17G 



Calne. 



but, having 1 incurred the King's displeasure, he became a soldier : 

 after that a monk : rose into favour with King Edmund, and was 

 made Abbot of Glastonbury. Having 1 interfered in some affairs 

 of his superiors more than was agreeable to them he was banished 

 the kingdom. Recalled afterwards, he became Bishop, first of 

 Worcester, then of London, and finally Archbishop of Canterbury. 

 He was far in advance of his age in the knowledge of mechanical 

 arts, and skilful in handicrafts of many kinds, especially in iron- 

 work, which gave rise to many ridiculous legends. Tradition of 

 his skill in this line still lingers in the western counties. 1 



The Castle was, most probably, the scene of the Dunstan incident. 

 We know very little more of its history. The Empress Maud, in 

 the course of her conflicts with Stephen, lodged here one night. 

 She was conducted by the Bishop of Winchester, and joined by her 

 brother Robert, who had ridden across the country attended by only 

 twelve horsemen, by whom she was safely guarded to Bristol Castle, 

 which had been prepared for her ; and from that moment she began 

 to reign as sovereign of England. Calne Castle seems also to be 

 mentioned in an old history called " The Acts of Stephen," in 

 which it is said that having blockaded Wallingford he then marched 

 towards Trowbridge, assaulting, in his way, the castle at — Cerne 

 [so the book calls it] : but, as there is no such a place as Cerne 

 between Wallingford and Trowbridge, Calne is most likely the castle 

 intended. It is probable that Stephen, when he came to the throne, 

 dismantled it, as one of the first of his " Acts " was to destroy as 

 many of these strongholds as he possibly could. At all events 

 nothing more seems to be known of its ultimate fate. 



The only other notice of Calne that has been met with, relating 

 to the Anglo-Saxon period, is, that the whole manor had been the 

 property of the Crown, but that two-thirds of it were given to the 

 Cathedral Church, then at Old Sarum. In the Domesday Survey 



1 See, for notices of Dunstan, Dodd's Church History, I., 64, Fuller's Church 

 History, I., 197, Henry's Hist, of England, III., 106, Sharon Turner's Anglo- 

 Saxons, II., 273, Brayley's Graphic Illustrator, p. 361. Whilst on the subject 

 of Glastonbury, it may be mentioned that an error has been committed in some 

 notices of Calne, in saying that " A Calne man was Abbot of Glaston." The 

 abbot was Turstine, a Cluniac monk of Caen, in Normandy, A.D. 1077. 



