble, and other
historians, as shewing that the river Exe, at the west of the
city, had till then divided the two nations. But an examination of
the still surviving dedications of the churches within that city made
it evident that the Britons, having been pressed by their
maritime invaders from the estuary, had maintained their hold
upon the northern half of the city, which ^ as divided by the
Roman Eoss-Way from the southern half held by the invading
Saxons. In this case the distinctive Cornish dedications were
St. Petrock, St. Kerian, St. Pancras, St. Paul (St. Pol de Leon,
a Cornishman), and one of each of two duplicate Catholic dedica-
tions, St. Mary and Allhallows.
A hard and fast theory has almost reached the warmth of a
furor, with the most learned of our historical writers of later years,
that the present English nation is of purely Teutonic ancestry-;
that "our ancestors," as they delight to distinguish the intrud-
ing German nations, " entered upon a land whose defenders had
forsaken it " f : that, as some go so far as to say. the Celtic
populations were " exterminated," leaving to their subjugators
little or nothing more than ' ' the means of reproducing at liberty
on new ground the institutions under which they had lived at
home." The same unqualified assertion is also frequently quoted,
*Celt and Teuton in Exeter. Archaoloqical Journal (Institute^ vol. xxx.,
1874.
t Prof. Stubbs, Engl. Const. History. If the question upon which we
are engaged had belonged only to the learned, such a declaration from so
great an authority would have silenced our enquiry at starting. But, as we
are all concerned with it, the appeal is open to us from things that are writ-
ten to things that are.
76
as being that of another very learned and brilliant writer ; and
he seems at one time to have been inclined to maintain it entire.
It is not fairly a matter of wonder that a writer whose habit
must be a constant review of the raw material of history, over
so many of its fields, from fresh points of sight, should some-
times start a newly-detected principle with an overstatement of
it ; or a broad announcement, unqualified by its exceptions. As
the greyhound and the hare, so the eager pursuer of an
unobserved principle in history must sometimes double back upon
the truth which he has overrun. At any rate, upon this doctrine
of the extermination of the Britons, the eminent writer is found to
have either reserved, or later to have adopted, a very material quali-
fication of it ; at least in favour of Devon and a part of Somerset, f
But the misfortune of having disciples is that they are unable
to afford a retreat ; and their zeal is apt to make a firm stand
upon the first -made assertion, and stoutly maintain its literal uni-
versality, and insist upon every detail. So with this about the
extermination of the Britons. One writer says that "in Britain
the priesthood and the people had been exterminated together." *
The same writer also calls it " a world which our fathers' sword
swept utterly away." J And the same assertion has been made
the starting point of their new school of school histories. But
compared with this startling assertion, the fabled catastrophe
which a conflict, in the famous city of St. Canice, entailed upon its
partisans would itself become almost credible ; but that, unfortu-
nately for the legend, both parties survive. Indeed, the city of
Kilkenny presents at this day the very state of things which King
Athelstan brought to an end at Exeter ; for there, may be seen two
nationalities, not only sharply divided, and commonly called "Irish-
town " and " English-town," but so marked by lettering at the
street corners ; and a walk through the town can hardly fail to
strike a stranger with other indications of the distinction. A
f Freeman's Hist, of Norman Conquest, 2nd Edn., i. 34, and in various
places farther on in his -vrork. Also in his paper read at Sherborne, 1874,
en " King Ine," Somerset A. & N. H., Soc., vol. xx.
* Rev. J. R. Green, Short Hist., p. 29
J Hist. Engl. People, i., p. 32.
77
similar state of tilings nuy also be sean at Gralway, and other
great town s in Ireland.
It is believed, indeed, that this theory ; of the extermination o
the Celtic peoples by the Teutonic invaders, or their almost entire
replacement by expulsion, is, even in its more qualified form,
very much beyond the truth : especially in the western half of
the English speaking portion of the island : that at least the
broad substratum of the rural population, and that of the non-
commercial cities and towns, retain in blood, though not in
speech, a very large Celtic constituent. Besides this, it is
thought that it may be shown that there are scattered
among them small, and perhaps frequent, insulations of undi s
turbed, and almost unmixed outliers of the older peoples. Spite
of all the, attempts to suppress it, the fact is obvious that much
of our present advanced condition in the world and our persona
character, of which even our physiognomy is one of the witnesses,
have been derived from this people. Nearly all our cities,
especially all the greatest of them, have come down from them
to us in their uninterrupted vitality, and have even brought
down to us the British names by which many times daily we
still call them. These are, at least, rather more tangible than
the townships or villages, said to be the channel through which
the much lauded Forest Institutions have been transmitted to us
from North Germany. A " hatred of cities " is among the
almost boasted attributes of the invaders. But are the founders —
and godfathers, if you will — of London, York, and Exeter, and
the others, to be pushed out of the history of which these are the
most illustrious subjects ; by the parasite or episodical history of
those whom for politeness-sake we will call, unwelcome guests ?
But the surviving cities are few, compared with the much
greater number of equally great cities, only known to us by
their stupendous earthwork ramparts ; which, even to us, in this
engineering age, are no more than objects of wonder and
conjecture. Of most of these the very names have been totally
lost ; and the fact that their vast areas must have ever been
occupied by great communities of men, has passed out of
78
memory, and almost out of belief.* But this oblivion has not
been the fate of the nation itself. Even a lost child, that can
speak its own name, may be restored to its household and
kindred: and the name of " Britain" is still known to all the
world, and may claim its place in the history of the only land
which answers to it. This earlier part of its family history is,
however, obscure and difficult — its nomenclature crepitous and
unclassical — and the grapes may be somewhat sour even to the
fabricators of critical crotchets ; for whom it may be a conve-
nience to change the scene of the first act, from these hazy and
mysterious traces of devasted greatness, by taking a stroll
along with Tacitus through the transmarine " Forests of the
North." But any such attempt to exclude so much as may be
recovered of their history from its due place in that of our island,
is not only an injustice to these, our joint " ancestors," but a
great injury to ourselves, who have no reason to be ashamed of
our intimate relation to them.
But were even the villages and townships, after all, imported
from Germany ? It is admitted that the institution of royalty was
not brought over with the invaders, but that " war begat the king"
after they arrived without him and credit seems to be claimed,
for " our ancestors" of the sinister half of our pedigree, for the
* Of the fact, that the greater examples of what are now only known as
" camps," were identical in purpose and origin with those that have sur-
vived as cities, we have an actual comparative exemplification within easy
reach of us. The name of " Maiden Castle," Dorset, is common to it and
other similar places, and, however ancient, cannot be its original proper
name, but a later descriptive one. Old Sarum, with a Christian cathedral
and seven or eight parish churches, is historically known to have come to
the same complection. But the identity of purpose — that they are in r'act
skeletons of two individuals of one species — is self evident to any one who
walks around the stupendous ramparts of both. Exeter, more happy, still
lives as one of our brightest cities. Its British earth ramparts, surmounted
by Saxon and Norman stone walls, had similar precipitous outer ditches ;
filled up for modern convenience within recorded time. Its name also is its
British proper name, compounded with its Roman suffix, and both fused
into the'Saxon form, as we now speak it. The site shews the same principle
of selection as the others ; and remains of the same method of defence are
still visible. What has kept it alive to our time is the accidental possession,
in addition to the requirements of ics founders, of those of mediaeval and
modern life : a navigable tidal estuary, a metropolitical position, and a
salubrious climate.
Here, at anyrate, are three great cities, of co-ordinate and probably con-
temporaneous origin : But see their various subsequent fortunes,
79
invention, in their new home, of this keystone of a system, which
it is contended that they brought complete and unshaken without
it, across the seas, in their ships. It is no disparagement of our
German ancestors to ask the question, whether they did not adopt
a framework which they found, or reconstructed upon ruins
which themselves had made ? Among the most specious explana-
tions of the possession of the property of others, and sometimes
a valid one ; is, the taking care of it, or the repairing of it —
even the repair of the injuries received by its conveyance : and
one of the strongest tokens of political sagacity is to adapt, to
the wants of the present and future, the upshot of the past that
has grown up to its work. This seems to have been an instinct of
both of the two largest of our progenitor nationalities ; and it is
among the happy results of it that we still live. Referring,
however, to the numerous material evidences already mentioned,
of great municipalities scattered over the land ; the absence of a
corresponding apparatus for the occupation and rule of the wide
rural territory, would have been a vacuum intolerable in social
•nature, and to any conception of it. These claims, on the part
of our indigenous ancestors, are not meant to detract from the
merits of those of the foreign accession. We owe much of what
we are to both : many of what, without ostentation, we may call
our virtues : and among these we have derived from both that
sense of justice which forbids us to withhold our acknowledgments
from either ; and which, it is hoped, dictates the words upon
this page. What is here being written is not in detraction of
our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. These have had more able defenders :
whose zeal, however, has sometimes tempted them beyond the
just limits of that office, into that of excessive laudators.
However this may be, the crude and undiscounted doctrine has
gone out as the only one to be taught for the future ; and this
evolved theory is promoted with all the zeal of a religious propa.
ganda. The earlier history of our island — not only the Celtic
but even the Roman scenes upon it — an essential section of the
history of the English People, is ignored, or even prohibited,
in school books ; as being that of nations that are positively
80
foreign to us. The history of our own nation is on the contrary
made to begin upon the European continent, and only tolerated
as beginning here with the Teutonic invasion ; and the books, in
which this mutilation has been submitted to, are lauded in
journals that seem to have that special purpose : whilst every
phenomenon that demonstrates our present relation to the
subjugated races, is not only eagerly controverted but actively
stifled.
It is now intended to give some reasons for believing that the
group of mountainous hills, which bounds this prospect to the
south, and which covers a large portion of the southern district
of Dorset, is, or has been until comparatively recent times, one
of the unabsorbed insulations, above referred to, of this more
ancient people ; by the help of indications that are in like
manner also found, in other such hilly fastnesses naturally
favouring this condition.
At one of the earlier stages of the invasion of Britain by the
West Saxons, these occupied the broad valley which lies before
us, now known as the Yale of Blackmore ; and during more
than one hundred years it must have continued to be their most
western possession. The record of this is the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle. Their first landing had been more than fifty years
still earlier (A.D. 495), at a place, called after Cerdic, the leader
" Cerdices ora," which has been variously explained as Charford,
Yarmouth, and the mouth of the Hamble in Southampton
Water ; but more probably was Hengistbury Head at the mouth
of the Salisbury Avon : along the valley of which river they
continued their fiercely contested advance, until in A.D. 552
81
they had taken Sarum. So that until A.D. 658, when they first*
entered Somersetshire, by piercing the other chain of hills to
our right, this vale must have been at their command.
Among the short and compressed notes, of which the earlier
pages are made up, of that unique national record the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle, these two occur under the years 552 and 658,
as almost all the history of England for those two years.
"An. DLII. Now Kynric fought with the Britons at the place
that is called Searobyrig [Salisbury] and made them fly."
"An. DCLVIII. Now Kenwalch fought set Peonnum [at
Pointington, north of Sherborne,] with the Welsh and made
them fly as far as the Parret."
Although above a hundred years apart, the relation of these
two annals to each other is almost self-evident : and that during
the century which intervened, from the year when the Britons
fled to the Parret, a stage farther westward, from the chain of
hills to our left, that constitutes the natural division of Dorset and
Somerset, the extensive plain which lies before us was occupied
by their "West-Saxon invaders. This would be the case at what-
ever point of the western hill frontier they may have penetrated
Somerset. Some have said this was by way of Penselwood. It
has however been shown f that they must have entered the hill-
frontier from Gillingham, about where the South-Western Kail-
way now enters ; and, having fought the Britons on Pointington
Down, drove them along the valley of the Camel and the Yeo,
until this river joins the Parret at Langport. During the same
interval, as shown by intermediate annals of the Chronicle, they
made other great advances north of Sarum ; but our present con-
cern is with this on the west. It is now intended to shew that,
when they passed on to the conquest of Somerset, they left that
southern hill district unsubdued : and there is reason to believe
* That this was the first occupation of any part of Somerset by the
invaders, has already been shown in " A Primaeval British Metropolis,"
(Bristol, 1877, pp. 45-57). But as the assertion, that the conquest of the
Gloucestershire Cotswolds, A.D. 577, included the north part of Somerset,
is still persisted in ; a particular examination of Dr. G-uest's topographical
suggestions, by which it has been said to be demonstrated, is intended on a
future occasion.
t Ibid., pp.,45, etseq.
that all southern Dorset and east Devon was not conquered until
long after ; was perhaps never conquered in a military sense,
although afterwards, no doubt, more quietly, politically assimi-
lated or absorbed. But the exempted district, here intended to
be denned, is a still smaller and more permanent one. It not
only turned aside the tide of the earlier conquest, but obtained a
long continued recognition of its own separate existence ;
remained, until comparatively recent time, like some others of
the kind, a sort of Little Wales; analogous to the greater
Wales, which has conspicuously retained that name and its
own distinct language to this day.
Among the dedications of churches in Dorset, only three are
found that are Celtic, and common to those of that nationality
that are now in- Devon and Cornwall ; and these three are all in
the southern part of Dorset. They are at Milton Abbey, Alton
Pancras, and Winterborn Farringdon or St. German. If the
latter is included, we must however comprehend the southern
range of high downs between Dorchester and the sea ; which
did probably share the exemption from the early military con-
quest, but not the continued smaller and specially recognised
exemption here to be proposed. Milton and Alton, however,
have Damnonian dedications which are most certainly distinc-
tive, and within the smaller hilly district itself.
The dedication of Milton is almost a history of itself. It is
one of the compound or stratified class that have accumulated
with enlargements of the sanctuary, and the addition of new
altars : St. Mary, St. Michael, St. Samson, and St. Branwallader.
There can be little doubt that before it became an Abbey, there
was already a sanctuary here in the name of St. Samson, upon
which the other names have afterwards been accumulated. Such
is always found to have been the case, when one of the names of
a joint dedication is that of a primooval, national, or local saint.
In most cases the local name has yielded entirely to the pressure
and disappeared altogether ; drowned out by the more Catholic
or Hierarchal system. The time came when a Catholic or cen-
tralizing policy became more active in the church, to which
these local associations were felt to be repugnant; and these
provincial and national names, upon which sanctity had been
rather conferred by popular estimation than by official church
authority, were discouraged or actually forbidden, under the
pretext that they were barbarous ; as indeed they may have
seemed when the intercourse with foreign churches, and the pre-
ferments of foreign clergy to English churches became more
prevalent. In some cases, however, the older name was
tolerated, but in a subordinate place ; either as a politic con-
cession to the veneration of the neighbours, whose offerings
were still worth having, or some of whose contracts stipulated
a fulfillment or payment before the proper altar or shrine of the
local patron. Tavistock had the shrine of St. Rumon or Ruan :
but on becoming a large monastic foundation, the dedication
became St. Mary and St. Eumon. In like manner Bodmin
became St. Mary and St. Petrock. The same happened to the
Teutonic dedications as well as the Celtic. Thus Ely became St.
