12 



Road, a distance varying from seventeen to twenty-one 

 miles, I can point to four, if not more, battle fields on which 

 Saxon weapons of war have been found, or the signs of 

 ravaged villages. There are mounds which may point to 

 other scenes of slaughter, but whose true character is as yet 

 unascertained. For ninety years the Danes had ravaged the 

 land ; but in 878 Guthrum and his Danes were assigned by 

 Alfred the territory lying east of the Thames, the Lea, the 

 Ouse, and Watling Street as far north as the Humber. Alfred 

 died in 901, and his daughter, known as the lady 

 .a^thelfleda, was married to Ethelred, the eolderman of the 

 Mercians. In 912 she succeeded to the government of the 

 Mercian territory, and began, as her father had done before 

 her, to fortify all her principal towns. She appears to have 

 been aggressive at Leicester and at Derby, and we find her 

 doings with reference to Warwickshire, recorded in the Saxon 

 Chronicle as follows: — 



" A. 913.— This year, by the help of God, ^thelflsd, 

 Lady of the Mercians, went with all the Mercians to 

 Tam worth, and there built the "burh," early in the 

 summer ; and after this, before Lammas, that at Stafford. 



" A. 914. — Then after this, in the next year, that at 

 Eader-byrig, early in the summer ; and afterwards, in the 

 same year, late in harvest that at Warwic. 



"A. 915. — Then after this in the next year after mid- 

 winter, that at Cyric-byrig, and that at Weard-byrig ; and 

 that same year, beford mid-winter, that at Rumcofa." 



The above extract is from the Cottonian MSS., Tiberius 

 A. vi., and is probably contemporaneous with the event it 

 records. Another MSS. has a variation in the reading, and 

 does not allude to Warwick under the date 914. The entry 

 is as follows : — 



915. — Her on thison geare was Wserinwic ge-timbrob, or 

 in English, " In this year was Warwick built. " 



