444
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ th s. vn. JUNE s, 1901.
28. Widerigya. This seems to be fixed by
Witheridge Hill in South Oxfordshire, Which
may have been the southern boundary of the
district, or even its centre.
If this interpretation be accepted, we shall have an explanation of two historical facts. St. Birin, in his endeavour to convert the West Saxons, had his see at Dorchester on the Thames, i.e., very conveniently for the Hendrica district, the river serving as a waterway. Then in 648 Kenwalk, on his restoration to the West Saxon kingship, gave Cuthred, his kinsman, 3,000 hides of land by Ashdown, i.e., this very district. A little later (661) Wulfhere of Mercia defeated Ken- walk, and laid the country waste as far as Ashdown. This seems to have been the beginning of the extension of the Mercian boundary to the Thames. If the diocesan boundaries were fixed, as is usually stated, soon after the Synod of Hertford (673), the annexation of Warwickshire and Oxfordshire must have been complete about that time ; and the translation of the relics of St. Birin to Winchester in 686 would be an acknow- ledgment, in deference to "accomplished facts," that the West Saxon bishop had ceased to exercise any authority north and east of the Thames. On the other hand, we find it recorded that so late as 733 Ethelbald, King of the Mercians, " conquered Somerton," in North Oxfordshire. The annexed districts may, of course, have been allowed some self- government, and then they may have aimed at independence. St. Frideswide's father was under-king in Oxford c. 700.
It may be noted that the 3,000 hides given to Cuthred are sometimes called the " third part" of the West Saxon domains. We may exhibit this as follows : Hwinca (proper), 4,000 ; Hendrica (under-kingdom), 3,000 ; Ciltern ssetna, 4,000. That only 11,000 hides should be assigned to Wessex is another proof of early date ; e.g., before the complete conquest of Somerset by Ina.
29 and 30. The East and West Willa were no doubt the people of South Wiltshire and a subdivision of the Ciltern ssetna. A little later we find the diocese arranged so that Winchester had the Hwinca proper Hamp- shire arid Surrey together with the Isle of Wight ; and Sherborne and Ramsbury the Ciltern ssetna and what Mercian conquests had left of Hendrica.
31 to 34. These names need no explanation.
It may be observed in concluding that while the hidage of East Anglia and Kent gives one hide to about seventy statute acres, that of Mercia and Wessex gives one hide to about four hundred statute acres. J. B.
RICHARD ESTCOTT DE LANCESTON.
CLOSE upon six-and-twenty years ago there
appeared in * N. & Q.' (5 th S. iv. 127) a query
from D. C. E., under the heading ' Earls of
Suffolk,' which I do not think has ever been
answered, but which mentioned an incidental
point that I think worthy of revival. The
question related to an old MS. book, which
" appears to end abruptly in Charles I.'s reign,
as if it was compiled at that time," and which
purported to contain
"theArmesof all those w ch came In w th W m the Conqueror and by him Created, and the Armes of all the nobles w ch Every King has mad In his seaverall times."
My own interest in the matter is the added statement that
"a fly-leaf has the name of its once owner written on it as follows :
1 Richard Estcott, De Lanceston ';"
and the suggestion of a doubt whether it was not a modern forgery got up for sale. On the face of it, I do not see why this doubt was raised, for Richard Estcott, of Launceston, and its Parliamentary representative in the early days of Charles I., was a very likely person to have compiled or possessed such a work as is described.
This Richard Estcott was the son of another Richard, of Launceston (who was mayor of that borough more than once), and he matri- culated at Exeter College, Oxford, on 3 July, 1612, at the age of sixteen. Becoming a bar- rister at Lincoln's Inn in 1620, he was elected to Parliament as " Richard Estcott, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn, London," and was one of the members for Newport (the sister borough to Launceston), in January, 1624, having for his colleague Sir John Eliot, who then commenced his active patriotic life. A year later Estcott was again returned to the House of Commons, but this time for Launceston and in company with Beville Grenville, Eliot's personal and political friend, who had previously sat for Cornwall ; and they were re-elected in 1626. From this time he disappears from sight, though Foster in his 'Alumni Oxonienses' says he died about 1641-2. As bearing upon the likelihood of his having compiled or possessed such a document as is noted, two points are to be regarded as significant: one that his uncle John Estcott (who suffered grievously for a free criticism of the Parliament in 1642) was Deputy-Herald for Devon and Cornwall ; the other that, accord- ing to Dugdale, "Rich. Escote, of Lincoln's Inn," possessed one of the cartularies of the dissolved Priory of Launceston. He was there-
