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By the Rev. C. W. H. DICKER. 



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HE Lady Emma, daughter of Richard, Duke of 

 Normandy, became in the year 1002 the second 

 wife of King ^Ethelred, receiving at the time 

 the English name of ^Elfgifu. She thereby came 

 into the possession of certain royal lands in the 

 Piddle Valley, traces of which remain to this day 

 in the local names of King-grove and King- 

 combe. During the 50 years of this lady's 

 residence in England, as Consort first of ^Ethelred and after- 

 wards of Cmit, she gained the same notoriety for her 

 persistence in bringing this country under Norman influences 

 as history attributes to her son, Edward the Confessor. To this 

 fact we probably owe the bilingual name of Piddletrenthide 

 the " trente hides," as her friends would doubtless call it, "on 

 the Piddle." I may say that Piddle or Pydele is a genuine old 

 English word, which occurs in charters with the meaning 

 "stream or brook." 



