þær on wes moni ȝimston,
thereon was many a gem-stone
al mid golde bigon.
all encircled with gold[13].
The position which I have imagined for the Alfred Jewel would represent the cumulative effect of the two chief and central gems in the Crown of Queen Victoria, namely, the great Sapphire of Charles II and the great Ruby of Edward the Black Prince[14].
[12] Speaking of the archæologists in Oxford fifty years ago, I am not forgetting, indeed I could not forget, John Henry Parker, C.B., the guide and teacher of his time in much antiquarian knowledge of great value to the historian; more especially in whatever concerned ecclesiastical or domestic architecture. He was for many years Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum.
[13] Laȝamon’s Brut, ed. Madden, vol. ii, p. 464.
[14] The English Regalia, by Cyril Davenport, p. 51.