In turning my attention lately to some parts of our Anglo-Saxon history, I was struck by the obscurity attending the nature and extent of the authority pertaining to those shadowy sovereigns, called by the Saxon chronicler Bretwaldas; a name which writers of the 19th century have usually adopted to distinguish them. “Whether,” says Turner, “this was a mere title assumed by Hengist, and afterwards by Ella, and continued by the most successful Anglo-Saxon prince of his day, or conceded in any national council of all the Anglo-Saxons, or ambitiously assumed by the Saxon King that most felt and pressed his temporary power; whether it was in imitation of the British unbenneath, or a continuation of the Saxon custom of electing a war cyning, cannot now be ascertained.”—Vol. i. p. 331 (1828.)

Among the various subjects of inquiry suggested by the numerous Greek Vases recently discovered in Etruria, there is one that has been little pursued, although it appears to me to be replete with interest. It is true that the duc de Luynes, in the able description of one vase belonging to himself, has set the example, but it has been but little followed. The inquiry to which I allude is the significance of the various objects depicted on the shields of divinities and heroes, and the degree in which they may serve to identify the personages that bear them.

It will be readily admitted that few objects of archæological research are better deserving of our attention than those which illustrate the jurisprudential system of our ancestors, and the history of our venerable laws.

A most extraordinary feature of the judicial code of ancient times was the practice of the Ordeal Trials, in which the solemnities of religion were united with the administration of secular justice, and a mode of divination resorted to for the discovery of hidden truth; and since those modes of trial were for many ages a part of English law and usage in the trial of criminal causes, though now (perhaps happily) they are matter of history alone, the author proposes in the present discourse to put together as concisely as he can the information and examples he has collected in elucidation of the origin and practice of the Ordeal Trials, and to invite references to any judicial records which may further illustrate the subject.

In the general confusion of the Middle Ages, one class of the people, the burghers or inhabitants of cities and fortified towns, alone succeeded in preserving something approaching to real independence. This independence was not, as it has become a sort of maxim in law to believe, a boon granted from the Crown by the Norman monarchs, but it was a right arising out of uninterrupted possession from a period of remote antiquity. It is by a comparison with what happened on the continent of Europe that we can best understand the manner in which such independence was preserved in our own island. An eminent French antiquary, M. Raynouard, has clearly proved that the Roman municipia (or civic corporations) in Gaul survived the invasions of tlie Barbarians, and he has traced them through various modifications in name and form, though they remained the same in spirit, under the different races of the Frankish monarchs. The more extensive researches which have since been made, under the directions of MM. Guizot and Augustin Thierry, fully confirm the opinions of Raynouard on this subject. There can be little doubt that this was equally the case in Britain, where the circumstances were precisely the same. When the Barbarians began to settle in the Roman provinces, the fortified towns, often obstinately defended, opposed the greatest difficulty to the invaders.

I beg to submit through you to the Society of Antiquaries, drawings, from actual admeasurement, by Mr. C. W. Edmonds, of that interesting monument of the Celtic period, popularly known as “Wayland Smith's Cave,” (PI. XVII.) situated at Ashbury, in the county of Berks.

At a period when Antiquarian researches are prosecuted with so much zeal and vigour, anything that may assist our knowledge of the manners and customs of the early races in Britain cannot but prove interesting. We are, it is to be hoped, no longer in danger of seeing the most curious remains of antiquity gradually perishing under the united assaults of ignorance and cupidity.

The interest which, at the last meeting of your Society, you appeared to take in the traditions connected with the cromlech known as that of Wayland Smith, described in the paper by Mr. Akerman, has encouraged me to offer a few remarks on the subject, which, though not possessing much novelty, have not hitherto been, I think, laid before English readers in a connected form. As Mr. Akerman has observed, the Antiquaries of former days have treated with too much contempt the local legends connected with the monuments of our early forefathers; and through their neglect we have lost irretrievably a large portion of the valuable materials which connected the popular belief of our peasantry hardly a hundred years ago with the mythology of our forefathers at a remote period, when it differed comparatively little from the other branches of the same primeval stock which are now so widely separated. During a century these materials, the popular legends and traditions of the peasantry have been rapidly disappearing before the march of modern improvements; and I would earnestly impress upon the members of this Society the utility of collecting and preserving as many of them as still exist.

Herbert, in his edition of Ames's Typographical Antiquities, at the end of the Account of the Books printed by Machlinia, the contemporary of Caxton, says,

“A Chronicle of England,

“Partly written, and partly printed, on paper and vellum; was in the possession of the late John Anstis, Esq., Garter. It is a miscellaneous piece, and has printed in it, First, ‘The promise of Matrimonie.’ Second, ‘The Lettre annuelle port.’ Third, ‘The obligation of Nisi.’ Fourth, ‘Tharticles of the Convencion, bitwene the Frensshe King and the Duke of Austrice, late called due of Burgoine.’ Quarto.” Dr. Dibdin, in the later unfinished edition of Ames, copies this paragraph: adding that he was not able to enlarge the account.

