16 Malmesbury. 



small country towns or villages, for all the way from Bath to 

 Cirencester there is hardly one actually upon it, so that if any of 

 its neighbours were desirous of using it, they must have driven, as 

 we do, to a Station. At a place called "VVhitewalls in the parish of 

 Easton Grey and at Brokenborough, some traces of Roman work 

 have been found which are probably the remains of one of these 

 Stations. 



As the Fobs does not help us to fix the Romans at Malmesbury 

 we must go to the next period, when in truth its authentic history 

 really begins, the Anglo-Saxon. This people (as we all know) came 

 first into Britain about the year 450. They were heathens and idol- 

 aters when they came, but in the course of a century or two they 

 became Christians. They crept into possession of Britain by degrees 

 and after a great deal of hard fighting, and as they won, they divided 

 it into several small kingdoms. Berkshire, Hampshire, Dorset, 

 Somerset and Wiltshire formed "West Saxony, or "Wessex : "Wilt- 

 shire was the northernmost part of it ; and therefore this place 

 being very near the northern boundary of Wiltshire, was very 

 near, in fact upon, the northern boundary of Wessex ; the next 

 kingdom to it being Mercia. The old British name of Bladon 

 disappeared with the old Britons themselves, and the Saxons called 

 this place Ingel-burne. 



The hill and its two rivers made the situation as useful to the 

 Saxons as it had been to the ancient Britons ; and when the king- 

 dom of Wessex was completed, Ingelburne became important as 

 one of its frontier military posts. In this capacity it was rather 

 roughly used, but as houses soon recover themselves and spring up 

 again, so Ingelburne began to revive ; and there came hither a 

 Missionary to assist in converting the heathen and idolatrous 

 Saxons to Christianity. To that Missionary you are perhaps 

 indebted for the name of your town, for his name was Maldulph, 

 and Maldulph's-bury, in the popular mouth, would soon become 

 Malmesbury. There are other derivations of the name, but this is 

 the one which appears to have been rather the favourite at the 

 Monastery. 



Maldulph is called by some of the chroniclers an Irishman, by 



