The progress of Archæological discovery in France, elucidative of the Merovingian period, though always most important and interesting in itself, becomes yet infinitely more so when considered in connection with the advance we also have been able to make in the study of the remains of our own coetaneous Anglo-Saxon epoch. I therefore feel happy in being able to lay a few details on this subject before the Society, chiefly with reference to the Frankish cemetery at Envermeu, now under investigation by the Abbé Cochet in pursuance of his official duties.

Few of the structural works of former years require more patient and careful investigation than those generally attributed to the Celtic People.

It is very remarkable that, while some classical writers have alluded to their religious rites and ceremonies, they scarcely notice the stone structures, and are silent on their sepulchres and modes of burying the dead.

In the summer of the present year, a paragraph appeared in the newspapers stating that some ancient weapons had been discovered at Harnham Hill, in the neighbourhood of Salisbury, in a field in the occupation of William Fawcett, Esq. one of the borough magistrates. The description of these relics was sufficiently accurate to assure me that they were of the Anglo-Saxon period. I immediately wrote to Mr. Fawcett, who most promptly and kindly replied to my inquiries, and promised me the requisite facilities for a proper exploration of the site as soon as the crop which the field then bore should be carried. He further stated, that about eight years ago a carpenter, in digging a hole to receive a gate-post on the south side of the field, had turned up a spear-head and part of a human skull. This circumstance attracted no attention at the time, but in June last a further discovery was made by Robert Wallan, “the drowner,” or person in charge of the water meadows in the occupation of Mr. Fawcett, who, when employed in the field, perceived, about two yards from the gate-post, a spear-head protruding from the ground. This induced him to make further search, and in a short time he discovered the iron umbo of a shield and portions of a skeleton. Subsequently, an iron knife and a buckle were turned up with the remaining portions of the skeleton.

In the progress of some inquiries into the history of the noble church of St. Mary Redcliffe in this city, I have been much struck to find so trifling an amount of information, documentary or otherwise, relating to the commencement, progress, and completion of this magnificent fabric. This paucity of tangible evidence upon the subject induced a close inspection of the building itself, as the only means of eliciting the intelligence desired; and the remarks which follow are the result of a patient investigation of this interesting topic, and the conclusions arrived at after much anxious thought and solicitude.

So little is known respecting the sepulchral usages of the early, or rather the middle Christian period, when Paganism still sought to maintain its deeply-rooted superstitions beneath even the very garb of Christianity, that any authentic notice, however imperfect, will, it may be hoped, prove acceptable and possibly useful. In such a hope I venture to beg the attention of the Society to certain mystic practices of Christian interments of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but chiefly to that of depositing written, or rather engraved, formulæ of absolution in the tomb with the remains of the deceased.

It too often happens, among biographers and genealogists, that erroneous dates and lineages, given by the first writer, are adopted without inquiry by those who follow him. Generations are thus not unfrequently omitted in pedigrees, and members of a family, bearing the same Christian name, become confounded with each other. Puzzling as every one engaged in such investigations must have found this practice in private descents, errors of this description are magnified in importance, when they have reference to persons of note and position; involving as they must do the difficulty of connecting the real parties with the facts that relate to them.

Four or five years ago, whilst making some researches in the State Paper Office relating to the time of Charles I., I met with a short succession of Letters from a person of the name of Nehemiah Wharton, addressed to his then late master and honoured friend Mr. George Willingham, merchant, at the Golden Anchor in St. Swithin's Lane. A few of these Letters, which I then, and some which I have since transcribed, I now lay before your Lordship and our Society. They form a graphic illustration of the historical incidents of Butler's celebrated poem, and detail the more than wretched condition under which our country suffered throughout the confused period of the Great Rebellion, wherever the rival forces came, whether to plunder or to protect the unfortunate inhabitants. Another feature in these Letters is the strange and ceaseless union of outrage with religion. Atrocities of the worst kind were constantly followed by “a famous,” “a worthy,” “a godly,” or “a heavenly sermon,” preached by one or other of the spiritual trumpeters of the time, who inflamed the population. After pillaging Sir Robert Fisher's house, near Coventry, on the next day, the soldiers “kept the Fast and heard two Sermons.” Before the third was ended they had an alarm to march.

The very intimate acquaintance which your Lordship is known to possess with the characters who figured, more or less prominently, during the reign of Charles II. induces me to call your lordship's attention to a MS. list of the court and household of that monarch, as constituted shortly after he came to reside at Bruges, which I met with amongst the muniments preserved in the Hôtel de Ville of that city, and which I feel assured must be of some interest, not only to your Lordship, but to the Society in general.

