HERMITS 151 



compared with the dark-hiied temples and churches of 

 wood to Avhich the Saxons were accustomed. 



But if this origin of the " Whitehalls " does not 

 satisfy, there is another which may be even more 

 Hkely. They were, possibly, at one time the sites of 

 village Witan-halls, where the wdse men of the Saxon 

 villages assembled their local Parliaments, the 

 " witans " or " witenagemots," those remote fore- 

 runners of the village- and parish-councils which 

 statesmen of the late nineteenth century have 

 established, as items in a more or less admirable 

 scheme for restoring the Heptarchy. There are 

 " Whitehalls " in the immediate outlying fields of 

 Sittingbourne, and there is one within the Roman 

 encampment overhanging the railway cutting at 

 Harbledo^vn ; but at none of these places are there any 

 traces of buildings above ground. Excavation might 

 reveal ancient foundations. 



XXVIII 



As mediaeval travellers approached Sittingbourne 

 from the direction of London, the first objects they 

 perceived were the chapel and hermitage of Schamel, 

 dedicated to Saint Thomas a Becket, and standing on 

 the south side of the road. They are gone now, 

 and a wayside public-house — " The Volunteers "— 

 stands on, or near their site ; but the hermitage was, 

 from the time of King John to the impious days of 

 Henry the Eighth, a resting-place for those devout 

 pilgrims who sought the shrine of the " holy blissful 

 martyr " at Canterbury. In the reign, however, of 

 that " Defender of the Faith " — when it suited him — 

 the chapel and the hermitage were scattered to the 

 winds, and the hermit thrust out into a world that 

 had grown tired of making pilgrimages. But, while 

 it lasted, the Hermitage of Schamel did a very thriving 