In the paper which I had the honour of communicating to the Society of Antiquaries last year on the Origin and History of the Badge of Edward Prince of Wales, I stated that there was no contemporary authority for the popular idea that the Ostrich Feathers were derived from the Crest of the King of Bohemia who was slain at Crecy, and that it could not be traced to any earlier writer than Camden.

An accident, which in historical and antiquarian investigations often supplies information, when all the obvious and direct sources of knowledge have been exhausted, has just shewn me that I was mistaken, and I lose no time in submitting to the Society what I have discovered on the subject.

The history of Britain, during the latter years of its existence as a Roman province, is that of a series of rebellious usurpations in opposition or rivalry to the wearer of the imperial purple at Rome; and the manner in which these usurpations were carried on proves not only how the Romano-British population of this island had become essentially Roman in its character, but that the imperial power was fast drawing towards an end. About the middle of the fifth century, as the communications with Rome were cut off by the inroads and conquests of the barbarians in the other provinces, another race, of whom we are in the habit of speaking collectively as the Saxons, who had certainly been settled on the eastern coasts of Britain for years, and who had joined in supporting the Romano-British usurpers, began to contend for mastery in the island. In the dim cloud that envelopes the subsequent history, we can just trace the faint outlines of civil contention, until in the course of the latter half of the fifth century the different tribes of Germanic invaders had established their power over the greater part of what is now called England.

During the autumn of 1845 I employed workmen to trench some ground at Chesterford, called the “Borough Field,” a great part of which had been previously dug by the parish for gravel, and produced a great variety of Roman remains. The remainder, however, to the extent of half an acre, never having been disturbed, gave good promise of a successful search, which was afterwards amply fulfilled.

In the paper which was recently communicated by the Honourable R. C. Neville, through me, to the Society, mention was made of some British coins. Casts have since been forwarded to me by Mr. Neville, viz.—

Situated at the distance of a mile and a half from Royston, two miles from Melbourne, and three from Barkway, these barrows give a name to the locality,

“Campus ab illis

Dicitur, æternumque tenet per sæcula nomen,”

the spot where they stand being called “Five Hill Field.” On an eminence, they form a conspicuous feature throughout the surrounding country, as yet only partially inclosed, and command an extensive view over the adjacent flat. Their exalted position would seem to favour the opinion of Professor Henslow, that they were originally intended for beacons: those however that have come under my notice are by no means to be included in such a classification, as, of the nine I examined, eight were decidedly of a funereal character, and one in the same neighbourhood equally so. Commencing with the tallest of the group, its shape, nearly oval, was longer than appeared altogether proportionate to its circular form, which cannot be better described than by a reference to “Fosbrooke's Antiquities,” whose account of the “Long Barrow” and its contents coincides most remarkably with the one now under consideration.

There are many obscure nooks and corners in the wide field of antiquarian research, which must be carefully explored, if we would make ourselves thoroughly acquainted with the history, or the literature and science, or the archæology of the Middle Ages. We shall find facts in the history of science and art among the heavy folios of the scholastic writers, which seem at first sight to forbid all attempt at perusal. Historical events are often cleared up from what has been looked upon as the refuse of manuscript collections, and hardly to be distinguished from the dust in which it has so long lain buried. Manners and customs of private life receive the most interesting illustration from the bills of butlers and cooks, from the parish register, or from the local court book.

The following particulars regarding the illustrious house of Castillion, formerly seated at Benham Valance in this county, may I think be interesting to the historical section of our association. They were kindly furnished to me by the Rev. Mr. Randolph, grandson of Bishop Randolph, and a lineal descendant from the Castillions of Benham Valance.

This little memoir contains numerous comments upon the state of certain points and places where it was supposed the Spaniards might be able to land: the proper dispositions for combating with them: the order of fighting with the enemy if he should land: and the proportion of men to be provided for that purpose, more especially as regarded the border toward Scotland. There are various other points also proposed to be considered, which will be best understood in the detail.

In the course of the researches which have been instituted at home and abroad into the history of an invention which has had in various ways most extensive influences on the state of society, and in particular on its application to the art of war, reference has been often made to a passage in an old Italian historian, John Villani, in which it is stated that instruments, which can only have been cannon in the ordinary sense of the word, were used by King Edward the Third at the Battle of Cressy. It has not been discovered that the statement receives any support from any of our own historians; and the utmost of the corroboration which it has received from the testimony of our Records amounts only to this, that persons named gunnarii occur in an account of the Expenses of the Siege of Calais, which ensued immediately on the Battle of Cressy.