I Beg to lay before your Lordship and our Society a few short Remarks upon the early history of Lord Lieutenants of Counties, introductory to two sets of Instructions granted to the same nobleman, first in the reign of King Philip and Queen Mary, and, secondly, by Queen Elizabeth, showing a gradual and sensible improvement in the details of the lieutenancies, as carried out by the latter queen.

I terminated my last letter with a notice of the buildings of the town of Saintes. I believe that between that town and Bordeaux there are some interesting village churches, but I was too much pressed for time to be able to visit them, being obliged to take advantage of the steam-boat up the Gironde. I propose this evening to give some account of the buildings of Bordeaux, and some others in the neighbourhood, to which I made an excursion.

In a letter I addressed to you some time ago, which obtained a place in Vol. XXXIV. of the Archæologia, I introduced a note from Sir Walter Raleigh to one of the law advisers of the Crown (most probably the Attorney-General) on the subject of the revocation and re-grant by Queen Elizabeth of the letters patent conceded to her then favourite, authorizing him to issue licences for the retail sale of wines. The note bears date 8th March, 1587–8, and it is the more important, because it corrects a mistake committed by Mr. Fraser Tytler, when he stated in his “Life of Raleigh” that this privilege was conferred as a reward for Raleigh's services in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. The fact appears to be, as I stated, that this renewal of the older and original patent took place before the Spanish Armada ventured to approach our shores.

The village of Mentmore stands about eight miles north-east from Aylesbury, four miles from Leighton Buzzard, and one mile and a half from the Cheddington Station, on the London and North-Western Railway. It is situated on a hill, which rises somewhat abruptly from the Vale of Aylesbury. The hill is of irregular shape, throwing out three spurs; on one of which, stretching to the westward, stands the church, and along another, towards the north-east, is the road to Leighton Buzzard. It is a small rural parish, scarcely known by name till the Baron M. A. de Rothschild established his stag-hounds there. I cannot trace the name beyond Domesday Book. The manor is there stated to have belonged to the fair Edith (Eddeva Pulchra), the wife of King Edward the Confessor, and as then belonging to Earl Hugh. The manor subsequently passed through the families of Bussell, Zouche of Harringworth, Bray, Ligoe, Hamilton (Viscount Limerick), and Harcourt, to the present possessor, the Baron M. A. de Rothschild.

Borough Hill, near Daventry, has by most antiquaries been considered the Station Bennavenna, or Benaventa, of the Itinerary of Antoninus. Bridges and Baker, the historians of Northamptonshire, hare given so full an account of this place, and so satisfactorily decided the question as to the real site of the Station, that I need only record the researches recently made in continuation of the exploration of 1823, and hazard some conjectures as to points not clearly elucidated by former authors, relative to objects of antiquarian interest in connexion with this station.

Les habitants de Chavannes ont conservé une ancienne tradition d'après laquelle les payens sacrifiaient autrefois à leurs dieux sur la Motte du Châtelard, située près du village, au bord d'un précipice accidenté au fond duquel est le torrent du Veyron. Jusq'à ces dernières années, on voyait sur le lieu attribué aux sacrifices une colline artificielle, de la forme d'un mamelon arrondi, haute de 22′ sur 114 de diamêtre à sa base, et entourée de deux fossés, disposes en cercles concentriques, qui mesuraient chacun 35′ d'ouverture sur 10 de profondeur; ces fossés étaient séparés l'un de l'autre par une bande de terrain de 40′ de largeur, légèrement exhaussée au-dessus du sol environnant. Les frères Bettens, voulant rendre à la culture cette partie de leur domaine, ont rejeté dans les fossés la terre du mamelon, en pratiquant sur celui-ci des coupes verticales qui m'ont permis d'examiner avec soin l'intérieur de ce monticule. A la base, l'aire de la colline était couverte d'une couche de eendres et de charbons de 8 à 10″ d'épaisseur, sur laquelle reposait un lit de cailloux roulés et de terre argileuse. Au-dessus, venait un nouveau lit de eendres et de charbons, recouvert de terre, et ces couches alternatives se reproduisaient jusqu'au sommet du mamelon. Il est cependant à remarquer que les lits de eendres et de charbons, disposés en 7 à 8 étages irréguliers, ne présentaient pas tous l'épaisseur et la continuité de la couche inférieure. Les lits supérieurs étaient souvent interrompus et quelquefois sépares par des cavités d'autant plus surprenantes que la terre, qui en formait les parois, n'était soutenue par aucun corps solide (PI. XVII. fig. 1. D.); il est probable qu'une matière décomposable a facilité la formation de ces vides, difficiles du reste à expliquer d'une manière satisfaisante. Les tranchées verticales ont mis à jour la composition des couches, dont la couleur variait du noir au gris et au rouge, suivant qu'il y avait eu sur un point ou sur un autre accumulation de charbons, de cendres ou de terre brûlée. Ces divers foyers étaient separés par des couches de 2′ à 8′ d'épaisseur, d'une terre argileuse extrêmement compacte, tandis que le sommet de la colline était formé d'un lit de terre végétale de 2′ d'épaisseur.

