[62]See further, on the condition of the Forest population, chapters [xv.] and [xvi.] When stripping bark and felling timber in the spring, the men can earn considerably more than at other times. The average wages are two shillings a day for ordinary labourers, but all work, which can be, is done by the piece.
[63]In the Rolls of Parliament, vol. i. p. 125, A.D. 1293, 21st Edward I., is an account of a vessel, the All Saints, “de Hethe juxta Novam Forestam,” which, laden with wine from Rochelle, was wrecked and plundered on the Cornish coast.
[64]A little beyond Hythe is a good example of Mr. Kemble’s test (see the Saxons in England, vol. i., Appendix A, p. 481) for recognizing the Ancient Mark. To the north lies Eling, the Mark of the Ealingas, and in regular succession from it come the various hursts, holts, and dens, now to be seen in Ashurst, Buckholt, and Dibden. The last village has a very picturesque church, its roof completely thatched with ivy, disfigured, however, by a wretched spire. In Domesday it possessed a saltern and a fishery, and a wood with pannage for six hogs (sylva de 6 porcis). Two hydes were taken into the Forest. Eling, at the same time, maintained two mills, which paid twenty-five shillings, a fishery and a saltern, both free from tax. The manor was bound, in the time of Edward the Confessor, to find half-a-day’s entertainment (firma) for the King. For a curious extract from its parish register, see [chapter xix.] Staneswood (Staneude), which is more southward, also, according to Domesday, possessed a mill which paid five shillings, and two fisheries worth fifty pence. Farther north lies Redbridge, the Rodbrige of Domesday, which also maintained two mills, rented, however, at fifty shillings. This was the Hreutford and Vadum Arundinis of Bede, where lived Cynibert the Abbot, who, failing in his attempt to save the two sons of Arvald from Ceadwalla, delayed their death till he had converted them to Christianity. (Bede, Hist. Eccl., tom. i., lib. iv., cap. xvi., p. 284, published by the English Historical Society.) All these places, with the exception of Redbridge, were more or less afforested. The district, however, seems to have been by far the most flourishing of any adjoining the New Forest, owing, no doubt, to the immigration which the various creeks invited, and the remains of salterns still show its former prosperity. Next to it came the Valley of the Avon, its mills often rented, in Domesday, by a payment of the eels caught in the river.
[65]Colonel Hammond, Governor of the Isle of Wight, in a letter to the Committee of Derby House, dated from Carisbrook Castle, June 25th, 1648, speaks of “Caushot Castle as a place of great strength.” (Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa, vol. ii., book ix., p. 383.) In the reign of Elizabeth there were stationed here a captain, with a fee of one shilling a day; a subaltern with eightpence; four soldiers and eight gunners with sixpence each; and a porter with eightpence. (Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa, vol. i., book ii., p. 66.) And in 1567, we find the queen ordering “the mountyng of ordinance,” probably to pay attention to Philip, who was expected to pass through “the narrowe seas.” Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 43, Aug. 27, 1567, f. 52.
[66]The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe. Vol. i. p. 24. Florence. Ed. Thorpe. Vol. i. pp. 3, 4.
[67]Compare his edition of The Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 13, with note 1 at p. 4, vol. i., of Florence.
[68]Early English Settlements in Great Britain—The Proceedings of the Archæological Institute, the Salisbury volume, pp. 56-60. It is, of course, not without much consideration that I presume to differ from Dr. Guest; but surely the passages quoted from Bede refer to nearly 200 years after the arrival of Cerdic and his nephews, Stuf and Wihtgar, when their descendants would have been sure to have crossed over, finding the east side far richer than the cold, barren district where the New Forest afterwards stood.
[69]The Early and Middle Ages of England, p. 56, foot-note. I may, perhaps, add, that Camden also placed it at Yarmouth; Carte, at Charmouth, in Dorsetshire; and Milner, at Hengistbury Head. Gibson, with some others, in his edition of The Chronicle (under nominum locorum explicatio, pp. 19, 20), alone seems to have fixed on this spot. Lappenburg, however, says that the site is no longer known. England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings. Ed. Thorpe, p. 107.
[70]In a letter of Southampton’s to Cromwell, 17th September, 1539 (State Papers, vol. i. p. 617), it is called Calsherdes; whilst in another letter of his, also to Cromwell (Ellis’s Letters, second series; vol. ii. p. 87), he writes Calshorispoynte. Leland, in his Itinerary (Ed. Hearne, second edition, vol. iii., p. 94, f. 78), speaks of both “Cauldshore” and “Caldshore Castelle;” and again (p. 93, f. 77), calls it Cawshot, as it is also spelt in Baptista Boazio’s Map of the Isle of Wight, 1591; whilst in the State papers of Elizabeth we find Calshord. (Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 43, f. 52. Aug. 27th, 1567.) I give these examples to show the number of variations through which the name has passed. No form is too grotesque for a corruption to assume. How names become corrupted, let me give an instance in the word Hagthorneslad (from the Old-English “hagaþorn;” a hawthorn), as it is written in the perambulation of the Forest in the twenty-ninth year of Edward I., which in Charles II.’s time is spelt Haythorneslade, thus losing its whole significance, although to this day the word “hag” is used in the Forest for a “haw,” or “berry.”
[71]The simple termination “ore”—“ora,” and not “oar,” as spelt in the Ordnance Map, may be found within a stone’s-throw of Calshot, in Ore Creek.