Peter and St. Etheldreda : Croyland, St. Mary, St. Bartholomew,
and St. Ghithlac : and many others.
St. Samson was a Cornishman by birth or family, and was a
kinsman of the St. Pol., Bishop of Leon in Armorican Britain,
already mentioned as being among the dedications in the
British part of Exeter. St. Samson was also Bishop of Dol
in Armorica, where the church of Dol itself, and others in that
province, and in Breton Normandy, are under the tutelage of his
name. He has also a church in Guernsey, one in Scilly, and two
in Cornwall. Two near the borders of Wilts and Gloucestershire,
at Cricklade and at Colesbourne. Before he fled to Armorica he
is reputed to have been the last British Bishop of York, who was
driven thence by the pagan Angles ; and in the city of York
there is still a church of St. Samson, which is the only one in
84
either England or Wales, besides those already mentioned that
are all confined to this south-western .-promontory.*
This dedication of Milton Abbey is therefore a curious example
of these accumulated ones. The other name, St. Branwallader,
is quite unique. It is evidently a British name, but, although it
is not to be found in any of the records of British saints, he is
entered as a " confessor " under January 18 in two Anglo-Saxon
Calendars ; one of them, said to be one of the earliest English
Calendars extant, appears to have been compiled at Winchester
in the first half of the eleventh century. Again, in the Anglo-
Saxon catalogue of the shrines in England, written about the
same time, Milton Abbey is said to have had the head of St.
Brangwalator, Bishop; and the arm and staff ("erice") of St.
Samson, Bishop. William Worcester (A.D. 1480) was told, by
John Burges a Dominican friar at Exeter, that St. Brandwell-
anus, a king's son and confessor, was buried at Branston, eight
miles from Axminster ; probably Branscombe near Sidmouth.
But Branscombe has now the dedication of St. Winfred, the birth
name of St. Boniface, a Saxon native of Damnonia. Serenus
»Cressy describes . Branwallader as a "holy bishop, "but "un-
known;" and he is mentioned as "S. Brampalator episcopus"
in Leland's abstract of another catalogue of shrines in England.
As to the added dedication of St. Michael, all that can be said
is, that it is not uufrequent in Cornwall, is numerous in Devon,
Somerset, Dorset, and throughout Wales ; but then, as it is also
abundant throughout England, choosing the greatest elevations,
and in level counties, such as Lincolnshire, being satisfied with
even such moderately high points as they offer, this one at
Milton cannot be quoted as distinctive of race. But St. Michael
is certainly a favourite Celtic dedication. In Wales it is the
rival of St. Mary in frequency ; and its great frequency in some
parts of English England may be partly due to the continuations of
* It is, however, just possible that the two St. Samson dedications at
Colesbourne and Cricklade may in some way be reflections of his connection
•with York, through Archbishop Aldred's (A.D. 1061-1069) dealings with
Gloucestershire benefices. Both seem to be second or subordinate benefices,
as if they had been chapelries or detachments from original benefices.
85
it being much tolerated by the Teutonic and Catholic super-strata
as exempt from the imputation of barbarism or nationality.*
Besides this, the heights which it affected are likely to have con-
tinued "Welsh until later and Christian times. St. Michael is
usually a short expression of "St. Michael and All Angels,"
and Welsh places so dedicated are often called " Llanvihangel. "
St. Gabriel is very uncommon, and St. Raphael almost absent,
in the old dedications of England and Wales.
St. Mary, with her precedence of the others in the dedication
of Milton, is of course the crowning expression of the later
Catholic and monastic supremacy over those of tribal or local
origin.
It can hardly be doubted tha,t Athelstan found the Celtic
dedications already associated with the spot which he chose.
But it is not the mere survival of the two Celtic dedications of
Milton that is its most notable circumstance. This it shares
with many other outlying Celtic remains of the like nature, in
those various parts of English England, that may also therefore
be suspected to have been insulated nationalities. To this is to
be added the well authenticated fact, that the same Athelstan, to
whom is credited the policy of finally driving his British sub-
jects from among his own Anglian and Saxon people, to beyond
certain assigned frontiers ; at this place he is observed to have
actively encouraged the British nationality. It is recorded by
various ancient authorities, and with variations that bespeak a
certain amount of independence among them, that when he
founded the Abbey upon what we have assumed to have been a
pre-existent sanctuary of some kind, he bought and placed there
many reliques of the Damnonian saints from transmarine Britain
or Armorica; among which the most distinguished were the bones
* A place on the Wiltshire Avon, about three miles north-east of Stone-
henge, has the dedication St. Michael, and is called Fighelden. It would
be a brilliant triumph of Professor Rbys's consonant mutation test of chro-
nology, if the change of " Michael " into " Fighel " would shew us, how
late must have been the time when the people at this place in the midst of
Salisbury Plain changed themselves from Welshmen "to Englishmen. It
sounds in neighbouring mouths something like " Foyle," and " Foyle "
is a surname there.
86
of the " Most Blessed Samson" himself, who was was formerly
Archbishop of Dol.*
This at Milton is not the only example of Athelstan's muni-
ficence to monasteries among his Damnonian subjects. In like
manner he endowed and enlarged those at St. Burien and
Bodmin. He appointed the native Conan as Bishop of Corn-
wall; and was a benefactor to the monasteries at Exeter, at
Axminster, and others in this Celtic district ; for so, no doubt, to
a great extent it still was. Thus, in accordance with his
imperial maxim, " Grloriosius regem facere quarn regem esse,"
he abandoned the long-continued fruitless endeavour to exter-
minate, and, contenting himself with reserving the submission of
their rulers and the exaction of tribute, tolerated within certain
frontiers their self-government, and promoted their institutions. It
was qualified by this policy of conciliation that, as actually recorded,
he appointed the Wye as the boundary of the Cambrian Welsh, and
the Tamar as that of the Welsh of Damnonia : that is, of those
of them who chose to continue under their own national institu-
tions. But, although these two are historically mentioned, as
being among the most prominent examples ; there is reason to
believe that many smaller outlying Celtic communities, that he
found in a state of concentration, mostly perhaps in hilly dis-
tricts, were treated by him in like manner.
The recorded, and similarly confirmed, case of Exeter : that
Athelstan actually found a separate Welsh community, living on
equal terms side by side with a Saxon one, within the walls ;
is a testimony, that, in spite of all endeavours of his prede-
cessors to suppress it, such a social state existed down to his
time. But his having expelled and driven them beyond the
Tamar, although an exception to his magnanimous policy, is not
a contradiction of it. We are not without examples in our own
times of disorders arising from the existence, within the walls
of towns or cities, of two nationalities or even of two religions ;
but this expulsion would not have been so easy with a more open
concentration ; nor so necessary where the two peoples were not
* Will. Malmeeb. de Gestis Pontt., Lib. n. 85.
87
forced together by such narrow and inflexible limits. This
severe policy, being unnecessary for the indefinite and elastic
limits of a country community, we here find the more liberal
policy of the Saxon king not only predominant, but taking the
form of active conciliatory encouragement.
In fact, besides being able to define Athelstan's toleration
or protection of this as a Welsh district ; we seem to be able,
out of this very case, to reconstruct an example of his manipu-
lation in carrying it into effect. We have already seen William
Worcester's record of a tradition, which he had at Exeter from
the Friar John Surges, that Brandwellan = Branwallader was
buried at Branston=Branscombe, eight miles from Axminster.
This Branscombe was bequeathed by King Alfred to his second
son Edward the Elder, the father of Athelstan. We next find
Branscombe, among the formerly alienated manors, recovered for
Exeter Cathedral by Bishop Leofric ; and at this day it still
belongs to the Dean and Chapter. Here we almost see Athel-
stan's hand at work in Saxonizing that broader district of East
Devon and South Dorset, which as already suggested, had
escaped the earlier conquest ; and reducing his Welsh exception
to the smaller and stricter limit above defined. In the course of
this process, he includes this patrimonial manor in his muni-
ficent endowment of his monastery at Exeter ; and, although
leaving the name of the local British saint in the name of the
place, removes his shrine to that of St. Samson at Milton, in his
tolerated Welsh district ; and the Church at Branscombe receives
a new altar in the name which it still retains ; that of the great
West Saxon St. Winfred, the first Bishop of Mainz, who was
still commemorated in the church at Exeter to which he had
belonged.
About six miles west of Milton, among the same crest of hills,
this continued British nationality is further confirmed by a
second dedication, at Alton Pancras. Not that this is of tribal
or non-Catholic origin, but it has manifestly become Damnonian
or Cornu-British by adoption. In truth this island has received
two distinct inoculations of the name, St. Pancras. A later one
88
than what concerns us was brought into post-British England
by St. Augustine, who so dedicated the chapel, now a ruin,
between the monastery of St. Augustine and the primseval church
of St. Martin, at Canterbury; a church, the Roman-British
origin of which is an undoubted historical fact. There is a
repetition of St. Pancras in Kent, between Dover and Canter-
bury, at Coldred by Sibertswold.*' Two St. Pancrases in London
may be attributed to Augustine's companion, Mellitus, the first
Bishop of London. There are also three in Sussex ; and one at
Wroot in North Lincolnshire. This last is probably due to
Oswiu of Northumbria, to whom Pope Vitalian sent reliques of
the Roman Pancras. It is most likely, however, that these two
distinct importations of this name — the Roman-English of St.
Augustine, and the British of Damnonia — are commemorations
of two different Catholic saints, of the same name, of two
different ages. That of the east of England was of course the
Roman one of the fourth century ; whose day, in the Roman
calendar, is May 12. This patron of so many churches in West
Britain, was more likely to have been the earlier one ; said to
have been made a Bishop and sent into Sicily by the Apostle
St. Peter, and martyred at Taormine in the first century. f He
does not appear in western calendars, but is found in the Greek
Menologium under February 9. Another curious example of a
prse-Saxon Catholic dedication seems to have puzzled Augustine
and Gregory, at finding it already in Britain before their
mission. Instead of their own Roman Martyr, Pope Sixtus
(Aug. 6), to whom they took substantial care to appropriate it,
he may have been St. Sextus, a Sicilian Martyr (Dec. 31), or St.
Sixtus, an Apostle of the Gauls (Sept. 1). The preference of
the British Christians for the eastern calendars is confirmed
by another example ; the frequent occurrence in the dedications
of Cornwall, Devon, and Wales, of the martyrs SS. Julitta and
Cyricius : = Syriac in Cornwall, = Cyres in Devon, = Curig in
Wales.
* Ferrostraticb " Shepherdswell."
t Baronii Ann. A.D. 44, quoting Metaphrastes.
89
At any rate there is a distinctly separate geographical area of
a St. Pancras over the south-west of England, all in the Dam-
nonian province ; which must therefore be attributed to this
earlier Celtic transmission. The intimate intercourse of the Dam-
nonian and Armorican peoples, and their apostles or missionaries
needs only to be referred to. The same dedications and place
names that are found in one are constantly repeated in the other ;
including this of S. Pancratius. The western insular ones of St.
Pancras are : — Five in Devon, and, although none have been
found within Cornwall, two of these are on the Tamar, north and
south ; and one of them is in the group of dedications within
Exeter that marks the prse-Athelstan Celtic quarter of that city.
One is in the Dartmoor highlands, where Celtic blood still pre-
dominates. Although another Devon one is on the border of
Dorset, east of Axmouth, the only one within Dorset is this at
Alton, about which we are now engaged. In Gloucestershire was
an anciently extinct chapel of St. Pancras attached to Winchcombe
Abbey, and another, an extinct parish now absorbed into Marsh-
field ; but none throughout Cambrian Wales ; nor elsewhere in
England besides the Roman ones above recited, except " Pencrich
Hall," formerly at Oxford; which, if a " Pancras," would of
course be only a reflected provincial association, like Exeter
College and Lincoln College are now.
The community of these Damnonian saints with those of
Armorica, or the continental Britain of the opposite coast of the
English Channel, comes very distinctly into view in a Litany,
printed from a MS. of the tenth century in the Vetera Analecta
of Mabillon, and reprinted by Messrs Haddan and Stubbs.*
Among the saints suff raged in this Litany are "S. Pancrate,"
"S. Samson," " S. Branwalatre," and " St. Jullita;" and,
although not so narrowly national, "S. Germane," the name
with which we are next concerned.
*Councils, n., p. 8L
90
There is, about ten miles southward from the two already
noticed, another dedication connected with prse-Saxon Britain,
and which is found not only in Cornwall, but in other parts of
the island where Celtic associations survive. This is at Farring-
don, or Winterborne St. German. Of this, although the church
is a ruin, it has still so much vitality as to confer upon the Rev.
W. Barnes the venerable dignity of a Pluralist. We must, how-
ever hesitate to include this within that compact ideal limit of
the district recognised by Athelstan. True, it was fortified from
the perils of the coast by the great natural rampart of the
southern downs of Dorset, but is separated from the hilly group
above described by the valley of the Frome and Piddle. It
would also include the town or city of Dorchester, too important to
have been comprehended in such a toleration or concession. No
doubt it shared, with the south of Dorset and the south-east of
Devon, of which the St. Pancras already mentioned near
Axmouth is another witness, an exemption from the earliest
western progress of the West Saxons ; but cannot be included in
that smaller territory of a more concentrated Welsh population
that is here being defined, and which could have exacted the
recognition of its national independence. At any rate, the
ethnical status of this prse-Saxon dedication may be most safely
left to the care of Mr. Barnes, who has the spiritual charge of it.
So 'much for the testimony of the dedications. But there are
two other circumstantial and independent ancient witnesses, by
which it is thought to be strongly confirmed. The first of these
is, that among the interval annals in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
between the conquest of Sarum in 552 and the victory at Point-
ington in 658 ; is one which has involved, for the last two
centuries, one of those controversies that infest the topography
9i
of the age in question, as to the part of England in which is
situated the actual place named in the record.
" An. DCXIV. Now Cynegils and Cwichelm fought on Bean-
dune and slew two thousand and 65 Welsh."