An opportunity having been afforded me of inspecting a collection of old churchwardens' accounts, I have made some extracts from them, which I beg leave to submit to this Society.

The importance of this class of historical evidences has been long universally admitted. Illustrations of manners and customs, information as to prices and comparative values, and interesting facts in history, topography, and biography have been derived from these humble records. The present accounts differ in some respects from those which have been already published, and, although certainly not to be compared in point of interest with one or two of the most important, they will not, I think, be deemed unworthy of consideration.

The narrative of the deposition and murder of King Edward the Second, as delivered by both early chroniclers and recent historians, so far fails to realise the full interest of its subject, that it leaves in obscurity the subsequent history of the chief mover of those fearful events. The ambitious Mortimer expiates his crimes on the scaffold. Isabella, the instigator of sedition against her king, the betrayer of her husband, survives her accomplice; but, from the moment that her career of guilt is arrested, she is no more spoken of. The name which had before been so prominent, and had moved in us such deep and changing interest, disappears at once and entirely from the narrative. It is briefly intimated that the fallen Queen passed the remainder of her days in seclusion, and we can only speculate in what spirit she bore her humiliation and met the reproaches of her conscience in her long retirement; how far her withdrawal from public life was compulsory; and whether, or to what extent, she recovered her influence over the son she had so inhumanly set against his father. After mentioning the execution of Mortimer, Froissart proceeds to tell us that “the King soon after, by the advice of his Council, ordered his mother to be confined in a goodly castle, and gave her plenty of ladies to wait and attend on her, as well as knights and esquires of honour. He made her a handsome allowance to keep and maintain the state she had been used to, but forbade that she should ever go out or shew herself abroad, except at certain times, when any shows were exhibited in the court of the castle. The Queen thus passed her time there meekly, and the King, her son, visited her twice or thrice a year.” All that was added to this account by later historians was, that Castle Rising was the place of her confinement; that after the first two years the strictness of her seclusion was relaxed; that she surrendered her dowry into the King's hands, and received from him, in lieu of it, manors and rents of the yearly value of, at first, 3,000l. and, subsequently, 4,000l.; that she died at Castle Rising, on the 22nd of August, in the year 1358, and was buried in the church of the Grey Friars, within Newgate, in the city of London.

Since I submitted to you the paper which the Society of Antiquaries has done me the honour of printing in the thirty-third volume of the Archæologia, pp. 269-278, I have met with a valuation of another manor, Shifford, in the same parish, anno 1608, in which the “yeard of land” is said to contain “above thirty-five acres by estimation.”

Permission having been kindly afforded the Society to renew their researches in the Low Field at Harnham, the excavations, at their expense, were resumed by me on Tuesday, the 11th of April, and continued for three days.

A portion of the hedge westward of the gate-post, at which my former operations commenced last year, having been removed, we proceeded to dig a trench in that direction, south of and parallel to the first-discovered grave. Amongst a quantity of loose soil was found the iron-spike of the butt-end of a spear, which had probably belonged to the staff of the spear discovered by Robert Wallan, as noticed in my previous communication, and had been turned over unnoticed. Further excavations in this direction showed that the earth had not been moved, and all hope of finding other graves was abandoned.

Notwithstanding the obscurity in which the early history of Britain is enveloped, the antiquary still fondly clings to the hope that some additional light may be cast upon it by the acquisition of monumental evidence. Accident sometimes produces relics which keep alive this hope, and induce a further investigation of the sepulchral mounds which yet abound on our downs and uncultivated land. These however, unlike the grouped tumuli and graves of the Saxon period, offer but few provocatives to explore them. Their frequent large size, their compact construction, the time occupied in a proper investigation of their contents, and their situation frequently in lofty or exposed districts, render this description of barrow-digging at once tedious, irksome, and laborious.