potentissimi regis Caroli II. Deus O. M.
per quem reges regnant hic crescere
voluit, tam in perpetuam rei tantæ memoriam,
quam specimen firmæ in reges
fidei, muro cinctam posteris commendant
Basilius & Jana Fitzherbert.
Quercus amica Jovi.
Entering Staffordshire, we went along the Watling-street by Stretton and Water-Eaton: where a brook crosses the road was the Pennocrucium.Pennocrucium of the Romans, as mentioned in the Itinerary of Antoninus. A little way off is Penkridge, which no doubt retains somewhat of the ancient name.
Litchfield.
Litchfield is a city neat enough. The cathedral is a very handsome pile, with numerous statues in niches at the front, which appears very majestic half a mile off, there being two high spires, and another higher in the middle of the cross. The rebels intirely ruined all the ornament of the inside, with the brass inscriptions, tombs, &c. and were going to pull down the whole fabric for sale. It is built in the middle of a bog for security, and held out some fierce attacks for king Charles I. This was made a metropolitical see by the potent king Offa. St. Ceadda lived an eremitical life here by the spring near Stow church. This town arose from the ruin of the Roman Etocetum.Etocetum, a mile off, where the Rickning and Watling streets cross, now called Chesterfield wall, from some reliques of its fortifications: it stands high: the Rickning street is very visible southward, passing within a mile of Fotherby, and so to a park in Sutton Colfield, Warwickshire; thence to Bromicham. Castle hill, two miles hence above Stone hall, is a camp, the port eastward. A mile and half from Wall is West-wall, a camp; and Knaves-castle, near the Watling-street, probably a guard upon the road: it is a circle of twenty yards diameter, with a square in the middle, three or four yards broad, with a breast-work about it: the whole is inclosed with three ditches: it stands in a large common. This Rickning is all along called by Dr. Plot Icknilway, but injuriously, and tends only to the confusion of things; I suppose, to favour his Iceni in this country; which notion is but chimerical. We passed through Tamworth, pleasantly situated in a plain watered by the river Tame, which divides it into two counties: it was the residence of the Mercian kings, and has been secured by a vallum and ditch quite round. Here died the noble lady Elfleda, daughter of king Alfred, queen of the Mercian kingdom, anno 919. This town, by William the Conqueror, was given to the Marmyons, who built the castle here, hereditary champions to the kings of England; from whom that office descended to the Dymokes of Lincolnshire. We went through Bosworth over the field where Henry VII. won the kingdom by a bold and well-timed battle.