A HISTORY OF DORSET 



that Little Bredy contains a ' King's Tun ' (Kingston Russell).^ It was, if so, 

 important as guarding the one gap in the downs which connects south-east 

 with south-west Dorset. This had been followed by the Roman road from 

 Old Sarum through Dorchester to Exeter, and was rendered still more 

 important through the necessity of rounding, in the alternative sea route, the 

 dangerous Portland Bill. 



Constitutional reorganization was more tentative and uncertain than that 

 of the defensive system. Fluctuation in ideas as to the status of the alderman 

 is a marked characteristic of this period. The alderman (the Danish word 

 earl was only just beginning to be used) is sometimes military leader of the 

 individual county, sometimes political head oi a group of counties, possessed 

 of powers only not royal. Both experiments were tried, and it would seem 

 that Dorset had sometimes an earl of its own,^ while more than once it was a 

 member of the great south-western group of shires.' 



Want of political stability in Wessex no doubt contributed to Danish 

 successes. In 982 Portland was ravaged by ' three ships of vikings,' * and six 

 years later the Danish army ' again wended eastward into the mouth of the 

 Frome, and everywhere they went up as far as they would into Dorset ; 

 and a great force was often gathered together against them, but as soon as 

 they came together, then was there ever through something flight deter- 

 mined on, and in the end they ever had the victory.' ^ It is probable that 

 the growing sense of religion in public feeling had been thoroughly outraged 

 by the murder of Edward ' the Martyr ' in 978,* The solemn splendour of 

 the translation of his body by Dunstan and the alderman Alfliere,^ from 

 Wareham to Shaftesbury,* and the fresh charters granted to Sherborne Abbey* 

 do but express the spirit of ecclesiasticism then dominant in Dorset, and 

 unlikely to succeed against the determined attacks of a virile nation. 



It is to Domesday Book that we look to trace the process of substitution 

 of a Norman for the Anglo-Danish land-holding class. Incidentally we may 

 hope for further evidence upon uncertain happenings. To deal first with the 

 latter question. It is stated that ' the Dorset towns ' joined ' the Western 

 Rebellion ' of 1068, and that William, on his way to dispose of the Exeter 

 resistance, delayed to make an example of Dorset.'" The rebellion is said to 

 have been engineered by Gytha and the sons of Harold by Edith Swanneck, 

 who certainly were old enough, in 1069, to gather an Irish fleet and ravage 

 the Devon coast." The territorial influence of Harold himself in Dorset 

 was inconsiderable for an English king in a county which later possessed so- 

 much royal demesne. That of his family, considering the notorious rapacity 

 of the house of Godwin, was small. If Dorset was, indeed, concerned in 

 the rising, and received its punishment accordingly, we should expect to find 

 either a widespread desolation throughout the county, as in the north, or else 



' Maidand, op. cit. 502, note ; Kemble, CoJ. Dipl. iii, 224-5, ^°- 636. 



' Edgar, Laws (Rec. Com.), iii, 5 ; Cnut, Laws (Rec. Com.), ii, 18, ^nct. Laws and Inst. 165. 



' H. M. Chadwick, Studies on Jng/.-Sax. Institutions, 168-80. 



• Jngl.-Sax. Chron. i, 236. ' Ibid. 247-8. 



° Ibid, i, 234. Henry of Huntingdon, Hist. Angl. (Rolls Ser.), 167. 



'His festival was kept four times a year, Wynkyn de Worde, The Martirhge, 1526, who claims to 

 follow Sarum use. 



' Jngl.-Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 234 ; Jnn. Jf'ig. ii, 13. ' Jnn. Theokcsb. (Rolls Ser.), i, 183. 



'" Freeman, liorm. Conq. iv, 1 5 I, and Exeter (Hist. Towns Ser.), 36 ; Palgrave, Engl, and Normandy,. 

 iii, 345. " Diet. Nat. Biog. xxiv, 425. 



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