This was read for " Byndon," Dorset, by Camden (1587); as
it had ten years earlier been read by Lambarde.f But Gibson,
when editing the Saxon Chronicle, says that all the copies he
had used have the name with an m " Beawdune." He therefore
prefers Bampton, Devon ; and is approved in his view by E.
Gough in the Additions to Camden. Out of this removal has
been lately started another, to a third place. It is now said the
battle could not have been at Bampton Devon, because the
Saxons had not yet advanced so far to the west ; therefore it
must be the Bampton in Oxfordshire.
Since Gibson, several MSS., including what is said to be the
'oldest,* have been brought forward, with the reading "Beaw-
dune." So also read Florence of Worcester, Henry of Hunting-
don, and Leland's extract from Marianus Scotus. Moreover,
although it is not to be denied that "-don " and "-ton" are some-
times converted ; it is believed that this does not happen so
generally as the convenience of such changes has tempted
interpreters to assume. The original appropriation by Camden
of this name to Bindon, in Dorset, may therefore safely replace
that of Gibson's even on its philological ground: and his
historical argument that all the Britons had already fled for
safety into more western parts of England, it is thought has
here been confuted. We find them here in the very place
where they were in immediate contact with Wareham, a favourite
landing-place of their disturbers. These doubts, indeed, could
never have been raised, if it had been yet observed that the
Saxons were at this very time making their way towards
Somerset by this route through Dorset ; and that, as we now see,
they were still flanked by an unconquered district of the
fDict. Top. (1577), first printed 1730.
*See Mon. H. Br., p. 306, and Pref. p. 75., and Anglo-Sax. Cnron.,
Bolls ed., yol. i., pp. 38-39.
92
invaded Britons. The later historians seem too readily to inter-
pret these records of battles as complete and permanent subjuga-
tions of the districts where they have occurred ; including all the
country that would be bounded by a right line extending on
both sides of the place of conquest named. The slaughter of
over two thousand shews a hard fight, but if it had been even a
victory, it was not an extermination or subjugation of the nation.
There can be no doubt that this conflict of A.D. 614 was an
incident of an attempt to penetrate this yet unconquered southern
part of Dorset, by a landing at Wareham, and an advance along
the valley of the Piddle and the Frome. The place was no doubt
Bindon Hill, now popularly known by the descriptive name of
" Swines-Back." It is a westward continuation or resumption of
the chalk ridge of Purbeck, but completely insulated and pre-
cipitous on all sides. The table area is very large, nearly two
miles in length, fortified around, and with transverse embank-
ments. It lies due south of the Milton Abbey district, and is
separated from it by the valley which leads from Wareham up
to Dorchester. As Cwichelm now first appears in the Chronicle,
and in conjunction with Cynigils, it was probably an assault by
one of them, in support of an attack by the other from the
north. However, laying all speculation aside, here it is quite
certain, that we have it on record, that, in the interval century,
between the conquests of Sarum and of Somerset, the two
nations are found together, in actual conflict in the intermediate
country.
The other probable external confirmation, of the two above
promised, is another ancient document which may or not relate to
this very district. But whether it does or not, it certainly con-
tains a contemporaneous picture of such a community, and
positively demonstrates the existence of the social condition tha^
we have endeavoured to exemplify.
93
A very learned writer,* who has been a pioneer of the sources
of English history for later writers, has by some of these been
recommended "to be used with care," and to be "read with
caution."! This, as we shall see, is very good advice ; but may
be extended to most of the later writers about these early times,
and not only to Sir F. Palgrave, who was a most learned,
original, ingenious, and interesting writer. He has been fol-
lowed with more than equal steps ; although others of his
followers are far behind him. At the risk of being reminded
of the latest [Amen.] demise of a Sovereign Queen, it may here
be said that the more recent work, known as "The History of
the Norman Conquest of England," by E. A. Freeman, D.C.L.,
&c., if not the greatest book of the present generation, is one of
not more than the two or three greatest. Perhaps, however, in
such comparisons some " law " is due to the first who treads the
clods of a field never crossed before. Among the many authori-
ties with which Sir F. Palgrave's marginal references bring a
reader, most likely for the first time, acquainted ; one turns up
from time to time as the " Devonian Compact." To any one in
this quarter of England, a strong desire is raised to know more
of a document with this unheard of title. But it is only in the
supplementary volume J that it comes to light, what the docu-
ment is, and why the author has given it this new title. §
In the collections of the Anglo-Saxon Laws|| is printed a short
international Code ("geraednes") or agreement of a Witan of
* Sir F. Palgrave, English Commonwealth, 1832. Also his History of
Normandy and England, 4 vols.
f Rev. J. R. Green, both his Histories of English People.
J Engl. Comm., Proofs, ccxxxiii., and cclxiii. Also Vol. I. p. 464.
§ This method of usurping the place of long received titles of ancient
texts by new ones by means of persistent unexplained iterations, leaving
the reader to gradually find out for himself what is the monument really
quoted, is not unfrequent among the learned of the present age. In his
Short History, Mr. Green continually cites what he calls, and declares to bo
" now known " as " The English Chronicle," for what has always been known
to all the rest of the world as the " Saxon " or "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,"
and it is only far then on in his book that he condescends so far as to admit
the words ("or Anglo-Saxon") in a bracket for tho tardy help to those who
are unlearned in the innovation.
|| Lambarde 1568, in Anglo-Saxon, with Latin translation ; republished
by Whelock, 1648 ; by Wilkins, 1721. Public Records, with English by
Thorpe, 1840, folio, pp. 150-152.
94
the English and a Council of the Welsh, settled among the
"Dunssete." Lambarde, the first editor, appears to have used a
manuscript no longer known ; perhaps lost in the Cottonian fire.
His printed edition is consequently the only authority for the
Anglo-Saxon rubrics, including the general title of the Code
and the titles of the nine sections or clauses. In the chief title
he prints the word or name of the people concerned, with an
interpolated letter e\ " D0un-ssetas," for which reading this rubric
is the only authority ; and although the name re-occurs three times
in the body of the Code, in all three he prints it without the
added letter. Besides this, in his translation of this rubric
itself he renders it, as if it had been a word and not a name ;
" Dunseete " = " Monticolae " or Mountain Dwellers, disregard-
ing the surplus letter, which therefore, if in his MS. at all, was
only in the rubric.
Yet it was upon this one various reading that Sir F. Palgrave
raised his theory that it was what he was justified in quoting as
the " Devonian Compact ;" that it was in fact a treaty between
the West-Saxons and the Dumnonian Britons, locally neighbours
in Devon. Perhaps, as he considered, an actual example of
the social condition which William of Malmesbury describes as
being what Athelstan found, and brought to an end, at Exeter.
As, until quite recent times u and v have been identical letters,
or used indifferently by ancient scribes one for the other, Sir F.
Palgrave adopts it as an authority for an ancient form "De^nsaete, "
and for saying.* "The Anglo-Saxon or English settlers" in
Devon " acquired the name of Defensaettas." And by this name he
continually calls them ; and this arbitrary and erroneous innova-
tion, founded solely upon this doubtful authority has already
taken root and been adopted into the most current modern
histories of those times. Mr. Freeman often writes of "the
Defnsaetas and Sumorsaetas," and continually uses the former,
as the matter of course ancient name of Devonshire men.
Although, with that constant regard for facts that are even
exceptional to his own foregone judgment, which a seeker of the
*Proofs cclxiii.
95
truth can well afford to satisfy; he brackets into a second
edition as " something singular" that various passages that he
quotes should still contain the form. " Defenasare along with
those of " Sumerssete " and "Dorsete."f
It is not however without reason that Mr. Thorpe, in his note
on the rubric J, gives his opinion that the interpolated e in
Lambarde's edition was " either a clerical or a typographical
error." But next comes the question whether "Dunssete " is
merely a descriptive word, to be translated ; or the proper name
of a particular people. The Anglo-Saxon text is printed in the
Public Eecords Collection of 1840 from a MS. of the tenth
century, * but there is also printed || an ancient Latin version
from three MSS. of the thirteenth century, and in this it is
given as a name, without translation. It was Lambarde
who first translated it to " Monticolse ; " and he is followed
by Wilkins. Mr. Thorpe in the Eecord Collection, trans-
fers the name, without translation, into his English translation ;
but in his note he explains it to mean " Mountain dwellers."
The truth in fact is that there never was a people called
" Devnssete." The "Sumorssete," the " Durnssete," and the
" Wilssete," were no doubt so called from some circumstance in
the conquest of them, as having been more simultaneously or
broadly colonised or settled by the conquerors. There is, how-
ever, no original precedent for the suffix "-saete" for the
Devonshire settlers. It is believed, indeed, that the area of the
earlier occupation of that province by the Saxons has been
much over-estimated. The received theory is that the early
dynastic or political advance of the Saxons westward, continued
into Devon as far as the Exe ; either by way of Dorset, or more
northward from Somerset. Mr. Kemble says: " As the Saxon
arms advanced westward, Exeter became for a time the frontier
town and market between the British and the men of Wessex : "
evidently meaning, as the other later authorities also appear to
mean, between the West-British kingdom and the West-Saxon
f Norm. C. 2ndedn., vol. 11., also 564, 158 and 315. Palgrave, cclxiii.
J A. S. Laws, Pub. Rec., 1840, fol. edn., p. 150,
* P. 150 || p. 530
96
kingdom : that the great political body of tlie West-Saxons had
progressed westward so far, and occupied in their march all the
country, to their right and left, from sea to sea, or nearly so.
But from what is here being laid before the reader, it will be
seen that the frontier of Dorset, that was contingent to Devon
still maintained its British nationality ; whilst, failing the Devon-
Bampton Annal above disposed of, there is no record whatever
of any approach from Somerset. The Annal of 682, of Cent-
wine's having driven the Britons to the sea, cannot apply to this >
as there is no sea in the path ; and William of Malmsbury calls
them the " North Welsh." The earliest recorded dynastic
movement, farther west than our Somerset, is that of Egbert, A.D.
813, when he harried " West Wales from eastward to westward."
" West Wales" here includes all Devon, and not Cornwall only as
generally supposed : thus there is some importance in the words
"from eastward to westward," which they would otherwise seem
to want. " Harrying " does not seem to be an operation suit-
able to his own subjects, even if they had been in rebellion.
Much intercourse of the two nations had already existed,
independently of .the compulsion of the two races into one
political body under advancing kings. The frequent examples
of fugitive Anglian and Saxon exiles, from wrongs of their
compatriots, to the protection of the Britons, prove that the
wars were rather political or dynastic than tribal. The Annals
are indeed mostly of the acts of the kings or leaders, and the
events they record are not always conflicts with one nation, but
subjugations of both to one sovereignity. Two independent and
indisputable facts — the birth of St. Winfred=Boniface, and the
family of St. Sidwell — shew that, as early as A.D. 680-700,
settled Saxon families were already living around Exeter; so
that no doubt a considerable colony of them, or a sort of Littus
Saxonicum, had existed about the estuary of the Exe, and per-
haps at other points along the country between the sea and the
highlands, more than a century earlier than any inland dynastic
subjugation. And in this view we are not entirely forsaken by
our old allies, the church dedications, along the mountainous
97
frontier that divides Devon from both Dorset and Somerset. A
St. Pancras, east of the mouth of the Axe, has been already
named. There is also a. St. Paul (St. Pol) at Church Staunton,
and a St. David at Culme David, both in the valley of the Culm
behind the Black-Down Hills ; and north of Honiton is a hill
called "St. Gyres," but with no remaining chapel. North Devon
and West Somerset, or the Exmoor district, led up to by this chain,
needs no consideration here. The multitude of St. Michael's in
Wales has been already noticed. It is equally frequent in the
English western counties, but those that are in Dorset are most
crowded in the southern district, and the same increased
frequency extends into the adjoining district of Devon, between
the Axe and Exe.*
Reverting to the Code ; the existence of such small outlying
Welsh populations, as we have been considering above, had
never yet been vividly contemplated ; and interpreters of such
questions as that presented by the Code of the Dunssete have
been therefore narrowed, in their field of enquiry, to the two
greater race divisions that are historically recorded, and that
are more obviously still living beside us : Welshmen and Cornish-
men ; whose existence even the most zealous exterminationists
have not yet been so bold as to deny. To those, therefore, who
have hitherto considered this monument, and who had rejected it
for the Defnanian or Damnonian tribes, there was no choice but
the Cambrian or Silurian ones. A neighbouring people, called the
" Wentssete," is mentioned in the Code, as if only lately annexed
by the West Saxons; of whom it is said : " Somewhile the
*Mr. J. .B. Davidson (Trans. Devonsh. Assoc., 1877) has pointed out the
remarkable prevalence of "-minster," as a constituent of place-names, such
as " Axminster," over a certain continuous area of South Somerset, West
Dorset, and East Devon. This he attributes to King Ina; but that is most
likely about 150 years too soon. But it strongly indicates a simultaneous
Saxonization. It fringes the district under our consideration, and is
included in what King Alfred still called the " Welsh-kin." Two of them,
" Stureminster " and " Exanmyuster," were bequeathed by Alfred to his
younger son, Edward the Elder. Sturminster is believed to be the same
Ce which Asser had formerly called " Leonaford," i.e., Alaunaford, the
on the Stour or Alauna ; where was the royal house in which Asser
spent eight months in reading with Alfred. No doubt these " -minsters "
commemorate foundations by Alfred, and that it was after his memorable
hospitality to Asser that he founded Stour-Minster at Leonaford.
98
Wentssefce, belonged to the Dunssete, but [now] more rightly
they belong to the Westsexan." Here, two local tribes or septs
are evidently spoken of. Lainbarde and Wilkins, place their
Wentsaete in Dimetia, roughly now comprising the diocese of St.
David's. Mr. Thorpe suggests Athelstan's decreed frontier of
the Wye as the point of contact of the two nationalities con-
cerned in the Code. Although he does not mention G-went,
Monmouthshire, he seems to have been attracted by that name
as the probable equivalent of Wentsaete ; but " G-went " is com-
mon to this and many other British districts. He may also have
been slightly influenced by the neighbourhood of the
"Magesaete," about Herefordshire ; * the only example of the
suffix "-saete," besides Dorset, Somerset, and Wilset,
The date of the Code is uncertain. Wilkins conjectures it in
"tempestate Ethelradi Regis;" but whatever may be its date,
it must have been far too late for the Cambrian Gwent to have
adjoined any people that could possibly have been called " West
Saxons." A " stream " is also mentioned in the Code, as if it
was the boundary of the rights of the two peoples. Sir F.
