176 Calne. 
but, having incurred the King’s displeasure, he became a soldier : 
after that a monk: rose into favour with King Edmund, and was 
made Abbot of Glastonbury. Having interfered in some affairs 
of his superiors more than was agreeable to them he was banished 
the kingdom. Recalled afterwards, he became Bishop, first of 
Worcester, then of London, and finally Archbishop of Canterbury. 
He was far in advance of his age in the knowledge of mechanical 
arts, and skilful in handicrafts of many kinds, especially in iron- 
work, which gave rise to many ridiculous legends. Tradition of 
his skill in this line still Jingers in the western counties.! 
The Castle was, most probably, the scene of the Dunstan incident. 
We know very little more of its history. The Empress Maud, in 
the course of her conflicts with Stephen, lodged here one night. 
She was conducted by the Bishop of Winchester, and joined by her 
brother Robert, who had ridden across the country attended by only 
twelve horsemen, by whom she was safely guarded to Bristol Castle, 
which had been prepared for her; and from that moment she began 
to reign as sovereign of England. Calne Castle seems also to be 
mentioned in an old history called “ The Acts of Stephen,” in 
which it is said that having blockaded Wallingford he then marched 
towards Trowbridge, assaulting, in his way, the castle at—Cerne 
{so the book calls it]: but, as there is no such a place as Cerne 
between Wallingford and Trowbridge, Calne is most likely the castle 
intended. It is probable that Stephen, when he came to the throne, 
dismantled it, as one of the first of his “ Acts”? was to destroy as 
many of these strongholds as he possibly could. At all events 
nothing more seems to be known of its ultimate fate. 
The only other notice of Calne that has been met with, relating 
to the Anglo-Saxon period, is, that the whole manor had been the 
property of the Crown, but that two-thirds of it were given to the 
Cathedral Church, then at Old Sarum. In the Domesday Survey 
1 See, for notices of Dunstan, Dodd’s Church History, I., 64, Fuller’s Church 
History, I., 197, Henry’s Hist. of England, IIT., 106, Sharon Turner’s Anglo- 
Saxons, II., 273, Brayley’s Graphic Illustrator, p. 361. Whilst on the subject 
of Glastonbury, it may be mentioned that an error has been committed in some 
notices of Calne, in saying that “ A Calne man was Abbot of Glaston.” The 
abbot was Turstine, a Cluniac monk of Caen, in Normandy, A.D. 1077. 
