That at Bath, however, has a special claim to our attention; having been in that same suburb outside the north gate, where also was found the St. Werburgh, within the fork of the Foss-way and that now called Via Julia. Here then, as already in the Hoo of Kent, we once more find a St. Werburgh and a St. Helen in immediate companionship. The seal of Æthelbald endorsed by that of Offa, the inheritor of his policy.[98] But what is the significance of these emblems of Mercian territory, being both found outside the Roman walled town on the north side? Did this suburb become specially a Mercian quarter? The monastery, of which Offa was a reputed founder or re-founder about this very time, must have been a chief occupant of the area within the walls; and its possessions extended, in the opposite direction, beyond the river, on the Wessex side. We have already seen[99] signs of Æthelbald’s further south-west progress along the Foss-way as far as into East Devon.
Besides this line of St. Helens, along the frontier, which was the result of the campaign recorded in the Chronicle, under A.D. 777; there are still three outlying southward, along the south coast: the extreme natural limit of the Saxon nations. Although not recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, an earlier excursion of Offa is mentioned by others. A.D. 771, Simeon of Durham[100] says “His diebus Offa, rex Merciorum, Hestingorum gentem armis subegerat.” Dr. Lappenberg, in relating this feat of Offa’s, calls “the Hestingas, a people whose locality, like that of so many others among the Saxons, is not known with certainty. They have been sought for about Hastings in Sussex, and most probably inhabited the district around that town to which they gave their name.”[101] Roger of Wendover, however, reads “Anglorum gentem.”[102] Upon this, Sir F. Palgrave had already noted: “It is not easy to ascertain what people are meant. The name has inclined many writers to suppose that they were the inhabitants of Hastings, but they could scarcely be of sufficient importance. Perhaps we should read East Anglorum.”[103] Other recent historians, with or without hesitation, adopt the present town of Hastings as the scene of the conquest.
Here then we have another fully ripe historic doubt; so evenly balanced in the judgments of the most specifically learned, that after what has already been shewn, of the local coincidences of dedications of St. Helen with the feats of Offa; if the like should be found also to apply to the one here recorded, would be sufficient to give a considerable bias to the scale. And this is what we do find.
About a mile north of the town, which still bears a name that has since acquired other claims to places in history, Hastings; is a village called Ore; of which the church has another of our southern outlying dedications of St. Helen. If Offa’s conquest, as recorded by Simeon of Durham, refers to Sussex, it needs only to say so much, in order to account for this one; and to fulfil the promise of our theory; that the name of this saint and the written witnesses of Offa’s progress, shall be found to mutually confirm each other as evidence of his active presence. This village is situated on an elevation commanding the town itself; and on the southern edge of a ridge, along which, and close to the village, runs one of those great roads, of which the straight line is significant of a long, ancient, and arterial use. In fact it must have been always the almost sole approach to the town, whether from Kent or from the centre of England. Moreover, at whatever point of the neighbouring beach, at a later time, William landed; this road must have been his principal means of reaching Battle. Here, therefore, upon the door itself of the town, still remains the usual seal of Offa’s conquests. Sir Francis Palgrave’s objection, of the insufficient importance of the Gens Hestingorum, would not, it is thought, have been raised, if he had remembered that the large territory, called the “Rap de Hastings” of Domesday, and the Rape of Hastings of our own time, most likely had already existed from the first settlement of the South Saxons. Two or three years later, Offa is still found busy in that part of Kent which adjoins this most eastern of the Rapes of Sussex.
But although the Hæstingas only are mentioned, as the people first encountered, there are other evidences that he extended his conquests westward throughout Sussex. One of his St. Helens remains on the foot of the South Downs, between the peninsulated stronghold called The Devil’s Dike and the sea; and, within actual eyeshot, is another, on the opposite eastern coast of the Isle of Wight. Moreover he has, as was his practice in many parts of England, also left his own name along the line, in Offham, near Lewes, Offington, near Worthing, Offham, close to Arundel Park.
There are also one or two St. Helens or Elens, both in Cornwall and Wales: which would be in accordance with what otherwise has been said above, but as several local Celtic saints have names liable to become more familiar by corruption into this one, they will not be here called into evidence.
For the series of synods of which the acts are dated from Cloveshoe did not cease with the reign of Æthelbald. These, interspersed with occasional dates of Cealchythe and Aclea, continued throughout the other long and dominant Mercian reign of his successor Offa. Indeed they continued as long as Mercia remained supreme, and far into the ninth century: the date of “Clofeshoe” being last met with for a synod under Beornuulf, A.D. 825: about the time when both Kent and Essex are found to have been annexed by Wessex.
It may seem difficult to realise that what is a small detached region—almost practically an island—now containing only four or five villages or decayed towns; was, for about a century and a half, the seat of one of the royal residences, where a succession of powerful kings held so many of their courts to which were convened the magnates of their own and of subject kingdoms. The truth is, that political centrality is not coincident with geographical; and is only partially dependent upon natural aspect or condition. London is very far from a geographical centre; and, if we could bring into view its original natural aspect; London, with its marshes would be as incredible as the place here concerned. Its present greatness is the outgrowth of the later supremacy of Wessex; and London was as much an outpost of Saxony into Mercia, as the Hoo had been of Anglia into Centland.
Those who expect a confirmation of this regal occupation of the Hoo, from substantial remains there, may remember that a thousand years of desertion have passed over it. As Fuller said, when writing of this controversy about Cloveshoe, already warm in his day:[104] “Nor doth the modern Meanness of the Place make anything against it; it might be a Gallant in that Age, which is a Beggar now-a-dayes.” Geographical and natural conditions have much to do with the choice and permanence of the seats of governments; but political needs and fortunes often over-rule or reverse them. The rise of Wessex turned the preference to other centres; and the exposure of this peninsula to the ravages of the Danes, just then becoming active, is sufficient to have brought desolation upon it. The site of New York seems very much like this; but its growth was not prevented by such a constant peril as this last in its front, nor by the ascendancy of a rival power in its rear. It is political causes that have surrounded the circular mound at Windsor with the regal associations, which have forsaken that of Tamworth; and the same political causes have covered with houses and palaces, not only the elevated spot upon which London was first planted, but the many miles of swamp that encompassed it. When cities, or settlements upon elevations, take to growing great, they no longer despise the alluvial levels which skirt them; but cover even these with buildings. This is the case with London itself, where even the supreme Aula Regia of the Saxon empire, that has inherited the “England” of Æthelbald and Offa; stands upon a similar alluvial appendage of the higher ground of the original settlement; to that which, projecting from the chalky heights of the Hoo, has been declared to be inconsistent with its history.