Palgrave had adopted the river Exe, in conformity with the theory
which he had raised out of the recorded joint occcupation of
Exeter, that the course of that river had divided the two races
of Saxons and Cornish- Welsh, east and west, in Devon ; but it
has been elsewhere shewn that in Exeter they were divided,
north and south ; and both, as far as that city is concerned, were
on the east side of the river. Mr. Thorpe adopts the Wye as
the stream suitable to his conjecture. But the nine sections of
the Code are evidently not only calculated for a particular and
limited locality, but the most important of them relate to strayed
or stolen cattle, " over a stream," from either people. It may
be a question whether both rivers, the Wye and the Exe, at the
parts required, are not too large for a " stream" requiring a
special legislation for stolen cattle.
* This trace of a West-Saxon peculiarity seems to favour a belief, that
Herefordshire = "Ffery llwg" was the " Feathan leag" of the second
advance of Ceawlin A.D. 684, instead of the Severn Valley and Cheshire, as
proposed by Dr. Edwin Guest,
99
So much for the two proposed locations, in Damnonia and
Cambria, evidently confined to the choice between these, because
no other was thought of as possible, by those who only looked
to written history for an example of a neighbourship of the two
nationalities sufficient for the conditions of the Code. It is
thought that the survival of a smaller Wales within Dorset,
now brought forward, better satisfies these conditions, whilst it
requires scarcely more indulgence for the philogical difficulty as
to the name "Dunssete." If what Sir F. Palgrave ventured to
say upon most doubtful textual authority, we may be allowed to
do by pure conjecture, fortified by external probabilities ; if we
may introduce a single letter and write "Durnssete," we shall
have before us a document which is not only a confirmation of
what has been said, of the insulated people, from an independent
consideration ; but which itself is unable to be otherwise satis-
factorily accounted for. It must however be at once confessed
that this sort of interpolation of a letter into a proper name is,
in any case whatever, one of extreme danger ; and the conve-
nient flexibility of interpretation imported by this practice, has
already been much abused, and may be again, if too readily
admitted. If the absence of the letter wanted was caused by
an error, the error must have occurred in the prototype of every
existing text, and must have occurred three several times in the
course of the document.
The questions also remain : Who were their neighbours the
" Wentseete"? And what was the " stream" that seems to
have divided the English from the Welsh ? We have, in our
own Dorset- Welsh district proposal, a choice upon both these
questions : but in such matters a choice is an embarrassment
and not a privilege.
Eastward of our Welsh district, is another, in which the
name ingredient of "Wim-" or "Win-" appears. Several
authors, struck with the repetition of the name "Wim-
borne," for places through the whole course of the river Allen,
have reasonably concluded that " Wimbourn " had been the name
of that stream. The present name " Allen " is no doubt a relic
100
of the Ptolemaic name "Alaunus" for the group of rivers
whose outlet is Christchurch harbour, as the Salisbury [Al-]
Avon is another. An English alias, " Wimbourn," must have
prevailed long enough to name these places, but the ancient name
has reasserted itself, The Stour, however, retains its still older
Celtic alias. This district may be rather distant, from our
"Welsh one, for the neighbourship of the Wentssete implied in
the Code : and without other links the hold of relationship of
"Win-" and " Went-" would be somewhat infirm. The Stour
also which divides them is here a considerable " stream."
Another view may be presented by the fight at "Beandun,"
A.D. 614, already noticed. This makes it almost certain that
the invaders had landed at Wareham, and already possessed
themselves of the lower country between our hill-district and
Bindon Hill, through which the Frome runs to Wareham. Was
this district, and the Isle of Purbeck south of it, the land of the
Wentssete which had been already annexed by the West-Saxons
when the Code was enacted ? and was the Frome the stream
which divided them ? This view has also some slightly possible
philological support. The labial convertibility of W and B is
well known, and this would give us "Win-" in "Bindon";
also repeated farther west in the district in the name of " Bin-
combe." What if the slaughter of the Britons at Bindon was a
victory ; and the occasion upon which the Wentssete which had
formerly belonged to the Dunsaete began to " belong to the
West Saxons"? The "great ditch," mentioned by Hutchins,
as "near Pokeswell quarries," and thought by Dr. Guest to have
been a " Belgic ditch," may have been a part of this international
arrangement. It probably extended from the well known ravine*
of Osmington Mill, across the Frome, and perhaps the Piddle ;
and would account for the survival into Saxon Christian times,
of the Celtic St. German's dedication to the west of it. This
*About half-a-mile west of the Osmington outlet, is a fragment of a
fortress, unnoticed in Mr. Warne's Ancient Dorset. The largest part
appears to have gone over the cliff into the sea. The rampart seems to have
been formed of chalk brought from a spot adjoining, but the cliff itself does
pot appear to be chalk.
loi
dyke would correspond with the western boundary of the present
Hundred of Winfrith. May not this name "Winfrith" have
been 'Wentfreotk, or the Liberty of the Wentssete ? It had the
ancient forms, " Winfrode "* " Winfrot " and " Winford."f The
territory of the Wentssete recorded in the Code, as having
formerly belonged to the Durnssete but now to the West-Saxons,
would thus be the entire peninsula, south of the Welsh hill district ;
containing the Hundred of Winfrith, the Liberty of Bindon, and
Purbeck Island. But a part of the low heathy country north of
Wareham itself, and between it and the hill districts might also
be expected to be necessarily occupied by the invaders possessed
of Wareham ; and this seems to be indicated by another dyke,
by all writers hitherto described as one of the Belgic Dykes,
commonly known as " Coombs Ditch," which, extending from the
south-east escarpment of the Milton range to Lytcheat bay in
the Wareham estuary, would be the north-eastern frontier of the
Wentssete. The ditch is described as being on the east of the
dyke.
Looking again at these two suggestions of the actual territory
of the Wentseete, the last seems to be the most acceptable. All
that it requires is ; that the West- Saxon possession of it was the
result of the fight at Bindon, A.D. 614, which is almost self-
evident ; and the small, but important, concession, that the name
" Durnssete" has, at some early time, dropped one of its letters,
On the whole : if the question had depended entirely upon the
correct form of the name being " Durnssete," we should hardly
have been justified in attributing this Code to the district we
have been considering. But the external probability, furnished
by the parallel of the circumstances of the place to which the
Code must have belonged, with this district of Welsh among the
Durnssete, may be thought to be sufficient to identify them. The
question is much narrowed by the certainty that both the Code
and our Welsh district are within the West-Saxon territory ; and
the Code was evidently intended for such a circumscribed locality
as we have, by separate independent inferences, found this to
*Domesday, both Exchequer and Exeter. fTesta de Nevill.
102
have been. At all events, the Code adds to William of Malmes-
bury's traditional record of the Exeter case, the still stronger
testimony of a contemporaneous written monument of the actual
existence of some such a social condition. It is not a national
statute, but of the nature of what we call a " By-law," or a sort
of mere local police regulation for the protection of the property
and rights of individual neighbours. The court of resort is
appointed, in case of need, to be twelve men, six of each
nationality.
What we have here endeavoured to realise, is only a single
example of what may be called ethnical islands; of which
Cornwall and Wales are as the continents. But, besides these,
without doubt, a vast broad and deep social substratum ; extend-
ing backwards for many centuries beyond written history, and
forwards down to our own times, was underlying all the dynastic
conflicts that have disturbed and striated its surface. Some-
times no doubt these have produced great local upheavals : have
altered or mixed it for some depth ; or in some cases actually
denudated it. But invaders would have a barren conquest with-
out taxpayers and subsidists, and tillers of the soil, and even
soldiers. Even now relics of prse-Saxon and pree-Christian
customs, superstitions, and traditions, not to speak of stray parts
of speech, nor again to boast of nobler heritages, remain to
identify the latest metamorphosed outcrop with the earliest for-
mation. The Eomans might have* had some pretext for calling
this people barbarous ; certainly not the Saxons. Why these
Saxons were far greater laggards, even in the acceptance of that
great and obvious movement which was changing the face of
the world before their eyes, than were their predecessors. Wit-
ness the multitude of those dispersed intellectual centres, more
103
lately organised into what we know as the parochial system, that
had already so plentifully taken root among the Celtic people
long before the Teutonic intruders came. And these were cer-
tainly very numerous among them, as may still be seen in Corn-
wall and Wales, where the primaeval dedications of churches
have been almost undisturbed. Besides this, there is nothing to
shew that this wide-spread social groundwork was not imbued,
from extremely remote times, with the political sort of civiliza-
tion before indicated ; nor that culture itself, although a different
thing, has not to a great extent sprung out of it. Literature
and the Arts of Ornament or Magnificence, are the instruments
of an awakened ambition to be known to posterity, and to be
admired by the world ; and have been superimposed or grafted
upon it ; but the broad and unfathomed substratum — the great
storehouse of unexhibited and unhistoried human affections and
cares, and joys and griefs — still lies under. Wells have been
sunk into it, by such as Wordsworth, or Crabbe, or Barnes ;
who have brought it into rivalry with the upper culture itself*
Other springs, unmixed, have risen through it by their own
native energy, as Burns : and one, most abundant, has not only
risen through the superincumbent culture, but has overtopped
and deluged the entire surface of it, and permeated or infiltrated
the whole. To himself, to his friends, and to his neighbours,
though not to us, Shakespear would have been Shakespear if
he had never handled a pen nor seen paper. So also there are
many more saurians latent in unexplored rocks, than what are
to be seen upon the walls of museums.
£y Professor J. BUCKMAN, F.G.S., F.L.S., &c., &c.
|T the meeting of the Club at Weymouth, on July 2nd of
the present year, amongst other plants was observed
the Beta maritima, common Wild Beet, which we then
got up by the roots in order to demonstrate the fact which we were
then proving by experiment that this wild beet is the parent, not
only of different sorts of garden and field beets, but also of the
Mangold Wurtzel of the farm.
This root was shown to have a succulent centre, but was only
about an inch in diameter, and very much forked, whilst the
ascending axis instead of presenting a single upright stem was
branched, and some of the branches trailed upon the ground.
Now as we had some years since instituted a series of experi-
ments upon the ennobling of the Wild beet which we are this
year repeating, and as besides, a friend of ours has been at work
at the same subject, we beg to lay the details of this work before
the club, which we are enabled to do illustrated by a series of
drawings which we were enabled to make from real subjects —
both wild and cultivated — and which have been faithfully
engraven by Mr. Worthington Smith, for the expense of which
We are endebted to a friend who does not wish his name
published.
More than a quarter of a century has passed since we first
commenced a series of experiments in the garden of the Royal
Agricultural College, at Cirencester, on what we then termed the
105
ennobling of plants. These experiments, at the request of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science, were repor-
ted to that Society, the last report having been made at Oxford
in the year 1860.
On this occasion no less than 200 plots were referred to, con-
sisting of the following : —
Agricultural Plants
Medicinal Plants .,
Esculent Vegetables
Grasses (old and new Plots)
Miscellaneous Plants
Plots.
50
30
20
60
40
Total .. .. .. 200
We now refer to three sets of experiments then reported upon
as aiding us in the discussion of the subject of our present paper.
They were —
1 . The production of a new and distinct crop of parsnip from
the cultivation of the Pastinaca sativa. This has been since
known and appreciated under the name of the Student parsnip.
2. The production of sorts of broccoli, cabbages, and greens
from the wild cabbage (Brassica oloracea), gathered from the
rocks overhanging the sea at Llandudno, North Wales. Of this
latter we published a subsequent report in the Agricultural
Gazette for 1861, as we were too late for the meeting of the
British Association at Manchester. Seeds of a distinct sulphur
broccoli and a curly green were subsequently sent to Messrs.
Sutton & Sons, but we believe that the broccoli was not suffici-
ently permanent, but the green is still in cultivation, and has
proved the hardiest kale in the garden during the past trying
season.
3. The mangel reported upon in 1860 and 1861, had
reference to experiments with well-known sorts of mangels, and
also with an attempt to ennoble our wild Beta maritima from
which we quote the following : —
" Plots F. and G. Wild Beet.— I confess the at present forked roots look
but unpromising, but when I go to the kitchen garden and examine the
roots of the -white beet, which is only grown for its leaves, which are used
as a garden vegetable, I see that they are no better. It is only in growing
for roots that you get them of the right form." f
t Agricultural Gazette for October 26, 1861.
106
After the time mentioned, the experiments of which these
formed a part were brought to an abrupt conclusion.
But as regards the proof in the case of mangels, it fortunately
happens that a friend of ours has within the last five years occu-
pied himself with the same set of experiments that the
enlightened authorities of the Eoyal Agricultural College so
ruthlessly brought to a termination some seventeen years since.
Every one knows the Beta maritima, the wild beet, so common
to our seashores ; it is usually figured with a thick fleshy
root; it is so drawn in English Botany, vol. viii., fig.
1184, this being a copy of previous figures. The same figure is
recently copied in Bentham's Illustrated Hand Book of the British
Flora. We mention this because we have never seen truly wild
examples of beet but what have been extremely digitated with
long, fleshy, flexile, forked roots, having but little about it to in-
dicate the fine forms which, by cultivation, the beets and man-
gels as crop plants are made to assume.
But besides this tendency in the wild plant to excessive
f orkiness in the root, it also grows many heads or crowns. If,
therefore, our readers will contrast this state of things with a
refined mangel which is absolutely free from forkiness in the
root, which latter is large, round, and smooth, with a skin as
smooth and delicate as that of a lady, and instead of presenting
us with a divided head, this portion of a well-bred mangel is
reduced to a single bud, the leaveo of which are small and
delicate, and not at all the rough objects we see in the wild plant.
Our woodcut has been executed by Mr. Worthington Smith
from a series of drawings which were made by us from original
specimens, and may serve to represent the progress made in the
formation of mangel wurtzel from wild beet. The drawings are
eight in number, and all of them are about half the size of the
original roots.
The series of figures represent roots respectively of the first
year, of a second year's plant, in which the upper part is approach-
ing the thickness of a bulb, and of the third year, all having
107
Wild Beet. Natural Site.
a tendency to produce many crowns, or bunches of leaves. The
next figures show great advances in size, fleshiness, and bulboid
First Year of Cultivation of Wild Beet. Natural Site.
108
contour ; and the last is rather an example of a desired form to be
ultimately reached. That it will be so we have not the slightest
doubt as, from our own experiments and those of our friend,
we have now not the slightest doubt, as stated by Bentham, that
the Beta maritima, " Not uncommon on the British coasts,
flowering summer and autumn. The white and red beets or
Third Tear of Cultivation. Two-thirds of Natural Size.
