316 A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



the year of our Lord 209, Lucius, King of Britain, gave the town 

 the name of Eccleshall, and the temple of Jove, Hasmere. This 

 edifice was consecrated as a Christian church, and continued until 

 the year 509, when Creda, a Saxon, the eleventh from Weber, the 

 first king of Mercia, conquered the Britons, and destroyed all the 

 Christian churches within the counties of Stafford, Gloucester, 

 Hereford, Chester, Worcester, Oxford, Warwick, Derby, Leicester, 

 Buckingham, Northampton, Nottingham, Lincoln, Bedford, Hun- 

 tingdon, and part of Hertford. The Christians were obliged to seek 

 an asylum in Worlsor, supposed to be Wales, till about the year 660, 

 when Lawrence, Archbishop of Canterbury, consecrated Devine, 

 Bishop of Lichfield, and afterwards Eccleshall, and the forest of 

 Bloor was given to him by Penda, King of Mercia. 



" Eccleshall Church was re-built in the year 661, but was de- 

 stroyed nine years afterwards by Wulfere, King of Mercia, who, in 

 670, while at his castle at Ulferoster, or Uttoxeter, was informed 

 that his two sons Ulfred and Rufin, under pretence of hunting, 

 were gone to Eccleshall to Bishop Chadd, to be baptized and in- 

 structed in the Christian religion. The King being instigated by 

 his concubine Wcrebode, hastened to Eccleshall, and finding his 

 sons in the church in divine contemplation, he slew them both with 

 his own hand, and then destroyed the edifice. Queen Erminilda, 

 the mother of the two royal martyrs, took their bodies and buried 

 them in a certain place not far from Eccleshall, and built a monas- 

 tery over them ; and, from the great quantity of stones collected for 

 this building, the place was called Stones, now Stone, a market- 

 town in this county. King Wulfere afterwards repented, re-built 

 Eccleshall Church, and all others which he had destroyed, and was 

 very favourable to the Christians, but died without an heir. His 

 brother Elhelred succeeded him in his kingdom ; then Eccleshall 

 began to flourish, and became so famous and populous that it had 

 five parish-churches and two chapels in it. This prosperity conti- 

 nued nearly three centuries and a half; but a sudden reverse took 

 place in the year 1010, when the Danes laid Eccleshall town and 

 castle, and all its churches, in ashes by fire. It lay in ruins till 

 1090, when Elias de Jantonice, prebend of Eccleshall, re-built the 

 old church, and dedicated it to the Holy Trinity. In the year 1299, 

 Walter Langton, Bishop of Lichfield, re-built Eccleshall Castle." 



Eccleshall is a small market-town, situated on the banks of a 

 rivulet that flows into the river Sow. It is seven miles north-west 

 of Stafford, and contains five streets and lanes. The houses are of 



