ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



The bulk of the coins, however, were Danish, issued by Danish kings of 

 Northumbria, many of them from York. From the circumstances of its 

 discovery it may well be believed that the hoard formed the treasure chest 

 of this defeated and retreating army. The evidence, divested of other stories, 

 is free from discrepancies. By this discovery Mr. Andrew has recovered a 

 page of English history. 



The Cuerdale hoard is by far the greatest found in Lancashire, containing 

 10,000 silver coins and nearly 1,000 ounces of silver ingots. With that 

 find, however, must be classed another, though smaller, and made at a much 

 earlier date. A hoard of some 300 silver pennies was discovered in 161 1 at 

 Harkirke, which lies toward the sea-coast between Crosby and Formby. 

 The coins have long since been scattered, but fortunately some thirty-five 

 were engraved in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and from the 

 still extant plate it may be seen that they belonged to Alfred, Edward the 

 Elder, the Danish king Cnut (Guthferth) of Northumbria, and the ecclesi- 

 astical coinages of York and East Anglia. There was also a certain number 

 of foreign coins, and the date of deposit must have been within a few 

 years of that of the Cuerdale hoard. There are numerous records of 

 other finds. On Halton Moor, five miles from Lancaster, there was found 

 in 18 1 5 a silver cup containing 860 silver coins of Canute, with certain 

 ornaments which include a torque of silver wire.^ The coins are 

 described in a letter by Mr. T. Combe, written from the British Museum, 

 as including 21 Danish and 379 of Canute. The latter were nearly all 

 of one type, having on the obverse the head of the king with helmet 

 and sceptre, and on the reverse a cross within the inner circle with 

 amulets in the four angles. They were minted at Exeter (i), Cambridge 

 [grant bricge] (i), Leicester (i), Lincoln (4), London (4), Maldon (i), 

 York (366), and Winchester (i). The cup and torque of silver will be 

 described later. 



Though isolated finds of coins cannot be relied on as evidence as to the 

 state of the particular district in which they are found, the discovery in 

 northern Lancashire of some of the early Northumbrian coins is of sufficient 

 interest to be noted. Some stycas ^ of the Northumbrian kings Eanred and 

 Ethelred and of Archbishop Vigmund were found in a cave with miscel- 

 laneous objects at Merlewood, Grange over Sands. The cave floor as usual 

 seems to represent several ages. In addition to some black pottery and 

 charcoal were a few fragments of glass. Besides these were two rusted 

 iron objects, perhaps fibulae. Below the deposit, it is said, were suggestions 

 of a rough flooring. The animal remains included bones of a man, of red 

 deer, roe deer, bos longifrons, wolf, pig, badger, and cat. In the same 

 vicinity, at Castlehead near Grange, there were found, c. 1775, a number 

 of stycas of Northumbrian kings, stated in one record' to be ninety-five in 

 all, together with animal remains, rings of silver, iron, and brass, beads of 

 stone, lead, clay, and glass, and numerous Roman coins. 



1 jirch. rviii. 197, with plates xvii. xviii. 



* Cumb. and Westmd. Ant. Soc. Trans, xii. 277. From the description given the stycas are apparently as 

 follows: — I. Obv., Eanred Rex; rev., Gaduteis. 2. Obv. Edilred Rex; rev., Eardulf [retrograde]. 

 3. Obv., Edelred Rex; rev., Fordred. 4. Oii-., Erded Rex [inscription blundered]; rev., Leofdegn. 

 5. Ois-., Vigmund Irep. ; r^i-., Coenred. 6. Undecipherable. 7. Broken and undecipherable. 



s Baines, Hist. Lanes. (Harland), ii. 676. 



259 



