172 



Calne, 



to prove that this " villula," had increased to such a size as to ac- 

 commodate, not merely a King's representative, or even a King 

 himself, but a whole body of parliament men and high ecclesiastics, 

 enough to fill, over and over again, the Catherine Wheel — now 

 Lansdowne Arms — the White Hart, the Talbot, the Plume of 

 Feathers, and all the rest of the places now offering to the public 

 good entertainment for man and beast. Of that assembly something 

 more presently : meanwhile the site of the Castle House seems to 

 me to have been the germ and origin of the town, having been 

 originally, perhaps, a Roman, certainly an Anglo-Saxon, residence 

 for some public official under the Crown. There are still to be seen 

 some vaults of a size unusually large for a modern private house ; 

 some of the stones having been, apparently, used in some previous 

 building, but of what exact date is uncertain. 



DUNSTAN. 



The next event in your history (and really almost the only one 

 that writers seem to have noticed) is the large assembly just men- 

 tioned, which ended in the sudden crash and downfall of the floor, 

 caused, as some were pleased to say, by the craft of the President, 

 the celebrated Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury. The story itself 

 is told (as usual) in very few words in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 

 under the year 978. "In this yeare all the chief 1 witan 3 of the 

 English Nation fell at Calne from an upper chamber, except the holy 

 Archbishop Dunstan, who alone supported himself upon a beam. 

 Some were grievously wounded, and some did not escape with life." 

 This assembly has often been spoken of as if it had been only a 

 clerical gathering of monks and priests : but that was not at all the 

 case. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says "the chief witan of the 

 English Nation."" Now " the witan " were the leading men of the 

 country, lay as well as clerical, who formed what was called the 

 f f witena-gemot," or King's council : a species of parliament — dukes, 

 thanes, principes, as they are described in other documents. This 

 council, upon summons, attended the King wherever he happened 

 to be. The Kings at that period were frequently in the West. We 

 find them at Winchester, Andover, Amesbury, and twice at Calne. 