109
beetroot of our gardeners and the mangel wurtzel (root of
scarcity) of our agriculturists are cultiY^teci varieties of this
species." j
t Bentham, vol. ii., p. 701.
110
In practice we find yellow, orange, red, white, and mixed beets
and mangels ; and it is curious to mark that the wild seed pro-
duces all these forms, so that it it just a simple matter of selec-
tion as to whether you will grow them all or keep to a single
type. This is no mere matter of speculation, but one of great
practical interest and importance, as by due selection very
different strains may be produced. Again once having develop-
ed a peculiar strain, it can be kept intact by judicious selection,
and it is in this way that the different types of roots met with in
the market are kept so true to the character to which they have
been made to arrive at.
The production of new varieties can thus be brought about, and
when it is seen how much greater crops often pioceed from a
seed new to a soil than from the older kinds, it is a matter of as
great importance to produce new sorts as it may be to keep the
older ones up to their standard of excellence.
Experiments of this kind are of interest, as showing the nature
and origin of different forms, and as indicating the amount of
care and attention required to keep an induced form up to a cer-
tain standard.
Our examples as shown in the cuts have been planted with a
view of carrying on the experiments, and if by attention and care
in selection we are enabled to induce a fresh strain, our exertions
will be well repaid in the experiences gained by the processes, if
not in the practical results, which we hope will prove of consider-
able value.
By J. C. MANSEL-PLEYDELL, Esq., President.
| HE "genus Trigonia was placed by Brongniart among
the Arcada ; also by Lamarck, who subsequently
separated it under a new family, Trigonida, together
with Myophoria and Axinm. It was changed by Sowerby to
Lyrodon, the name being previously occupied by a genus of
plants.
The Trigoniae made their first appearance in the Liassic seas,
and became very numerous during the deposition of the Oolitic
beds, especially in the upper series, when they began to show
symptoms of decline, so much so, that the Cretaceous formation
does not contain a fourth part compared with those of the
previous Jurassic period, At the same time they underwent a
material modification of form, losing their trigonal shape, becom-
ing more inflated and rotund, so as to give them the appearance
of belonging to a separate family. The living Trigoniee (whose
valves are channelled and bear a close affinity to the forms of
the Scabrate section), have only two or three representatives,
and which are restricted to the Australian seas.
The special character of the genus consists in the perfect
symmetry of valves, which are precisely similar except in the parts
occupied by the hinge ; the posterior portion in some species is
prolonged, in others it is square or truncate; the beaks are
112
anteriorly produced, and unlike the rest of the Acephalse
directed forward ; the ligament which attaches the valves to each
other is external with a posterior narrow lunule. The surface of
the test which occupies its anteal portion is usually ornamented
either with ribs, tuburcles, or tuburculated ridges, on a different
plane to its posteal, which is well marked by an obliquely directed
ridge towards the posterior and lower extremity, a smaller area
called the escutcheon is bounded by another ridge, which includes
the ligamental plates, and ligament ; the hinge is complicated,
the teeth of both valves interlock each other, which, together with
its solidity, contributes to th« perfect preservation of the shell in
its fossil state ; detached valves, or even the cast of an half-opened
shell is very rare. The right valve is furnished with two
prominent teeth, of which the posterior is directed backwards,
forming the figure of V with the other, which fits into two deep
sinuses of the left valve. The interior of the shell is smooth and
nacrous, shewing no indication of the external ornamentation
except in some few cases, where the tuburcles are feebly
represented.
Casts which shew the interior of the shell are frequently met
with, but are of little use to the palaeontologist, for they cannot
with any certainty be discriminated from those of allied species.
One of the characteristics of these casts is a deep longitudinal
furrow, the wide gap intervening between the two distant beaks
correspond with the thick massive hinges ; the impression of the
posterior muscular scar is generally present.
Agassiz divided the fossil Trigonise into seven sections, to which
Dr. Lycett in his magnificent monograph on the British Fossij
Trigonise published in the Palaeontographical Society has added
an eighth ; the distinctions are founded upon the shape of the
shell, the ornamentation of the surface, area, and its escutcheon.
Only four of the sections are represented in the Dorsetshire
formations, Clavellatce, Glalrce, Scabr<s, and Costatce.
The surface of the valves of the section Clavellata are orna-
mented with tuburculated costse in concentric or oblique rows
the area is bounded by two tuburculated ridges, the escutcheon is
113
depressed and plain, and is also enclosed by an inner
tuberculated ridge. There- are several species, many of which
prevail in the Middle and Upper Oolites of Great Britain. Eleven
species of this section have been met with in Dorsetshire.
T. Voltzii, Agassiz., Kim. Clay.
T. Pellati, Mun. Chalm., Kim. Clay.
T. incurva, Benett, Kim. Clay.
T. cymla, Contjean, Portland Sand.
T. muricata, Lye, Portland Oolite.
T. clavellata, Sow., Lower Calc. Grit.
T. perlata, Agassiz., Lower Calc. Grit.
T. irregular is, Seebach., Oxford Clay.
T. striata, Muller, Inf. Oolite.
T. formosa, Lye., Inf. Oolite.
T. signata, Agass, Inf. Oolite.
Dr. Lycett excludes T. fironnu, which had hitherto been
accepted as British, on the authority of M. Hebert, who con-
sidered a small fossil from the lower Calcareous Grit-beds of
Weymouth, to be T. Bronnii, but which, after careful examina-
tion, Dr. Lycett decides it to be merely a form of T. clavellata.
The section Undulates differs from the Clavellata in the costee ;
which are undulated and not unfrequently broken into two dis-
tinct series of rows, of which the anteal are the smaller and
more numerous. Some, as T. conjungens, have ridges bearing
tubercles ; the area has a mesial furrow, and the escutcheon is
always plain.
It has two Dorsetshire representatives, T. conjungens and T
literata, both from the Inf. Oolite in the neighbourhood of Brad-
ford Abbas.
The section Glalra differs from the above in the slight differ-
ence of the area from the other portions of the valve, which
although fairly defined, is for the most part destitute of carineo
or only indications of them in the region of the umboiies. The
anteal portion of the valve has the costse moie or less prominent.
Dorsetshire possesses five of the seven British species of this
section.
1-14
T. excentrica, Park., Chi. Sands.
T. gibbosa, Sow., Portland Oolite. •
T. Manseli, Lye., Portland Oolite.
T. Damoniana, De Lor., Portland Oolite.
T. tenuitexta, Lye., Portland Oolite.
The section Scabr<e, as has already been observed, is dis-
tinguished from the rest by its departure from the true trigonal
f orm, and is more orbicular than any of the other sections. It does
not extend beyond the known limits of the Cretaceous beds, and
has three representatives in Dorsetshire, namely :
T. Vicaryana, Lye., Chi. Sands.
T. Meyeri, Lye., Chi. Sands.
T. aliformis, Lye., Chi. Sands.
The section Costata differs from the previous, in the dis-
similarity of the valves, both in shape and ornamentation. The
sides are furnished with elevated plain costse, and the area
separated by two dentated caringe, each valve being divided
longitudinally into two nearly equal portions. There are seven
Dorsetshire species of this section.
T. monilifera, Agassiz., Kim. Clay.
T. Meriam, Agassiz., Calc. Grit.
T. elongata, Sow., Ox. Clay.
T. sculpta, Lye., Inf. Oolite.
T. costata, Sow., Inf. Oolite.
T. tenuicosta, Lycett, Inf. Oolite.
T. letta, Lycett., Inf. Oolite.
Towards the close of the Cretaceous period the whole family
of Trigonia showed symptoms of decline, which reached its termina-
tion in Europe during the Cretaceous age ; not a single species of
Trigonia has been met with in any of the Tertiary beds, but it is
possible some may have been hardy enough to withstand the long
strain of depletion, for there are five living species, all of which
are found in the bay of Sidney and the seas of Australia. T.
Lamarclcii, Gray ; T. margaritacca, Lam. ; T. nolilis, Adams ; T.
Strangei, Adams; T. uniophora, Gray. The last Challenger
expedition also brought to light a new species from these seas.
115
The partial or entire disappearance of whole families which
have only had a limited area may be accounted for, by a change
of climate — a change in the masses of land by depression
or elevation — the formation of desert belts, such as the Sahara
— an alteration in the direction of oceanic currents — or by sub-
marine volcanic disturbance, but is not so easily explained when
we have to deal with families which at one time occupied exten-
sive areas and ranges, like the Trilobita, Brachiopoda, certain
Cephalopoda, such as the Ammonities, and other mollusca — Tri-
gonioe, Pholadomyce — which had gained at one period so firm a
hold as to threaten predominance. At this zenith of their
career the sentence of decline or extermination was irrevocably
passed, and with but fe\v exceptions the records of their existence
are only revealed when their rocky sepulchre are exposed to
view.
It is remarkable that the living members of this family are
only met with in the seas of Australia, a continent where the
marsupial representatives of the Jurassic age also find a home, a
period synchronous with the fullest development of the family
Trigonia.
CLAVELLAT^.
TEIGONIA FORMOSA, Lycett, plate i., fig. 1.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TKIGONLE, Lycctt, Pal. Soc., p. 35, plate v., figa. 4-6.
Geological Journal, Vol. 35, p. 743, 1879.
Shell ovately trigonal depressed ; umbones elevated, pointed,
and recurved, anterior side moderately produced, both it and the
lower border elliptically curved ; superior border lengthened and
concave ; area rather narrow, flattened, with closely arranged,
acute, transverse striations, a faintly marked oblique, mesial
furrow, and bounded by two small densely and minutely dentated
carinse ; the escutcheon is concave, smooth, and lengthened >
the costated portion of the shell has very numerous narrow,
oblique, knotted ridges, which are small at the carina, but
116
increase in size anteally, where they also curve more or less
horizontally, towards the anterior border.
Obs. — T. formosa is a very common form in the Cephalopoda-
bed at Bradford Abbas, and in the Sands below, of the Inferior
Oolite.
TRIGONIA STRIATA, Miller, plate i., fig. 7.
MONO. BEIT. Foss. TEIGONLE, Lycett, Pal. Soc., p. 36, plate 5. figs. 6—8.
Shell sub quadrate, short, moderately convex, umbones small,
erect, and only slightly recurved ; anterior side short, somewhat
truncated, lower border curved elliptically, superior border short,
horizontal, forming a considerable angle with the wide truncated
extremity of the area, which is traversed mesially by an obscure
furrow, the transverse striations are very regular and minute
even to the apex ; the escutcheon is narrow, lengthened and
much depressed, its superior border is considerably raised; the
other portion of the surface has about twenty-two narrow^
obliquely curved, and elevated costse. The most remarkable
features of this species are the short sub-quadrate figure, and
the large size of the area.
Obs. — This Trigonia occurs in the zone of Ammonites Hum-
phriesianus, at Burton Bradstock, and is not found in the northern
extension of the series.
TRIGONIA SIGNATA, Ag.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TEIGONI.®, Lyc.} Pal. Soc., p. 29, pi. ii., figs. 1-3.
Shell ovately elongated, sub-trigonal depressed; umbones
antero-mesial, email, and not prominent nor recurved, but rarely
they are erect and recurved ; the anterior side is moderately pro-
duced and rounded ; both this and the lengthened lower border
are curved elliptically ; superior border straight and lengthened,
and rarely somewhat concave; area wide and flattened, its
posterior extremity is compressed and somewhat truncated,
bounded by two delicate minutely tubereulated carinee, and
117
transversed longitudinally by a mesial furrow ; the escutcheon is
depressed, lengthened, and narrow, its superior border is some-
what raised ; the costated portion of the shell has a numerous
series of about twenty oblique rows of tuberculated costae, of
which the first four or five are slightly curved and sub -tuber-
culated ; the tubercles are small, separate, rounded, regular, and
nearly of equal size.
Obs. — T. signata appears to be limited to the Inferior Oolite ;
Dr. Lycett says, "It appears to be present in Dorsetshire, judg-
ing from the matrix of two specimens which have come under
my notice." He does not, however, give the exact locality.
TJRIGONIA IBKEGULAEIS, Seelach, plate ii., fig. 3.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TBIGONLE, Lye., Pal. Soc., p. 39, plate v., figs. 1, a.b,
2, plate vii., fig. 6.
Damon Geo. of Weymouth, Sup., plate ii., fig. 3, 1880.
Shell ovately trigonal, or oblong ; urnbones antero-mesial,
prominent, and recurved, anterior side -short, moderately convex,
slightly truncated, its lower portion curved, with the lengthened
lower border; the escutcheon is very large and depressed; its length
exceeding half of that of the entire shell, its superior border is
only slightly raised ; the area is narrow, having three tuber-
culated carinae, the inner and median carinae have each a row of
small transverse, nodose varices, rather distantly arranged; the
other portion of the valve has about fourteen rows of slightly
elevated costae, with distinct, conical, pointed, and unequal
tubercles, the first-formed six or seven rows are regular and con-
centric, those which succeed are more or less irregular, both in
their direction and the size and arrangement of the tubercles,
the anteal portion of the rows becoming broken and irregular.
The figure in Mr. Damon's "Supplement" is an extreme
example of that general irregularity of the tubercles which
Seebach has adopted as a name for the species.
Obs. —It is moderately abundant in the Oxford clay, in the.
neighbourhood of Weymouth.
118
TRIGONTA INCURVA, Benett, plate iii., fig. 1.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TEIGONLE, Lye., Pal. Soc., p. 42, plate ix., figs. 2-6.
Damon's Geo. of Weymouth, Sup., pi. vii., fig. 1
(internal mould), 1880.
Shell elongated, curved at the two extremities ; anterior side
convex ; posterior side lengthened, curved and depressed ;
umbones large, elevated, somewhat recurved, and placed near
to the anterior border, which is curved elliptically with the lower
border ; escutcheon concave, lengthened, its superior border
somewhat raised ; area narrow, distinctly, bipartite with three
delicate tuberculated carinse, and irregular transverse plications.
The ornamentation on the sides of the valve varies much in
accordance with the development in the growth of the shell.
Obs. — Trigonia incur va, passes from the Kimmeridge clays to
the Portland Limestones. It occurs at Kimmeridge Bay, and at
Portland ; the moulds are very common, but it rarely happens
that any considerable portion of the test is adherent. Dr.
Lycett's fig. 2 is from a specimen in my collection, from Kim-
meridge Bay, and is now in the National Museum of Practical
Geology, Jermyn Street.
TRIGONTA WOODWARDI, Lye., plate iii., fig. 2.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TEIGONLE, Lye., Pal. Soc., p. 40, plate xvii., fig. 1.
