[532] Chron. 894, i. 86-7.
[533] For this event the date in the Chronicle is apparently correct.
[534] See Dümmler, u. s. ii. 349 ff. The foreign Chronicles show clearly that the date is 892, not 893 as in the Saxon Chron.
[535] ‘samworht,’ ‘half-wrought.’ Mr. Macfadyen ingeniously connects this with the passage cited above from Asser, as to the difficulty which Alfred had in getting the fortifications constructed which he had ordered. For the justification of the sketch which follows I must refer to my notes to the Chronicle. The only point on which I have modified my view, is as to the position of Buttington.
[536] It is only in Ethelwerd that Edward’s share in the campaign is mentioned. He would now be a little over twenty, if, as Asser says, Alfred was married in 868, and Edward was his second child, 475 A [19], 485 C [42].
[537] This name also comes from Ethelwerd. Ramsay, Foundations of England, i. 261, sees in this the ancient name of Westminster; and a writer in the Athenaeum for June 15, 1901, takes the same view still more positively, saying that we shall search the Colne in vain for an island called Thorney. I imagine we should search the neighbourhood of Westminster with equally little success; and if the name has become extinct in one locality, why not in the other? possibly because the thorns have become extinct which gave the name. Ethelwerd may be mistaken as to the name, but it is absolutely certain that the island on which the Danes were blockaded was in the Colne: ‘hie flugon ofer Temese, … þa up be Colne on anne iggað. Þa besæt sio fierd hie.’
[538] To this year perhaps better than to any other would apply the very rhetorical description of Hen. Hunt., how messengers poured in upon the king, saying that the Danes were in this, that, and the other quarter, pp. 138, 139.
[539] The Chronicle seems to synchronise the relief of Exeter approximately with the capture of the fort at Benfleet; but Alfred was busied in the west some time longer, while the English forces were blockading Buttington, Chron. i. 87.
[540] The Alfred Jewel, p. 104.
[541] ‘ánstreces,’ literally ‘at a stretch.’