11 



John, at Canterbury, Is separate from any modern fortifica- 

 tion, and is attributed to one of the four British Kings of 

 Kent in the time of Caesar. I must however ask you to bear 

 this in mind, until some not distant period, when I hope 

 to present to your notice a complete and comprehensive plan 

 of the early earthworks of Warwickshire. 



During the five hundred years between the departure of 

 the Romans the only reliable trace of the history of Warwick 

 is on a few coins, none earlier than the 9th century, on which 

 we find the first mention of the name of Waeringawic. This 

 name without having recourse to King Warremund, is 

 admitted to signify the bulwark or rampart of the Wiccii, or 

 the bulwark or rampart of the river bend. It is in this name 

 we get one of the early glimpses of the Wiccii, who occupied 

 a tongue-shaped piece of territory which extended from the 

 Severn to the Watling-street road. Whether this name 

 was the original name of the primitive British tribe 

 occupying the frontier land of Arden, as surmised by 

 Whittaker ; or whether it was a later tribe which had 

 been driven eastward by the people we know as Welsh is 

 an open question. We are, however, brought face to face 

 with a fact that the only reasonable derivation of the name of 

 Warwick is that of a bulwark or fortress, and on referring to 

 the Anglo Saxon Chronicle we find the first recorded bit of 

 history relating to Warwick, and it speaks of the fort here. 



Let us try to realise the condition of Warwickshire in the 

 early part of the tenth century. It had formed nominally 

 part of the Mercian kingdom for some three or four centuries. 

 The broad trackways of the Watling Street and the Fosse 

 were the highways of contending and savage foemen. 

 Warwickshire was the very centre of England and became 

 one battle field. Between Warwick and the Watling Street 