Shell large, ovately trigonal, depressed; umbones elevated,
pointed, recurved, placed at about the anterior third of the
valves ; anterior side produced, its border curved obliquely with
the lower border, which is lengthened, and nearly straight
posteally ; the superior border is nearly straight, sloping down-
wards obliquely, and forms only a slight angle with the posteal
border of the area, which is pointed at the lower extremity ; the
escutcheon is narrow, lengthened and concave, the border
raised; area narrow, its superior or umbonal portion forms a
considerable angle with the costated surface of the shell, of
which the rows of costse are small, widely separated, and nearly
119
straight or oblique ; the tubercles of the rows are numerous
crowded, closely placed and unequal. Length, four-and-a-
quarter inches ; height, three-and-a-quarter inches ; diameter
through the united valve, one inch and three-quarters.
Obs. — This rare shell occurs in the Kimmeridge clay, at
Kimmeridge Bay, where I have found only one specimen, which
I deposited in the Jermyn Street Museum of Practical Geology.
TRIGONTA CLAVELLATA, Sow., plate x., fig. 7.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TEIGONLE, Lye., Pal. Soc., p. 18, plate i., figs. 1-2,
Damon's Geol. of "Weymouth, Sup., plate iv., fig. 2,
1880.
Shell ovately trigonal, moderated elongated, convex ; umbones
large, obtuse and incurved, but rarely recurved ; anterior side
rounded, but not much produced, its lower Jextremity curved
with the lower border; superior border straight, lengthened,
sloping obliquely downward ; escutcheon flattened, its length
is nearly equal to half the length of the marginal carina ;
area narrow, flattened, or slightly convex, transversely and
irregularly plicated, having three carinae of which the mesial
carina consists of a row of delicate small tubercles ; the two
bounding carinse have the tubercles much larger, but depressed,
and closely arranged, those on the lower carina form, lengthened
transverse varices; a well-marked furrow borders upon the
median carina ; the superior half of the area is more depressed
than the other portion. The sides of the valves have the rows
of tuberculated costse, at first oblique, but the later formed few,
became more horizontal. The tubercles in the rows are large,
closely arranged, and unequal both in size and figure. Dr.
Lyeett considers the forms from the Lower Calcareous Grit to
be the types of this species, they have sixteen or seventeen rows
of costse in adult specimens.
Obs. — T. clavellata occurs very abundantly in the Calcareous
Grit at Sandsf oot Castle, and at Eingstead Bay near Weymouth.
120
TRIGONIA VOLTZII, Agass., plate iv., fig. 1.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TmaoNLZB, Lyc.y Pal. Soc., p. 20, plate x., fig8. 1-2.
Damon's Geology of Weymouth, Sup., pi. xv., fig. 2,
1880.
This Kimmeridge Clay fossil lias often been confounded
with T. clavellata. It is larger, however, and considerably more
lengthened ; the umbones are somewhat more elevated, and
attenuated ; the anterior side is short, while the posterior is much
produced ; the test is also unusually thick. The valves have very
little convexity, consequently the surface of the area is more
nearly on the same plane with the other portion of the valve ; the
rows of tuberculated costse upon the other portion of the valve
are invariably less numerous, and more widely separated than in
T. clavellata.
Obs. — This shell is frequently met with in the Kimmeridge
Clays, both at Weymouth and Kimmeridge.
TRIGONIA CYMBA. Contejean, plate iv., fig. 4.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TEIGONLE, Lyc.} Pal. Soc., p. 192, plate xxxviii., fig. 1.
This species is remarkable for the considerable elongation of
the valves posteally, for the extremely slight curvature of the
rows of costse, and which are nearly horizontal ; for their incon-
spicuous tubercles, and lastly for the small development of the
ornamentation of the valves ; the umbones are large, elevated,
and nearly erect ; the anteal portion of the shell has consider-
able convexity ; the posteal and more lengthened portion is
depressed ; area narrow, bounded upon each side by a row of
minute tubercles over the anteal or umbonal half of its length ;
the posteal half of the area has only transverse rugae, which are
not strongly defined, it is also much depressed; the other por-
tion of the shell has rows of clavellated costse about fifteen or
sixteen in number, small, nearly horizortal or coinciding in their
direction with the lines of growth.
121
Obs. — This very rare British, fossil occurs in the Portland
Bands at Gad-cliff, near Kimmeridge Bay; there is no other
record of it in any other British locality. It is not, however,
uncommon on the other side of the Channel. Dr. Lycett's
figure in the Palseontographical is taken from the unique
Dorsetshire specimen, which is now in the National Museum
of Practical Geology. Dr. Lycett says of it, " The minuteness
and delicacy with which the character of the surface has been
preserved leave little cause to regret the absence of the test."
TRIGONIA PELLATI, Ifun. Chal., plate ii., fig. 4.
MONO. BBIT. Foss., TRIGONLZE, Lyc.y Pal. Soc., p. 41. plate vii., 1, 2 a.b.,
plate ii., fig. 1.
Shell oblong, inordinately elongated, the superior border
wide, the inferior depressed, and wedge-shaped; umbones
near to the anteal extremity of the valves, obtuse, much incurved,
and depressed ; anterior side very short, truncated, with con-
siderable convexity, its border curved elliptically with the lower
border, which is very long and straight ; the superior border is
also very long, its border slightly concave, its posteal extremity
forming an obtuse angle with the posteal border of the area and
terminated with a somewhat pointed and much produced
extremity ; the area is long and slightly convex with a well-
marked mesial furrow, bordering a line of minute tubercles, and
bounded by two delicately traced and minutely tuberculated
carinse ; escutcheon flattened, of moderate breadth, but unusually
lengthened. The sides of the valves are very narrow, and have
a few rows of very distinctly arranged oblique tuberculated
cost&e. Three or four of the tubercles nearest the carinse are
larger, rounded, and pointed. This is the most elongated of the
ClavellatoB.
Obs. — T. Pellati occurs frequently in the Lower Beds of the
Kimmeridge Clay series at Kimmeridge Bay. The specimen
figured by Dr. Lycett came from thence ; and is deposited in
the National Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn-street.
122
TRIGOXIA MURICATA, GoUf, plate iv., fig. 1.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TEIOONLS:, Lye., Pal. Soc., p. 50, plate ix., fig-. 1.
The shell of this species has a lengthened oblong form, with
the anterior side very short, and the posterior attenuated ; the
anterior and lower borders are curved elliptically ; the umbones
have but little elevation, but are distinctly recurved; area large and
flattened, or slightly convex posteally, having tuberculated carinse,
the marginals bearing regularly rounded and rather distinctly-
arranged tubercles ; the lateral costse have only a slight
elevation ; they are numerous (about twenty-four), obliquely
curved, and nearly of equal size, the tubercles small, numerous,
regularly, and slightly compressed laterally ; the larger tubercles
occupy the middle and posteal portion of the rows.
Obs. — Several examples of this species have been met with in
the Portland beds of Dorsetshire ; but deprived of their tests'
and do not exhibit the character of the area.
UNDULATJE.
TRIGONIA CONJTJNGENS, Phil.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TEIGONLZB, Lye., Pal. Soc., p. 62, pi. x., figs. 5, 7, 8,
pi. xiii., fig. 6.
Shell ovately oblong, moderately convex mesially, somewha
depressed near to the anterior and posterior borders ; umbones
elevated, obtuse, erect or slightly re-curved,
placed within (or in some specimens upon)
^.he line of the anterior third of the valves
anterior border produced, curved ellipti-
cally with the lower border ; hinge-border
straight, lengthened, sloping obliquely
and terminating posteally in the wide- Trigonia conjungens, Phil
rounded posteal border of the area ; escutcheon large, lengthened,
depressed, excepting its superior border, which is raised ; area
very wide, occupying about one- third of the surface of the valve ; it
is somewhat raised, expanded and flattened posteally ; it has a
123
well-marked mesial oblique furrow, and is traversed transversely
by numerous large plications, which increase in size posteally
and become irregular, prominent, and wrinkled. The costated
portion of the valve has numerous rows of tuberculated costae
the first-formed six or seven rows are very closely arranged,
slightly curved at their two extremities ; those which succeed
form two series ; the anteal being somewhat irregular in their
arrangement, and directed somewhat obliquely downwards to the
middle of the valve, their posteal extremities are united about
the middle of the valve to another less numerous, .and somewhat
larger series of costse ; they approach the carina at a considerable
angle, and the last three or four rows pass perpendicularly down
to the lower border.
Until very recently this species had remained one of the more
obscure and doubtful forms of Trigonia, and had it not been for
its fortunate discovery by Professor Buckman, at Bradford
Abbas, while this memoir was passing through the printer's
hands, " The Proceedings" would not have had the privilege of
being the first to record it as having been met with in the county.
Obs. — T. conjungens occurs in the Cephalopoda-bed of the
Inferior Oolite at Bradford Abbas.
TRIGONIA LITERATA, Young and Bird.
MONO. BEIT. Foss. TBIGONLE, Lyc.^ Pal. Soc., p. 64, plate xiv., figs. 1-4
Shell subovate or ovately oblong, convex; umbones large,
moderately elevated, obtuse, nearly erect, placed within the
anterior third of the valves ; anterior side moderately produced,
its border curved elliptically with the lower border ; superior
border lengthened, nearly straight, sloping obliquely downwards,
and forming posteally nearly a right angle, with the posterior
border of the area ; escutcheon wide and somewhat concave its
superior border moderately raised ; area narrow, slightly convex
with a well-defined mesial furrow. The other portion of the
surface has two distinct series of tuberculated costse, this dis-
tinctness commences at the apices. The anteal series has the
124
rows very numerous, small and extremely irregular ; the rows
are sometimes partially united to the larger posteal series, or
altogether separated from them.
Obs. — A single specimen of this rare shell was found by Pro-
fessor Buckman in the same quarry as T. conjungens. It is prob-
able that the harder beds of Limestone in the Oolite Sands of
the neighbourhood may be found to yield this species.
COSTAT-E.
TRIQONIA COSTATA, Sow., plate i., fig. 3.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TEIGONLE, Lye., Pal. Soc. p. 147, plate xxix., figs 5-10.
Shell sub-trigonal, very convex near the divisional angle of
the valve, and near the apex is rather depressed posteally ; umbo
prominent, pointed, incurved, and somewhat recurved ; anterior
side a little produced, its border truncated; the escutcheon is
flattened and depressed, its breadth with the valves united exceeds
its length ; the area is large and flattened, each portion having
from three to five costellse. The rest of the shell has about
twenty-four large plain costae, all of which originate at the
anterior border.
Obs. — Trigonia costata has a considerable vertical extensioni
ranging from the Inferior Oolite to the Cornbrash. It occurs
frequently at Bradford Abbas and Burton Bradstock, and I have
met with it, in the Cornbrash of Closworth.
TRIGONIA SCTJLPTA, Lye., plate i., fig. 4.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TEIGONLS!, Lye., Pal. Soc., p. 157, plate xxxiv., figs.
1, 2, 2a.
Geological Journal, vol. 35, p. 743-1879.
Shell subovate or ovately oblong, moderately convex, umbones
prominent, pointed, subanterior, and slightly recurved, anterior
side short, its border curved elliptically with the lower border
superior "border straight and lengthened j the escutcheon is also
125
lengthened, flattened and depressed; the area has some con-
vexity, more especially in the right valve ; it is bounded by two
deeply dentated carinse, the inter-carinal costellse are few, large,
and somewhat irregular ; the costse in fully developed specimens
are about twenty-seven, curved obliquely or subconcentric.
Obs. — T. sculpta occurs in the Cephalopoda beds and Sands
below of the Inferior Oolite at Bradford Abbas ; where it is a
rare fossil. It has been met with in the Cornbrash of this
county.
TRIGONTA BELLA, Lye., plate i,, fig. 5.
MONO. BEIT. Foss. TEIGONLS:, Lye., Pal. Soc., p. 162, plate xxxii., figs. 6-8a.
Shell convex mesially, much produced and pointed at its
umbonal extremity, which is only slightly, or sometimes not at
all recurved ; escutcheon narrow, depressed and excavated, so
that no portion of it is seen when a valve is laid horizontally
upon its borders, and viewed from above; its length exceeds
twice its breadth in the united valves; the surface of the
escutcheon has a numerous series of very delicate, diverging,
slightly indented costellse ; the area is divided into two nearly
equal spaces by an unusually large, elevated; and nodose median
carina ; its costellse, eight or nine in number, are very irregularly
knotted or indented ; the right valve has only three or four
larger costellse, and its surface is more elevated, the other por-
tion of the shell has the costse twenty-eight or twenty-nine in
number, moderately elevated, very oblique, and with little
curvature.
Obs. — This well-characterized species of the Costatw section
has been hitherto only found, in the Cephalopoda bed of Brad-
ford Abbas, where it is rarely met with.
TRIGONIA TENUICOSTA, Lye., plate i., fig. 2.
MONO. BEIT. Foss. TEIGONLZE, Lye., Pal. Soc,, p. 160, plate 33, figs. 7-9a.
Shell ovately trigonal, very convex ; umbones elevated, acute,
arched inwards, and recurved ; anterior side very short, its
126
border truncated almost perpendicularly, and slightly exca-
vated beneath the umbones ; inferior border short, curved
elliptic-ally, hinge border sloping obliquely, and forming an
obtuse angle with the syphonal border, which is nearly perpen-
dicular, and equal in length to the hinge-border ; area large,
concave, its surface forming nearly a right angle with the
costated portion of the valve. It is rendered unequally bipartite
by a minute but distinct median carina in each valve; the
escutcheon is wide, heart-shaped, with the valves in contact, and
slightly depressed ; its superior border convex. The other por-
tion of the surface has the costse, about twenty-eight in number,
narrow and elevated, nearly horizontal, curving upwards anteally.
The hinge-processes are large and project considerably.
Obs. — This species has been met with in the Cephalopoda Bed
at Walditch, near Bridport, and at Bradford Abbas, but in
neither locality is it common.
TRIGONIA MONILIFERA, Agass., plate ii., fig. 1.
MONO. BEIT. Foss. TRIQONLE, Lye., Pal. Soc., p. 165, plate xxxi., figs.
1— 2a, 10.
T. MAEGINATA, Dam., Damon's Geol. of Weymouth, Sup. pi. iv., fig. 1,
1880.
