A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



from that time, at least, possibly from the time of Edward the Elder, the general 

 outline of the county has altered very little, and the wapentakes l have remained 

 almost the same on their outer lines. They were then eight in number, 

 Bassetlaw, Broxtow, Bingham, Thurgarton, Newark, Rushcliffe, ' Wardebec ' 

 or ' Oswardebec ' (now with Rampton and Treswell forming the North Clay 

 division of Bassetlaw) and ' Lide ' (now the north division of Thurgarton). 



The numbers remained the same until the seventeenth century, when 

 John Speed, writing in about 1610, stated that 'for the taxe to the crown' 

 Nottinghamshire was divided into eight wapentakes or hundreds. 8 By 1719" 

 however the number had dwindled to the present number, six, since Bassetlaw 

 had absorbed the wapentake of Oswardebec, and Thurgarton that of Lide. 

 Bassetlaw, on account of its size, is now divided into North Clay, South Clay, 

 and Hatfield. 



It is inevitable that the early history and political importance of the 

 county of Nottingham, as of so many others, must be gathered rather from 

 the history of its chief town than from any direct evidence concerning the 

 county in general. Evidently by the ninth century, if not before, the town 

 of Nottingham had become of importance strategically. Although Roman 

 soldiers had pushed their way along the banks of the Trent from Newark to 

 the site of Nottingham, they came there either too late or too few in 

 numbers to have left any lasting trace of their visit. Yet they had prepared 

 the way for the Angle to find and utilize the natural fortification presented 

 by the hill on which the castle of Nottingham was built in later days. 

 During the eighth century, in the struggle for supremacy between the three 

 great kingdoms, Nottingham must have often played a very important part for 

 Mercia, since from its situation it formed both a point of contact with and a 

 bulwark against the northern enemy. Again, at the end of the century, when 

 under the consolidating rule of Offa Mercia was supreme, though her 

 supremacy was unclaimed, the development of the town must have kept pace 

 with the development of the kingdom. Hence it was that when the 

 Danes under Hubba had struck at York and had defeated the two rival 

 claimants of the Northumbrian crown, they turned in 868 to Nottingham 

 and settled there for the winter in preparation for an attack on Mercia. 

 Once there they could defy the united forces of Burhred of Mercia and 

 Ethelred of Wessex,* and, although Mercia was probably saved from 

 devastation by the refusal of the Danes to fight, it remained submissive under 

 the terms of the forced peace. With Mercia submissive to the Northmen, 

 Nottingham under the Peace of Wedmore became one of the chief centres 

 of the Danish settlement in England, and one of the five boroughs. The 

 reduction of the Danelaw and the regaining of the five boroughs was the work 

 of Edward the Elder and his sister Ethelflaed, lady of the Mercians, and the 

 conquest of Nottingham in 922 marked the climax of his successes. In the 

 words of the chronicler ' he reduced the burgh and ordered it to be repaired, 



1 See section on the Dom. Surv. for evidence of Danish influence in division of the county into 

 'wapentakes,' not hundreds. 



1 Speed, A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World, under Great Britain, bk. i, p. 56. 



' See Overton's map of the county. 



4 Angl.-Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 132. Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), i. 391. Burhred sent 

 to Ethelred for help, and he, gathering a large force, came to Nottingham. ' Cumque pagan!, arcis tuitione 

 muniti, praelium conserere denegarent et Christian! muros confringere non sufficerent pace inter Mercios et 

 paganos ad tempus composita singuli ad propria sunt reversi.' 



