Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/299

Rh 281 the late Dr Guest affirms that the valley of the Lea was the western boundary of that tribe. In answer to the question What became of the district between the Lea and the Brent ? this great authority states that the district was merely a inarch of the &quot; Catuvellauni,&quot; a common through which ran a wide trackway, but in which was neither town, village, nor inhabited house. Dr Guest also declares that the boundaries of the Catuvellaunian state, a central kingdom formed or much extended by Cassivellaunus, can be traced in part along the northern limit of Middlesex by following an earthwork called Grimesditch &quot; from Brockley Hill to the woodland of the Colne Valley and thence to the Brent, and down the Brent to the Thames.&quot; 1 Some earthworks and encampments still exist which are attributed to the Britons. When the country was under Roman rule great improvements, due to the growing importance of Londinium, were made in this district. Several roads in connexion with the city must have been constructed, more especially the great northern and eastern roads. Dr Guest does not believe that the present Watling Street could have had any connexion with the Watling Street which came down the Edgeware Road, passed along by Park Lane, and crossed the Thames at Westminster. In the Antonine Itinerary mention is made of three stations, viz., Londinium, Sulloniacse, and Pontes. Sulloniacse is now Brockley Hill ; Pontes is supposed by Stukeley to mean Staines, but Horsley held that it was intended for Old Windsor, and others supported the claims of Colnbrook and Long ford. Roman camps have been found in many parts of the county, and Dr Stukeley supposed that the Brill, near St Pancras, was the site of the battle between Boadicea and the Roman legions which has left a slight record in the name of Battle Bridge. The Roman remains found at different times are too numerous to mention here in detail. Coins, urns, and tiles were found at Enfield, a sepulchral urn at Hampstead, and numerous gold coins and ornaments at Bentley Priory, Great Stanmore, in 1781. Cowey Stakes, about a furlong west of A r alton Bridge, is supposed to be the locality of the ford by which Julius Cresar crossed, the Thames. Caesar makes special mention of the sharp stakes which lie had to encounter, and Bede says that the remains of the stakes were to be seen in his day. Camden was the first to fix upon this as the spot where Caesar crossed, and he is supported by Dr Guest, but the identification is not undisputed. Although a ford existed here as late as 1807, and stakes were found up to the end of the 18th century, it has been affirmed that they were placed in their position with another object than to oppose an enemy s progress. Roman remains have been found at Shepperton near Halliford, at the Middlesex end of the ford. A vase was dug up in 1817, and the remains of a Roman cemetery have also been discovered. As to the earliest Saxon occupation we are left very much to con jecture, and the name itself is somewhat of a puzzle. It is evident that no tribe could have obtained the name of Middle Saxons until after the settlement of the districts on each side of it by the East and the West Saxons. As Middlesex was for a period dependent upon the kingdom of P&amp;gt;ssex, it is probable that the name did not come into use until London had become a Saxon city, although there is reason to believe that previously Saxon settlements had been made on several places by the river and elsewhere. Bede tells us that London was in the hands of King Sffiberct in 604, and was then the chief town of Essex. Just a century afterwards that is, in 704 the king of the East Saxons granted away land at Twickenham, showing that Middlesex was then dependent upon Essex. It is worthy of note that the two districts now forming the counties in which London and Southwark are situated were separated from the kingdoms to which they originally belonged probably on account of the importance of the city of London and the borough of Southwark, Middlesex from the kingdom of Essex and Surrey or the South Ridge (A.-S. SivS-rige) from the kingdom of Kent. Middlesex appears never to have been independent. The admini strative shire was let to the men of London and their heirs to be held in farm of the king and his heirs, and &quot;the subject shire has to submit to the authority of the sheriffs chosen by the ruling city.&quot; 2 Middlesex is only once mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle, under date 1011, where it is noticed as one of the districts overrun by the Danes. One manuscript (A. Winchester) mentions the Middle Saxons as receiving the true faith under their alderman Peada in 653 ; but this is evidently a mistake of the scribe, for the fact is taken from Bede, and he writes Middle. Angles, as do the other MSS. of the Chronicle. 3 1 &quot;Lecture on the Origin of London,&quot; Athrnscum, 1866, No. 2022. 2 Freeman, Norman Conquest, vol. v. (1876) p. 468. 3 In the above passage from the Chronicle, where the districts overrun by the Danes in 1011 are enumerated, the shires, which took their names from their chief towns, are distinctly marked off from the districts which took their names from the peoples who inhabited them. Of the latter there are, besides the Middle Saxons, the East Angles, the Kentings, and the South Saxons. Middlesex is styled an administrative shire, because it was not historically a shire, but only one for the purposes of administrative organization. Of the present forty counties twenty-eight are and twelve are not shires. Wessex was divided into six shires, and Mercia into eighteen, with the subsequent addition of Rutland, taken The Saxons appear to have settled over a large portion of the district, and for the purpose of settlement they must have made considerable clearings in the vast forest of Middlesex. There seems to be good reason for believing that previous to their coming the roads passed through waste lands. By the time of Edward the Confessor a large proportion of the present towns and villages were in existence. Mr Elton, in his Origins of English History,* mentions a curious fact with relation to the tenures which prevailed in some of these places. He alludes to a ring of manors encircling ancient London where the custom of Borough English or junior right was prevalent. 