Shell ovately trigonal, very convex, both mesially and anteally,
umbones prominent, much incurved, and more or less recurved ;
anterior side moderately produced and rounded, its border
curved elliptically with the lower border, its superior or umbonal
portion slightly excavated, hinge- border concave ; escutcheon
very wide and concave, the surface for the most part delicately
reticulated, having two series of numerous small fine ridges ; the
area is of moderate size, bipartite, somewhat concave and nearly
alike in both the valves, it has a prominent median carina, and
the boundary carinse are large. The rest of the shell has about
twenty-five costae (in adult forms) which are large and somewhat
flattened, the lines of growth are conspicuous and prominent.
. — This species cccurs in the lower beds of the Kimmeridge
127
Clays and in the Calcareous Grits in the neighbourhood of Wey-
mouth, as well as in the red pisolitic iron-rock at Abbotsbury,
where it is invariably deprived of its test and is ill preserved.
TRIGONIA ELONGATA, Sow., plate ii., fig. 2.
MONO. BRIT. Foss., TRIGONLE, Lyc.t Pal. Soo., p. 154, plate xxx., figs. 3,
a, b, 6.
Damon's Geol. of Weymouth, Sup., pi. ii., figs. 1, 2,
1880.
Shell ovately trigonal, short, very convex at the position of
the marginal carina ; umbones elevated, pointed, much arched
inwards, and somewhat recurved ; anterior side short, its border
truncated, lengthened, depressed at the junction of the valves,
its lower portion curved elliptically with the lower border, which
is short and nearly straight ; hinge border very convex and
short, forming a considerable angle with the siphonal border ;
escutcheon raised, convex, and cordate, the breadth of the united
valves equal to three-fourths of its length ; area very large, and
with the escutcheon is equal in size to the other portion of the
valve, which has the costse large, elevated, and only slightly
oblique in their general direction ; in adult forms their num-
ber varies from eighteen to twenty-seven.
Obs. — The typical form of this species occurs abundantly in
the Oxford Clay at the Breakwater, Weymouth. I found the
var. lata — the largest of the elongate group — in the Cornbrash at
Closworth, a locality just outside the borders of the county.
TKIGONIA MERIANI, Agass., plate iv., fig. 2.
MONO. BEIT. Foss. TRIGONLE, Jy0.,Pal. Soc.,p. 167, plate xxxiii, figs, 1—3.
Shell acutely trigonal, very convex ; umbones produced,
pointed, arched inwards and recurved ; anterior side produced,
its border rounded elliptically with the lower border, which is
slightly excavated posteally ; escutcheon comparatively small,
depressed, flattened, with its superior border somewhat raised ;
128
its surface has small closely arranged, delicate, oblique plica-
tions ; area slightly excavated and flattened, rendered distinctly
bipartite by the superior or inner half being more depressed than
the other portion ; it is bounded by two well defined small carinse ;
the marginal carina is elevated, peculiarly narrow in the left
valve and somewhat larger in the other. The sides of the valves
have a very numerous series of costae (forty or more in advanced
growth), they are small and somewhat unequal in size, and
irregular in their direction. The smallness and irregularity of
the costse in so large a species is a feature altogether unique in
the Jurassic Costatce.
Obs. — This large Trigonia has been obtained from the Cal-
careous Grit formation at Weymouth.
TRIQONIA GIBBOSA, Sow., plate v., fig. 1.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TBJGONLE, Lyc.t Pal. Soc., p. 84, plate xviii., figs. 1-6
plate xix., figs. 1 a.b., 2.
Damon's Geology of Weyroouth, Sup., pi. xvi., fig.
5, 1880.
Shell somewhat inflated, subovate, or ovately oblong ; umbones
large, obtuse, elevated, antero-mesial and erect ; anterior and
inferior border elliptically curved, hinge-border concave, its
posteal extremity curved gently with the posteal border of the
area, which is narrow, slightly curved, having a mesial oblique
furrow ; there are no distinct bounding carinse, but near the
umbo the area forms a distinct angle with the more depressed
anti-carinal space ; the escutcheon is of moderate breadth,
smooth and depressed ; the costated portion occupies more than
half the valve; the costse in their prominence, number, and
general aspects possess so much variability that, without the
examination of numerous connecting specimens other species
may possibly be united to it.
Obs. — T. giblosa is limited to the Portland Oolite and Sands.
It is not uncommon at Portland.
129
TRIGONIA TENUITEXTA, Lye., plate v., fig. 4.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TEIQONIJE, Lijc., Pal. Soc., p. 90, plate xx.,figs. 1, la.
Damon's Geology of Weymouth, Sup., plate xvi.,
fig. 3, 1880.
Shell with the general outline of T. Damoniana but less con-
vex ; its most striking peculiarity is the ante-carinal space, which
is nearly absent, there being only a narrow slight depression,
indicating its position ; the knotted costee upon the side of the
valve are remarkable for their minuteness, close arrangement,
and irregularity of undulations, so that they appear partially
confused. Of the specimens figured in his Monograph, I>r
Lycett says, "the escutcheon has a few irregular oblique plica-
tions ; as this is a feature altogether foreign to the Glabrce, and
occurs only in the Quadratce and the Costatce, its occurrence in the
present instance may be regarded as an abnormal or individual
peculiarity.
Obs. — T. tenuitexta is met with in the Limestones of the Isle
of Portland.
TRIQONTA MAN.SELI, Lye., plate v. fig. 2.
MONO. BEIT. Foss. TEIGK>NLE, Lye., Pal. Soc., p. 86, plate xix., figs. 3, 4,
4a> 6- -™
Damon's Geology of Weymouth, Supp., pi. xiv., fig.
4, 1880.
Shell subovate or ovately oblong, inflated mesially, compressed
near its pallia! border ; umbones antero-mesial, prominent, large,
and obtuse, much incurved and nearly erect ; anterior and lower
borders curved elliptically ; hinge-border rather convex, curved
gently with the posteal extremity of the area, and terminating
in an extremity which is somewhat produced and pointed;
escutcheon smooth and concave, having its upper border some-
what raised ; area narrow, convex and raised, divided con-
spicuously by a deep mesial furrow, which has bordering upon
it upon either side, a slightly defined row of small or evanescent
tubercles. The other portion of the surface has a very
numerous and well-marked series of obliquely directed tuber-
130
culated costse, which are different upon the umbones, forming a
densely-arranged linear series, which pass horizontally across the
whole of the valve uninterruptedly. The costse (about twenty-
four in number) are narrow, closely arranged, curved and some-
what attenuated near the pallial border. The arrangement of
the rows is so close that it is sometimes difficult to discover the
real direction of the lines of tubercles. The usual length is
twenty-two lines, height eighteen lines, diameter through the
united valves, fourteen lines and a half.
This fossil passes through all three sections of the Portland
series, not unfrequently occuring in the Limestone, of Portland.
g
TRIGONIA DAMONIANA, Le Lor., plate v., fig 3.
MONO. BEIT. Foss. TRiaoNia:, Lye., Pal. Soc., p. 88, plate xviii., fig. 3., plate
xix, figs. 1, a, b, plate xxi., figs. 2-5.
Damon's Geology of Weymouth, Supp., pi. 7, figs.
2, 3, 1880.
Shell subovate, lengthened obliquely, convex ; umbones large,
erect, very prominently and somewhat pointed, much incurved,
and rendered bipartite by the narrow, deep sulcation produced
by the apical termination of the ante-carinal space ; border of
the valves elliptically rounded excepting the hinge-border,
which is straight, and lengthened, sloping obliquely ; the
anterior face of the valves has a large, rounded, depressed space
or lunule ; the escutcheon is depressed, cordif orm and strongly
marked by the lines of growth; the area is narrow, slightly
elevated or curved, traversed transversely by irregular folds of
growth ; it has a well marked mesial furrow. The costated
portion is divided into three or four zones ; the direction of the
row of cost«) are not conformable with the sulcations ; upon the
anterior face of the valve they are uninterrupted and much
attenuated. Compared with Trigonia giblosa the general form
differs considerably, being shorter transversely, the concentric
sulcations smaller, and the umbones more elevated.
Obs. — Trigonia Damoniana is abundant in the Limestones of the
Isle of Portland.
131
TRIGOXIA EXCENTRICA, Park., plate v., fig. 7.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TEIQONLE, Lye., Pal. Soc., p. 94, plate xx., fisf. 5,
plate xxi., figs. 6, 7, plate xxii., figs. 1, 5, 5a.
Shell inequilateral, subovate, rather depressed and thin in the
very young condition, becoming thick, with a considerable con-
vexity, in an advanced stage. of growth ; umbones pointed, erect ?
little produced, situated about two-fifths the length of the valve
from the anterior border. Anterior side produced, its border
curved elliptically with the lower border ; hinge border nearly
straight, or in some examples slightly concave, sloping obliquely
downwards, lengthened, terminating in a posteal extremity,
which is rounded, but attenuated; area narrow, slightly con-
cave near to the umbo, where the valve forms an oblique angle,
separating the area from the anteal portion, The other portion
of the shell is covered by a series of a very numerous, slightly
elevated, longitudinal or horizontal costee, which are indented
anteally by oblique intersecting lines of growth, they cross the
valve near to the umbo, but disappear over the posteal third of
the surface. The length compared with the height is as ten to
seven. The hinge-teeth diverge widely, the adductor scars are
deeply impressed, especially the anteal adductor.
T. excentrica occurs in the Chloritic Sands of Chardstock.
TBIGONIA MEYEEI, Lye., plate v., fig. 5.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TEIGONI^, Lye., Pal. Soc., p. 125, plate xxiii., fig. 6.
Shell ovately trigonal, very convex anteally, attenuated and
compressed posteally ; umbones large, elevated, pointed, and
much recurved ; anterior side produced, its border rounded and
curved with the lower border, which becomes nearly straight
posteally near to its attenuated extremity ; the area is narrow,
much curved, slightly elevated, separated from the other or
pallial portion of the valve, by a distinct, narrow, divisional
angle or ridge; the anteal portion of the area is traversed
transversely by a numerous series of small, closely arranged,
132
wrinkled costellae, which pass without interruption across the
larger escutcheon. The upper surface of the valve is almost
entirely occupied by a large concave escutcheon, which is con-
spicuously costellated transversely throughout its length; its
breadth exceeds that of the area from which it is separated only
by a faintly elevated ridge. The rest of the valve has a series
of about twenty-six rows of small, closely placed, rounded, and
slightly crenulated costse, all of which originate at the carinal
angle of the valve and pass downwards nearly perpendicularly.
. Obs. — This fossil, together with the other Cretaceous Trigonise,
approaches nearest in form to those of our recent species. It is
met with in the Chloritic Marls of Chardstock
TRIGONIA VICARYANA, Lye., plate v., fig. 6.
MONO. BEIT. Foss., TEIGONIJS, Lye., Pal. Soc., p. 141, plate xxv., figs. 8, 9.
Shell ovately elongated, convex, produced and pointed at the
umbones, depressed posteally ; umbones sub-anterior, elevated,
pointed, and recurved; anterior side short, its border curved
elliptically, with the lower border ; area wide, flattened, its sur-
face, together with the escutcheon, equal to about two-fifths of
the entire valve, and is covered by a very delicate and numerous
series of obliquely curved scabrous costellae, which nearly disappear
in its posteal portion. The escutcheon is of moderate breadth,
separated from the area only by the border of the concave sur-
face, and by two great prominences of the costellse. The rows
of costse, which are very numerous and small, are curved obliquely
downwards.
Obs. — T. Viewryana is also met with in the Chloritic Marls of
Chardstock.
TRIGONIA ALIFORMIS, Park., plate v., fig. 8.
MONO. BEIT. Toss. TBIGONLE, Lye., Pal. Soc., p. 116, plate xxv., figs. 3-6-
Shell sublunate, inflated anteally, produced, attenuated and
depressed posteally, umbones much elevated, antero-mesial,
pointed, much recurved and incurved, anterior side produced ; its
border rounded ; lower border rounded but somewhat excavated
133
posteally, hinge-border lengthened concave, terminating posteally
in a rostrated and attenuated extremity, ligamental aperture
narrow, inter-umbonal ; escutcheon lengthened, deeply concave,
occupying the entire upper surface of the shell, its superior or
inner border is plain and much raised ; its outer border is
elevated and rounded ; the area is very narrow and convex ; it is
rendered bipartite throughout its entire length by a deep groove,
and its superior or umbonal portion has a few small, ridge-like
transverse costellse; the remainder of its length has small,
irregular, transverse, plications. The other portion of the surface
has a numerous series of costee which originate at the border of
the area as narrow crenulated ridges, and diverge in every direc-
tion ; about seven costse nearest to the apex are concentric or
curved obliquely, the next succeeding seven become inflated at
their middle portions, and pass obliquely downwards to the
pallial border. The change from the inflated anteal surface to
the depressed and flattened posteal portion is abrupt, and is a
strong characteristic of the species.
T. aliformis occurs in the Chloritic Sands of Chardstock.
EXCLUDED SPECIES.
TEIGONIA BKONNII, Ag.
MONO. BEIT. FOBS., TRIOONLE, Lye., Pal. Soc.. p. 23, 209, plate iv., fig. 8.
Professor Hebert, in his memoir on certain clavellated Trigonige
of the Oxford Clay and Coral Kag, refers to four British
specimens of T. Bronnii found in the Calcareous Grit of Wey-
mouth, which appeared to coincide with some French examples
of T. Bronnii, a species which has a considerable variability
even when obtained from a single locality, subsequent examina-
tion and comparisons of Weymouth and French specimens con-
vinced him of the fallible character of this single distinctive
feature and of the necessity of merging all such Weymouth
specimens in T. clavellata.
The above descriptions are all taken from Dr. Lycett's Mono-
134
graph on the British Eossil Trigonise, in the Paleeontographical
Society's publications : —
PLATE I.
ftg. Page.
1. Trigonia formosa. Lye., Inferior Oolite 115
2. ,, tenuicosta Lye., ,, ,, 125
3. ,, costata, Sow., „ ,, 124
4. „ sculpta, Lye., „ „ 124
5. „ bella, Lye., „ „ ...., 125
6. ,, striata, Miller, ,, ,, 116
7. ,, clavellata, Sow., Lower Calcareous Grit. .. 119
Dorsetshire
Pl.I
Mary Sufi del.etlith
HanToart imp
PLATE II.
Fig. Page.
1. Trigonia monilifera, Agass., Calcareous Grit 126
2. „ elongata, Sow., Oxford Clay 127
3. „ irregularis, Seelach, Oxford Clay 117
4. „ Pellati, Nun. Chalm., Kimroeridge Clay . . 121
Dorsetshire TruMonas.
P1.II
Mary Suft, del.etliih.
t>LATE III.
• Page.
1 . Trigonia incurva Benett, Kimmeridge Clay 118
2. ,, Woodward!, Lye., Kimmeridge Clay .... 118
Dorsetshire
P1.III.
