The East Riding and Bcozvulf 325 



ment, without expressing his own opinion. In any case, the tomb, 

 with its Latin inscription, was well known in the time of Leland, 

 who died in the year of the poet Spenser's birth. Leland remarks 

 in his Collectanea (ed. Hearne, 1720, 4. 34) of Little Driffield: 

 'Habet enim ecclesiolam, sed celebrem monumento cujusdam 

 Saxoni regis cum inscriptione Latina. Adjacet et Drifeldae ager 

 cognomento Danicus, multis interfectorum tumulis spectabilis. 

 Famaque vulgaris est, belli alea regem in illo occubuisse agro, 

 saeviente per ilia tempora tyrannide Danica.' Elsewhere he says 

 (3. 296) : 'Alf redus, rex Northimbrorum, periit Drifeldse, cujus ibi 

 sepulchrum etiam nunc extat.' The tomb was still shown in the 

 time of Smith, the editor of Bede's Ecclesiastical History, who 

 died in 1715, for he says in his edition (p. 175, note 4) : 'Hie apud 

 Driffeld in Orientali parte agri Eboracensis sepultus est, ibique 

 monumentum ejus hodie ostenditur.' In Camden's Britannia 

 (1600) there is a statement to a similar effect (p. 635) : *Drif- 

 feild, . . . Alfredi eruditissimi Nordanhumbrorum Regis monu- 

 mento . . . notum.' 



From all this it appears to follow (i) that Aldfrith not only 

 died at Driffield, but was buried there; (2) that he received his 

 mortal wound in battle; (3) that his tomb, with a Latin inscrip- 

 tion, was to be seen at Little Driffield from before the middle of 

 the i6th century till 1715, or for 165 years; (4) that in Leland's 

 time the monument was already famous, and therefore probably 

 not of recent erection; (5) that it would be difficult to suggest a 

 probable date for the tomb and its inscription after the early part 

 of the eighth century. Startling as such a conclusion may appear, 

 it would follow that Benjamin Franklin might, when he visited 

 England in 1724, have seen the only existing ancient memorial 

 erected to a pre-Alf redian English king, erected at the place where 

 he died.^ Indeed it seems likely that the tomb was not removed 

 or destroyed before 1808, when, according to Murray's Guide, the 

 chapel was partly rebuilt, so that it is barely possible that the 

 inscription might even yet be recovered. This memorial implies 

 such a veneration for Aldfrith, both in his own and subsequent 

 times, as is indeed remarkable, considering the still unsettled con- 

 dition of England at the time of his death, and the vicissitudes 

 through which it has since passed. 



^ Unless one is tempted to make an exception in favor of the mortuary 

 chests in Winchester Cathedral. 



