POLITICAL HISTORY 



Next year Edward built ' burhs ' on both sides of the river at Buckingham, 

 and there 'jarl Thurkytel and all the holds and chief men of Bedford sought 

 him for their lord,'" while in 919 he occupied Bedford itself, and there built 

 a 'burh' on the south side of the river.^^ The Danes soon made desperate 

 efforts to recover the ground they had lost. In 921 they abandoned Hunting- 

 don, advanced up the Ouse to its junction with the Ivel, and established 

 themselves at Tempsford. Making that their base, they crossed the river and 

 attacked Bedford ; but the men of that town came out against them and beat 

 off the assault.^* 



There is, however, no evidence that Luton and Tempsford were con- 

 sidered in the beginning of the loth century to have any more to do with 

 Bedford than they had with Hertford or Huntingdon. The unit of fiscal 

 or military division was no longer the mere bundle of tens or hundreds of 

 hides,^* nor were the shires as yet formed in the East Midlands, The 

 military exigencies of the Danish invasion appear to have led to the new 

 organization of the ' burhs,' or fortified towns, with their appurtenant hidage," 

 and some of these ' burhs ' in process of time became county towns of 

 shires named from them. It has indeed been suggested that the shires of 

 Northampton, Huntingdon, Cambridge, and Bedford, are of Danish origin. 

 ' It seems very probable that the constitution and demarcation of these 

 counties dates from before the time when they were absorbed into the 

 English realm.' " It is not till after the reign of Edgar that the Chronicle 

 speaks of shires, and it does not mention ' Bedfordshire' till i o 1 1 ." 



By Edgar's time, too, Bedfordshire seems to have been finally separated 

 from Mercia. The Danes were so firmly planted in the district of the 

 Five Boroughs as to drive a wedge into Mercia, and the eastern Midlands 

 appear to have been detached from Mercia proper since the recovery of 

 that district by Edward the Elder, and to have been attributed to the two 

 ealdormanries of East Anglia and Essex ; nor does the renewed subjection of 

 the Five Boroughs after their revolt against Edmund (940-6) appear to 

 have led to any change in that arrangement, Bedfordshire forming part of 

 East Anglia." 



^thelwine, who became ealdorman of East Anglia in 962, was the 

 friend of Bishop Oswald of Worcester, under whose auspices he founded 



" AngL-Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), 'ub anno 915 (918). " Ibid. 919. 



" Ibid. 92 1. For Edward's ' burh ' at Bedford and the Danish attack see The Danish attack on Bedford in 

 921, by Mr. A. R. Goddard, originally published in the Beds. Times, 27 Mar. 1903, and reprinted as a 

 pamphlet, and the same writer's article in ^.C.H. Beds, i, 281. The chronology of this period is very con- 

 fused. The dates here adopted are those of MS. A. of the Chronicle, but there is reason to believe that the 

 chronology of MSS. B. C. and D., which place the events of 917 and 918 three years earlier, is correct ; they, 

 however, omit the events of 919 and 921. Florence of Worcester follows them, and also places the events of 

 919 and 921 three years earlier ; see Plummer, Tzvo Sax. Chron. ii, 116. Thorpe, in his translation of the 

 Chronicle (Rolls Ser. ii, 79, 81), adopts a synthesis of the dates, which makes it appear that four years 

 elapsed between Edward's ' burh-building ' at Buckingham (915) and his occupation of Bedford (919), 

 but this is very unlikely. Another apparent confusion is that MS. A. of the Chronicle says both in the case 

 of Buckingham and in that of Bedford that Edward ' came to the town before Martinmas and stayed there 

 for four weeks.' 



" Cf. the so-called Tribal Hidage list, which is fully discussed by Mr. Corbett in Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc. 

 (new ser.), xiv, 187-230. 



" Green, Conj. of Engl, z'^'j ; Maitland, Dom. Bk. and Beyond, 186 et seq., 502-3- 



" Chadwick, Stud, in Angl.-Sax. Inst. 204. But there is no very strong evidence to support this conjecture. 



" The Ramsey Chron. (Rolls Ser.), 93, speaks of ' Bedfordshire ' in 991 ; but the value of its evidence is 

 very doubtful. 



"Green, Cmq. of Engl. 261 n., quoting Robertson, Hist. Ess. 181. 



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