Mary Suft del. etlUfn.
Hanhaz-t
PLATE IV.
Fig. Page.
1. Trigonia muricata, Gold/., Portland Limestone .... 122
2. ,, Meriani, Agass., Calcareous Grit 127
3. „ Voltzii, Agass., Kinimeridge Clay 120
4. ,, cymba, Contejean, Kimmeridge Clay 120
Dorsetshire Trigionas.
P1.IV.
Haaihsz-t
imp
PLATE V.
Fig. Page .
1. Trigonia gibbosa, Sow., Portland Limestone .,..., 128
2. „ Manseli, Lye., Portland Limestone 129
3. ,, Damoniana, De Lor., Portland Limestone 130
4. ,, tenuitexta, Lye., Portland Limestone .... 129
5. ;, Meyeri, Lye., Chloritic Sands 131
6. ,, Yicaryana, Lye., Chloritic Sands 132
7. „ excentrica, Sow., Chloritic Sands 131
8. ,, aliformis, Park, Chloritic Sands 132
Dorsetshire Trigomae
P1V.
Hary Sufi del.et Hth.
iyirL5_T*L ID3P
JAMES
F.G.S., F.L.S., &c.
IOSSIL GASTEBOPODA are now familiar to the worker
in the Inferior Oolite from the fine specimens of these
usually-called Univalve shells recently obtained from
Bradford Abbas, Half Way House, Coker, and other localities
both in Dorset and Somerset.
Like most of the recent examples of Univalves, the fossil shells
are generally dextral or right handed; but we have now the
pleasure of introducing to the notice of our Field Club a fine
series of sinistral shells of this class.
Both recent and fossil examples of sinistral shells occur, but
they are not common, neither abounding in species nor specimens.
Five doubtful species are introduced from the Inferior Oolite
of Dorset and Somerset, which are cited as follows : —
1. Cirrus Leachi, Sow., M. C., t. 219, f. 3.
„ nodosus, Sow., M. C., t. 219, f. 2-4.
„ intermedius, Buck., see plate, f. 4.
, pyramaidalis, Tawney.
calisto, JfOrlig, Ter., Jur., pi. 332, f. 10.
These specimens, presently to be described, have been figured
as well as their imperfect condition will allow, and we may here
136
mention that the specimen for which I have ventured to propose
the name of Cirrus intermedius, is figured by Sowerby under the
name Cirrus nodosus, with the following remarks : —
Dr. Leach, at present so well known for his extensive researches into
natural history, some years since presented me with this specimen, picked
up near Yeovil. It is a reverse shell, 8 nd seems to have been gregarious ;
two were here crowded together ; there were signs of ammonites in the
mass; It has had apparently a very acuminated spire, seven turns of which
remain, and the space above for as many more, according to the general
proportions."*
I shall presently describe the forms met with, but it will perhaps
be well to first point out their position.
The bed in which these Univalves occur is part of what we
have named the Dorset Cephalopoda bed. It rests upon the
sands at Bradford Abbas, Half Way House, and at East Coker,
near Yeovil. The reversed Univalves are not common to the two
first places, but occur abundantly at Coker with other Univalves.
They are not well preserved at Coker, and hence we are on the
look out for better preserved specimens before definitively deter-
mining the species.
The section of Bradford Abbas (East Hill) quarry.
1 SoU 0 4
}Trigonia Grit of Buck-
man, Geol. of Chelten-
ham.
3 Band of Marl with Astarte Lima and Ter. "|
Morieri 0 31
4 Hard Ironshot Rock with Ammonites Belem-
nites. &c 1 0|
5 Band of Brownish Stone full of Univalves j Cephalopoda be{1 Gry.
1 1 Sffite
8 Bed with Ammonites aalensis " Dew bed " 0 9 j
9 Blue centred Oolite 1 2|
10 Sands — lower freestone system of the Cottes-
wolds J
The specimens then occur in that highly fossiliferous stratum
which has yielded such a rich fauna to the well plied hammers
of our local geologists.
It is, however, at Coker that these reversed shells so greatly
* Sowerby's Mineral Conchology, vol. 2, p. 94,
PLATE.
Fig. Page
1 and 2. Cirrus Leachi 137
1 a ,» „ 137
3 and 3a „ nodosus 137
4 and 4a „ interinedius 1 38
5 ,, pyramid alls 139
6 and 6a „ calisto , 139
131
abound, while they have only been met with sparingly at Half
Way House and Bradford Abbas.
These sinistral examples from Coker are accompanied by a
large series of dextral univalves, which are common at Bradford,
such as species of Amberlya, Pleurotomaria, Turlo, and others,
whilst the bivalves can all be referred to our Dorsetshire
sections.
DESCRIPTION OF SINISTRAL SHELLS.
CIBBTJS LEACHI, Plate of Sinistral Shells, f. 1 and 2.
,, LEACHI, Miller's M.S.S.
Shell conical, longitudinally striated, whorls many, with
several rows of tubercles crossed by numerous small carina ; upper
row of tubercules spinif orm, compressed.*
The lower whorl of this shell, though larger than the spire
whorls, has not that disproportion which occurs in the C. nodosus.
The spire consists of six whorls, in which it diifers from C. inter-
medius, which has as many as nine upper whorls, forming an
acute spire upon only a slightly enlarged lower whorl.
This fossil occurs occasionally at Bradford Abbas, but is some-
what common at Coker, near Yeovil. Sometimes it has long
spiniform tubercles as figured by Sowerby, but we have not met
with a specimen with the spines so pronounced. Fig. la, probably
has the spines a little worn-
CIKETJS NODOSTJS, pi. f 3 and 3a.
Shell conical, acuminated, or discoid with an acuminated
spiral umbo : spire reversed ; whorls many ; with two rows of
longitudinally extended tubercles, crossed by numerous small
carinse.f
This shell has a equat spire of about six whorls proceeding
from a much enlarged outer whorl a character which, when
united with the extended tubercles reaching down the sides from
* See Sowerby's Min. Conch., vol. 3, p. 36.
f Ibid, vol. 3. p. 35.
138
the top to the under part of the base, will readily distinguish
this from all other forms.
This is the most abundant form even at Coker, where a band
of the cephalopoda bed is for the most composed of these sinistral
shells. It is met with at Bradford Abbas, Half Way House,
Dundry, always in the same horizon in both Dorset and Somerset,
but we have never met with any of these sinistral shells in
Gloucestershire.
CIRRUS INTERMEDIUS, Buckman, pi., fig. 4 and 4a.
,, NODOSTJS, Sow. M. C., t. 141, f. 2.
Acutely conical, spire reversed, with two obscure transverse
carinae, upon which are numerous longitudinally extended tuber-
cles ; aperture orbicular.*
In this shell the spire is more symmetrical than in the other
species. The lower whorl is scarcely out of proportion to the
others. Sowerby, in describing this form, says: — " There are
two rows of tubercles on each whorl, formed by the intersection
of transverse and longitudinal ridges, the upper row is largest,
and the other is inconspicuous. The aperture seems from the
cast to have been somewhat plaited."
Dr. Leach some years since presented me with this specimen,
picked up near Yeovil : it is a reverse shell, and seems to have
been gregarious : two were here crowded together : there were
signs of ammonites in the mass. It had apparently a very
acuminated spire, seven turns of which remain, and space above
for as many more, according to the general proportions.!
The acutely spiral form of this shell, so different from the C.
nodosus, f, 3 and 3a, would seem to be sufficient to separate this
from the later named C. nodosus, M. 0., pi. 219, fig. 4. The flat
spire of our figs. 3 and 3b, when compared with the elevated
figs 4 and 4a, sufficiently points out the difference. If then figs.
4 and 4a be not distinct from figs. 3 and 3a, they are more nearly
* Sow., M. C., Vol. 2, p. 94.
t Ibid, Vol. 2, p. 94.
139
allied to f. 1 and la and 2, but they seem to be sufficiently
distinguished in their more elevated symmetric spire and the
smallness of the tubercules when compared with C. Leachi,
ClRRUS PYRAMIDAIvIS, pi., fig. 5.
,, TAWNEY, Proceedings of the Bristol Naturalists Society
new series, vol. 1, part 1, pi. 2, fig. 10, p. 37.
Shell acutely conical, whorls numerous, convex ; a single
slight keel or projecting ledge on the last whorl ; the whorls are
crossed by numerous rounded costae, which are prominent above
the keel, but become obliterated below. The whole surface of the
shell is adorned with a granulation formed by the crossing of
spiral and transverse dotted lines. The umbilicus is surrounded
by faint radiating costee. The base of the last whorl is convex,
and has decussating lines, but the costse do not extend immedi-
ately below the narrow keel ; they reappear however around the
umbilicus.*
Mr. Tawney speaks of three specimens from Dundry as being
in the Bristol Museum. We have a single specimen from Coker^
Any way it is a very rare shell, but we fancy it bears evidence
of there being still more species than we know of.
CIRRUS CALISTO, pi., figs. 6 and 6a. TURBO CALISTO, D"1 Qrligny,
Ter Jur., pi. 332, figs. 9 and 10.
This shell is described by D'Orbigny as follows : —
T. testd conicd, sulumlilicatd ; spird senestrd; anfractibus con-
vexis, angulosis, longitudinaliter costulatis infernd nodosis; aperture
rotundatd.]
We have two portions of this shell, both from Coker ; it ia
evidently very rare, but can readily be distinguished by its
* See Tawney' s Paper before cited.
f D'Orbigny's Tur. Jur. Tome second, p. 345.
140
regular spire of few volutions, and the longitudinal lines at the
base of the shell.
These then are all the forms that have yet been observed in
our interesting oolite bed, but I am not without hope that others
will yield themselves captive under pressure of the hammers of
the Dorset Club.
By Prof . JAMES SUCKMAN, F.G.S., F.L.S., &c.
| HE specimen from which our drawing is taken was
obtained from the Lower Lias Shales of the sea-coast
between Oharmouth and Lyme Regis. It has long
been a classic spot, dear to the geologist as Dr. Buckland had
described some most interesting fossils from Lyme, more
especially of Saurians, Belemnites, and Ammonites.
Since then the fine coast section extending from Bridport to
Charmouth and on to Lyme has yielded some fine fossils to a
host of workers, but to none more liberally than to the Rev.
T. Law Montefiore, of Charmouth, whose house, when visited
by our Field Club in October of last year (1879), was literally
crammed with some of the choicest geological treasures of the
Lias formation, which where descanted upon and explained by
Mr. Montefiore in a manner which showed that he had made a
loving acquaintance with them.
Here were exhibited Saurians from their toothless babyhood
to huge monsters very many feet in length, whilst Fishes,
Crustaceans, and Ammonites were in boundless profusion, and
so perfect in form and outline that no one could doubt but that
they had been alive.
Amongst the treasures so kindly exhibited, and explained at
this memorable meeting were some examples of Belemnites,
142
Cuttles, &c., and it is to the remains of a creature as it were
compounded of the elements of both of these that I now direct
attention.
The plate on the opposite page represents one of these from
near Charmouth, which I had some time previously obtained.
The original is nearly twelve inches in length. It is surmounted
by ten rows of dark black spines, four double rows = 8 are
l£in. long, while two are 2in. (see drawing, f. 1). The hooks
are smooth, and of a dark black colour, some of them are as
much as two lines in length, and all of them being more or
jess curved.
These hooks were doubtless attached to the arms of the animal
which were prehensile organs, probably to enable the creature
to hold on to the saurians and fishes of the period ; woe betide
them, however, if they did not hold on tightly, as the cuttles
formed no inconsiderable portion of the food — especially of the
Ichthyosaurus — as is evidenced from the fact that the Coprolites
or fossilized faeces, and also the injesta of their stomachs are full
of these horny hooks.
It will be seen that these rows of hooks are inclined to one
side, no doubt arising from the contortion of the soft parts
forming the neck.
The next point, we would observe, is that of the dark elevated
mass below (fig. 3), this is the ink-bag, and this consists of a
bag of fossilized sepia — pure Indian ink — so fine in tone that on
being ground down and used as a pigment with water and a
little gum arabic, it makes a sepia picture, compared with which
the modern Indian ink is little better than writing ink.
This ink bag, with its tube, is 3£ inches long, and there can
be no doubt but that this once was the black fluid which the
squids had the power of ejecting when pursued by an enemy,
thus making the water so cloudy that the otherwise compara-
tively defenceless creature made its escape from its formidable
enemy in the ''blackness of darkness."
Below the ink-bag is seen a small pointed projection, £- of an
BET^EMNOTEUTHIS MOTsTTEFTOB.E 1. Biickman.
143
inch, in length; this represents the phraginacone of the true
Belemnite.
Here then we seem to have the remains of a most interesting
creature connecting the Belemnite of the past, a fossil sepiaceous
animal now extinct with the modern Calamary.
A Belemnoteuthis antiquus was figured by Dr. S. P. Wood-
ward from a specimen in the cabinet of Mr. William Cunnington .
this is called £. antiquus, and was obtained from the Oxford
Clay, near Chippenham. Our specimen, however, is from the
Lias, and is, therefore, much older. Mr. Montefiore possesses
some fine remains of this fossil, and on this account, and also in
recognition of his hearty reception, and kindly conveyed infor-
mation to the Club, I have had the pleasure of associating this
species with his name.
The Belemnoteuthis Mbntefiorei may then be characterised as a
fine fossil form derived from the Lower Lias Shales of the
county of Dorset.
PEINTED AT THE "JOUBNAL" OFFICES, SOUTH STBEET, SHEBBOBNF.
ILLUSTEATIYE SETS OF SPECIMENS OF
May be obtained from the KEY. H. H. WOOD, Holwell
Eectory, at the rate of
TWENTY SHILLINGS A HUNDRED.
The list contains at present 160 species, but as this will probably
be soon increased to at least 200, it is not intended to issue
more than 100 species at first.
VOL. 1 & 2 of the PROCEEDINGS of the Club
Can be had for 7/6 each, from the Treasurer, the
REV. H. H. WOOD, Holwell, near Sherborne.
The following Illustrated Pamphlets can be obtained from
PBOFESSOR BUCKMAN, Bradford Abbas, at I/ each, post paid : —
THE AGRICULTURAL CRISIS.
THE MISTLETOE BOUGH.
THE DODDER.
ON UMBELLATE PLANTS.
ON THE ENNOBLING OF BEETS.
ON THE CEPHALOPODA BED AND THE OOLITE
SANDS OF DORSET AND PART OF DEVON.
DA
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