5 He then goes on to point out that in this cluster of manors there are several varieties of the custom: &quot; Its benefit in Islington and Edmonton was confined to the youngest son ; at Ealing, Acton, and Isleworth it extended to the brothers and male collateral heirs ; and in a great number of instances the privilege was given to females as well as to males in every degree of relation ship. These variations are of no very great importance, the custom being modified in all parts of the country by the rule that special proof must be given of any extension of that strict form of Borough English for the benefit of the younger son of which alone the courts have cognizance. But it is of the greater interest to observe that in several places near London it is the custom for the land to descend to the youngest, if it is under a particular value of five pounds, but if it is worth more, it is parted among all the sons (First Real Property Commission Evidence, p. 254).&quot; The great forest of Middlesex continued long after the Norman Conquest, and even as late as the reign of Elizabeth portions of it still existed quite close to London. Fitz Stephen, the monk of Canterbury and secretary of Thomas a Becket, mentions in his interesting description of London the immense forest with its densely wooded thickets, and its coverts of game, stags, fallow deer, boars, and wild bulls. A few years after Fitz Stephen s death, in the reign of Henry III. (1218), the forest was disafforested, and some of the wealthy citizens took the opportunity of purchasing land and building upon it. Matthew Paris, in his life of the twelfth abbot of St Albans, describes the woods contiguous to the Watling Street between London and St Albans as almost impenetrable, and so much infested by outlaws and by beasts of prey that the numer ous pilgrims who travelled along the Roman road to the shrine of Albanus were exposed to imminent danger. There is little further history that can be told of Middlesex. There are many interesting incidents connected with some of the places, but corporate life has been crushed out of the county by the greatness of London. Not a single place except London has grown into importance, and nowhere outside of London is there a building of first-rate interest. The villages on the Thames early began to increase in size on account of the convenience of locomotion supplied by the river. It is only since the extension of the railway system that the villages to the north and north-west of London have grown in size, and this growth has been mainly due to the building of houses for the use of the Londoners. Bibliography. John Norden, Speculum Britannix: the first parle, an histori cal! and chorographicall discription of Middlesex, 4to, London, 1593, reprinted in 1637 and 1723; John Bowack, The Antiquities of Middlesex, parts 1 and 2, folio, London, 1705-6; Ric. Newcourt, Repertorium Ecclesiasticum Parochiale Lon- dinense, 2 vols. folio, London. 1708; Rev. Thomas Cox, Magna Britannia et Ilibernia. antiqua et nova, 6 vols. 4to, London, 1720 (vol. iii. contains Middlesex); A Description of the County of Middlesex, Svo, London, 1775 ; Rev. Daniel Lysons, The Environs of London, 4 vols. 4to, London, 1792-96 (vols. ii., iii., and supplement, 1811, contain Middlesex); John Middleton, General View of the Agriculture of Middlesex, 4to, London, 1793; Peter Foot, General View of the described in The Environs of London, 4to, London, 1800; G. A. Cooke, Modern British Traveller, 12mo, London, 1802-10 (vol. xii. contains Middlesex); E. W. Brayley, Rev. Joseph Nightingale, and J. Norris Brewer, &quot;London and Middlesex,&quot; in Beauties of England and Wales, 5 vols. 8vo, London, 1810-16 ; Rev. William Bawdwen, A Translation of the Record called Domesday, so far as relates to the Counties of Middlesex, Hertford, Buckingham, Oxford, and Gloucester, 4to, Doncaster, 1812; other publications concerning the Domesday of Middlesex are facsimile, folio, Southampton, 1861; a literal extension of the Latin text, folio, London, 1862; Win. Ryley anil Hy. Dethick, The Visitation of Middlesex begun in 1663, folio, Salisbury, 1820; William Pinnock, The History and Topo graphy of Middlesex, 12mo, London, 1824 (vol. 3 of Pinnock s County Jlistories); W. Smith, Delineations of the County of Middlesex, Svo, London, 1834; Samuel Tymms, A Compendious Account of Middlesex and London and Westminster (Cam- den s Britannia epitomized and continued, vol. vii.), London, 1843; J. II. Sper ling, Church Walks in Middlesex, being an Ecclesiologist s Guide to that County, 12mo, London, 1849; The Beauties of Middlesex, being a particular description of the principal seats of the nobility and gentry in the County of Middlesex, Svo, Chelsea, 1850; The Counties of England (No. 1, Middlesex), Svo, London, 1855; Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archseological Society, Svo, 1860-82; James E. Halting, The Birds of Middlesex, Svo, London, 1866 ; Henry Trimen and W. T. Thiselton Dyer, Flora of Middlesex, Svo, London, 1869 ; William Hughes, The Geography of Middlesex for the use of schools, 12mo, London, 1872; William Lawson, Collins s County Geographies (Middlesex), 8vo, 1872; Tfte Geography of the Counties of England and Wales (Xo. 10, Middlesex, Svo, Man chester, 1872 ; W. E. Baxter, The Domesday Boot for the County of Middlesex, being that portion of a Return of Owners of Land in England and Wales in 187;i which refers to Middlesex, 4to, Lewes, 1877. (H. B. W.*) (it is believed) from Northamptonshire. Yorkshire was taken from Northumbria, Lancashire from Cumbria, and, last of all, Monmouthshire from Wales, by an Act of Henry VIII. s reign. 5 Mr Corner gives the number cf instances he has found at sixteen. XVI. 36
 * Pp. 188-89, and note.