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 A HISTORY OF RUTLAND course of the 7th century they were absorbed in the growing power of Mercia, and for the next 200 years they shared its vicissitudes. It may per- haps be inferred from the fewness of clan names, such as Uppingham and Empingham, that the population of the district was scanty/ a suggestion supported by the prevalence of forest land. There is nothing to show when the Danes first appeared in the district,* but the establishment of their rule in the ' Five Boroughs,' which was confirmed by the Treaty of Wedmore in 878, marked an epoch in its history. For one of the boroughs was Stamford, and the burghal district of which that town was the centre must have included part at least of the modern county. How far the actual settlement of the Danes extended it is impossible to say with certainty.^ The evidence of Domesday on this subject has been fully discussed in another article. We look in vain for any mention of Rutland as a political unit in pre- Conquest times. According to Gaimar,* Rockingham and Rutland, with Winchester, were given by Ethelred to Emma, his Norman queen, on his marriage in 1002. This was the beginning of that connexion of Rutland with the queens and the favourites of the kings of England which forms the main interest of its story. And it is at least a ' working hypothesis,' as has been suggested above in the article on Domesday, that to this connexion is due the existence of Rutland as a county. Most probably, on the reorganiza- tion of the Mercian shires after their reconquest from the Danes the whole of the district formed part of Northamptonshire, and it was the gift of Rutland to successive queens as a dower-land that gave it by degrees a separate existence. There is nothing to show whether Emma retained her dower- lands on her second marriage with Cnut, but most probably she did, as her relations with him were happier than those of her first marriage, and she is known to have accumulated great wealth, which was seized by her son Edward on his accession to the throne.' Politically, Rutland under Cnut and Edward no doubt formed part of Northamptonshire, and shared the government of its successive earls. ^^ This is certainly true of the southern part, which in 1086 formed an integral part of Northamptonshire, and probably of the northern part, the ' Roteland ' of that time, as Earl Waltheof was next to Queen Edith the most important pre-Conquest landholder." Edward followed the example ' Leks. and Rut. N. and Q. ii, 73-6. ' Blore, Hijf. Rut. 28, takes from Ingulf (Gale, Scriptora, i, 21) the story of a battle of Stamford in 870, in which the men of Rutland were engaged ; for this imaginary battle see Round, Ffud. Engl. 419. Butcher, Suiv. of Stamford, 22, followed by Wright, Hist. Rut. 62, refers this to 1016, when the ' Baron of Essendine,' with the men of Stamford, beat back the Danes, while Blore identifies the Assandun of 1016 with Essendine. But all this is mere fancy. ' Green, Conj. of Engl. (ed. 3), i, 136, says : 'The proportion they took for themselves is for the most part marked by the presence in it of their Danish names. " Byes " extend to the vet)' borders of Lincoln- shire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, and Northamptonshire.' But in fact there is not a single ' by ' among the modern parish names of Rutland. The endings are as follows : -ton, 20 ; -ham, 8 ; -thorpe, 4 ; -well, 3 ; -cott, 3 ; -dine (-den), 3 ; -ley, 2 ; -brook, -field, -don, -more, and -worth, i each ; besides Barrow, Brooke, Teigh, Tixover, and Wing. " VEitorie des Engles (Rolls Ser.), 4140. He adds ' ke Elstruet aueit eu deuant.' ' Elstruet ' is identified with Ethelred's mother jElfthryth (the Elfrida of the Latin chroniclers) ; but in his account of ./£lfthryth her- self (ibid. 3601-4094) the poet makes no mention of her holding these possessions. It is, however, interesting to note that .^Ifthr^-th died between 999 and 1002 {Diet. Nat. Biog.), and that it was in 1002 that her son gave Emma these lands. ' Diet. Nat. Biog. '° For the history of the great earldoms of this period see Freeman, Norm. Conq. ii, App. G. " See p. 133. 166