POLITICAL HISTORY 



Berkshire. They possibly came up the almost forgotten Roman way 

 which ran north-westward from the Sussex coast towards Staines, which 

 we have mentioned in connexion with Ockley, and burst into Surrey 

 from the forest glades between Ewhurst and Guildford. They may have 

 been returning towards the same line for retreat, when the king came 

 upon them from the east, ' outrode ' them according to the chronicle, 

 by which we may understand anticipated their movements and inter- 

 cepted them at Farnham, cutting off their retreat. There was a battle, 

 and the Danes were forced away northwards, retreating across the Surrey 

 and Berkshire heaths to the Thames, which they crossed where there 

 was no ford, seeking shelter, by a march round London, with their friends 

 in Essex and on the lower Thames. For the short remainder of Alfred's 

 lifetime the enemy were kept away from the heart of his kingdom, and 

 Surrey too was safe behind the bulwark of London. 



The building of fortresses, which consisted in the raising of mounds 

 surrounded by palisades, was beginning to be recognized as a necessary 

 means of defence against the Vikings. Alfred's son and daughter Edward 

 and Ethelflaed, lady of the Mercians, deliberately consolidated their re- 

 conquest of central and eastern England from the Danes by this device. 



We are probably justified in regarding the reigns of Edward and of 

 his son Ethelstan as the period of the formation of the present midland 

 counties as districts, contributing each to the defence of one or more 

 burhs where the inhabitants were charged with what a later age would 

 have called the service of castle-ward. 1 The Burghal Hidage is a docu- 

 ment of perhaps tenth century origin, which seems to give us a view of 

 the similar defensive arrangements in the old West Saxon kingdom and 

 its dependencies, where the original tribal or local divisions had not 

 been obliterated by Danish conquest as was the case further north. 

 Two burhs seem to belong to Surrey in this list, and are given a terri- 

 tory of i, 800 hides. The Domesday hidage of Surrey is close upon 

 2,000 hides more or less. 2 The names of these two are Eschingum, 

 that is ' at the Eschingas,' and Sutbringa geweorc. The latter is pretty 

 clearly Southwark. London is not mentioned and may have been of 

 sufficient importance to have its defence separately organized and re- 

 corded, neither was it in the old kingdoms of Wessex, Kent or Sussex, 

 to which this list seems to be confined. But the defensive purpose of 

 London was not complete without a fortification upon both sides of the 

 river, nor probably without the bridge, which certainly existed before 

 the end of the tenth century. The name of Southwark implies a forti- 

 fication. The Roman defences had apparently been at both ends of this 

 bridge. The other burh is less readily placed. Bashing represents the 

 name, but there is no extant burh at Bashing in Godalming parish. 

 However Eastbury and Westbury are manors in Compton parish close 

 to Bashing. The present Eashing is out of the way on no ancient 



1 Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, pp. 183-88, 502. But compare Mr. Round's remarks in 

 his Introduction to the ' Domesday Survey.' 



8 It is impossible to be sure whether certain hides are enumerated more than once. 



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