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To Subscribers.

SUBSCRIPTIONS for 1892 are NOW DUE, and the amount, 5s. 6d. if not already paid, should be at once remitted to the Editor, 124, Chancery Lane, London, by means of a Postal Order payable at Chancery Lane. Stamps should not be

sent.

Subscribers are requested to enclose their names and addresses when forwarding their subscriptions. This very necessary precaution has been omitted in more than one instance.

Notices to Correspondents and Subscribers.

CONTRIBUTIONS relating to the district, whether literary or artistic, are invited from all who are interested in Gloucestershire. The Editor will welcome any notes, queries, or replies, and any photographs and sketches relating to the district.

Contributions should, as far as possible, consist of original matter only.

All communications should be accompanied by the name and address of the writer. The signatures of contributors are appended, unless a wish to the contrary may have been expressed.

Correspondents are requested not to make use of any contractions in their transcripts except when such occur in the originals, and to write only on one side of the Names of persons and places should be very distinctly written.

paper.

REVIEWS.-Books, pamphlets, etc., bearing on the district, or subjects connected therewith, sent for review, will receive due attention.

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BINDING. The binder is requested, in arranging the illustrations of Vol. I., to attend to the directions given for his guidance, p. xvi. Bishop John Talbot's Monument "will be found in Part VI., and the " Map of the County of Gloucester" and "Over Bridge" in Part XI.

Special covers for the volumes have not been provided, the matter of binding being left to the taste of each subscriber.

BACK PARTS.-Vol. I. being out of print, copies can be supplied only as they may turn up for sale from time to time, and then only to purchasers of sets. A liberal price will be paid for copies of Vol. I. Vol II., comprising Parts XIII-XXIV., can be procured from the Editor until further notice, price 18s, or by post, 18s. 6d. Vol. III., comprising Parts XXV-XXXVI., price 15s., or by post, 15s. 6d. Vol. IV., comprising Parts XXXVIII-XXVIII., price 15s., or by post, 15s. 6d. If taken together, a set of all the volumes in print will be supplied, carriage paid, for Two Guine.is.

INDEX TO VOLUME IV. In reply to enquiries, the Editor begs to say that the index to Vol. IV. was prepared and printed under the directions of Mr. Blacker's representatives. Copies were sent to all known subscribers, but those who may not have received the index should address-G. A. W. Blacker, Esq., 21, King Square, Bristol. Erratum.-P. 275: in line, 9, read "Lord Edward Somerset."

NEW SUBSCRIBERS.

Oscar Browning, Esq., King's College, Cambridge.
Leland L. Duncan, Esq., Lewisham.

W. I. Turner, Esq., The Steps, Cam, Dursley.

L 3 1893

LIBRARY:

Gloucestershire

Notes and Queries.

The Story of Gloucestershire.

SERIES of articles, entitled "The Story of the English

A Shires," from the pen of the Rev. Canon Creighton,

Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Cambridge, appeared in the Leisure Hour, and the part for February, 1888, contained the article on Gloucestershire. The following paragraphs are extracted from the paper, which is illustrated by Mr. Edward Whymper, with views of Tewkesbury Abbey, Cirencester Church tower, the gateway of Berkeley Castle, and the tomb of Robert, Duke of Normandy, in Gloucester Cathedral::

Few parts of England are more full of interest to one who searches for relics of the past than is the lower valley of the Severn and the downs of the Cotswold range, which make up the county which has Gloucester for its capital. In the earliest times that we can trace, the folks who lived in Britain saw the advantages of this reach of high-lying country, which looked on one side to the valley where flowed the Severn, fast broadening into the sea, and on the other side looked over the rich valley in which the Thames was beginning its course. There the Britons made their settlements, and thither the Romans followed them. When the Romans withdrew, the dwellers in their towns enjoyed greater peace than fell to the lot of the rest of the Britons. But the West Saxons came and conquered in the south till they pressed upward from Wiltshire, 577, and on the

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little hill of Deorham (Dyrham) fought the battle in which the Britons were defeated, and the Severn valley was opened to the new comers. There they settled and took the name of Hwiccas, so that the old Hwiccian land contained the modern shires of Gloucester, Worcester, and the southern part of Warwick. They were too few to remain, and fell before the rising power of the Mercians on the north, and before 650, the land of the Hwiccas formed part of the Mercian kingdom. The land of the Hwiccas long held together in its ecclesiastical organisation, though for its civil organisation, the land which gathered round the town of Gloucester was divided from that which gathered round the town of Worcester. Gloucester could not rank with Worcester in early times, though its importance rapidly increased; and in the reign of Edward the Confessor we find it a place whither the king summoned his wise men to counsel.

Gloucestershire seems to have submitted willingly to William the Conqueror, and Gloucester grew in importance under him and his sons. Its position, commanding the Severn valley, made it a centre for the Norman barons who were engaged in making settlements in South Wales. A castle was built, and Gloucester counted as one of the three places in England where the king held royal state on the great festivals of the Church, wearing his crown at Gloucester on Christmas, and at Winchester and Westminster at Easter and Pentecost. It was at Gloucester that William Rufus was seized with sickness in 1093, and lay at the point of death. Wishing to make amends before he died. for his evil deed in keeping vacant the archbishopric of Canterbury and seizing its revenues, he sent for Anselm, abbot of the Norman monastery of Bec, who was in England on a visit, and named him archbishop. Anselm vainly refused the office. The lords who stood by, seized the old man, forced a pastoral staff into his reluctant hands, and with shouts of joy, bore him off, with tears streaming down his cheeks, to the abbey church, that they might give thanks for having an archbishop.

Gloucestershire was so closely associated with the political life of England that Henry I. conferred upon his natural son, Robert, the earldom of Gloucester. Robert rebuilt the castle of Bristol, and was one of the most powerful of English lords. On Henry I.'s death, Robert espoused the cause of his sister Matilda against Stephen; and, as a consequence, Gloucestershire bore the brunt of the civil war that followed. Milo, the governor of Gloucester Castle, was equally vigorous with Robert in

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