Part 4

But the marshes are not in question, they are but an appendage to the Hoo. This peninsula is formed of a large fragment of the chalk at the eastern end of the North Kentish downs, called by geologists an “inlier” into the Thames basin; upon the heights, and in the valleys, of which the places concerned in this enquiry were situated. The marshes are a broad fringe of level pasture land,[58] advanced into the Thames estuary, beyond its north chalk cliff. In Kent the word “marsh” signifies the same as “more” in Somersetshire: which, although even Dr. Jamieson confounds the two, is a totally different word and thing, from the “muir,” or “moor,” for waste lands of a highland character. It is to such land as this that we owe the dairies of Cheddar; and if this objection should be good, Glastonbury and Wells, not to mention Ely and Croyland, must resign their venerable places in history. A very similar projection of alluvial level pasture extends from Henbury and Shirehampton to the Bristol Channel, without disparagement of their salubrity. Mr. Johnson, having suffered much in health by a residence of a year or two at Appledore, in Kent, obtained the vicarage of Cranbrook, where he lived for eighteen years. It is likely that he was sensitive of climatal influences, and shy of those breezes that reach this island after passing over the great plains of central Europe: a tenderness, which neither Æthelbald nor Offa can be supposed to have shared with him.

It is plain, however, that this broad alluvial margin, extending from the northern edge of the heights, which are the substantial constituents of the Hoo peninsula, already existed, A.D. 779, at least a very large extent of it; for the first charter, so dated,[59] describes it as then “habentem quasi quinquaginta iugerum.” In a later charter, A.D. 789,[60] the name of the projecting level appears as “Scaga.”[61] It must already have become land of value to be granted in these charters; and its identity is certain from the limits--Yantlet (“Jaenlade”) water to “Bromgeheg,” now “Bromey,” on the higher land at Cooling. Does not the word “jugeru,” used in the charter, indicate that this “marsh” was already cultivated or pasture land? How it had been originally caused is, however, not hard to discern. It is, evidently, a large portion of the delta of the Thames, intercepted by the confluence of the other great river, the Medway, and thrown back behind the chalk promontory of the Hoo. Inside, and westward of this deposit, the tidal estuary makes a bold reach southward; sweeping the western side of this level, and approaching the heights, so as, at Cliffe, Higham, and Chalk, to leave only a comparatively narrow fringe of level; and it is on the heights at the southern bend of this reach, that are situated these three villages, which will presently be found, it is thought, to be interesting to us.

As to the most substantial objection, which of course has continued to be a constantly recurring ingredient of this controversy, that the place of the synods must have been within the kingdom of Mercia, it seems a little oblique of the mark aimed at. They were royal councils, and these must be expected to have followed the presence of the king and his court, as was the case in much later times than those now under consideration. Most of the remaining records of these synods at Cloveshoe, and of the other national ones during the same period, show the king to have presided; and it is true that it is the Mercian King, who is so found, during both of the long reigns of Æthelbald and Offa; and throughout the time of the domination of the Mercians in Kent. The policy of the Mercian aggressors, during their long continued contention for empire, to grasp the great estuaries of the island, has already been referred to, and a glance at sheets I. and VI. of the Ordinance survey will show how desirable was this Chersonesus for the head quarters of a power, which made a chief point of the possession of the Thames, and its only less valuable and smaller sister, the Medway. The opposite coast of the East Saxons had already, for several reigns, been subjected to Mercia. A.D. 704, Suebræd, the regulus of the East Saxons, could not grant lands at Twickenham, then in Essex, but “in prouincia quæ nuncupatur middelseaxan,” to Waldhere, Bishop of London, except “cum licentia Æthelredi regis” of Mercia.[62] Kent, less fortunate, was still contended for by both Wessex and Mercia, as well as by Sussex, and by all three it was successively ravaged; and it even looks as if the three contending invaders maintained, as clients, rival pretenders, as kings of the parts of Kent at the time under their power. The division of Kent into Lathes may be a so-to-speak fossil, or rather an archaic autograph upon the surface of the county, of this state of it. It is, however, certain that Mercia ultimately made good a permanent domination of Kent; and the kings of Kent acknowledged that supremacy in their government, by merely counter-subscribing the acts of the kings of Mercia.[63]

The mass of chalk, of which the body of the Hoo consists, is said to pass under the Thames; and a small continuation of it reappears on the Essex side, directly opposite Cliffe and Higham and Chalk, at East Tilbury; and having continued four miles westward, behind the marsh marked by Tilbury Fort, dies out at Purfleet.[64] It forms an elevated promontory at East Tilbury, penetrating the levels on that side to the river. The present chief traject of the river is about three miles westward, from Gravesend to the fort: but the chalk promontory is the terminus of an ancient straight chain of roads, which, although in some places interrupted by later breaks and divergencies, indicates a traffic of ages, from this terminus on the river, in a north-western direction, striking the Iknield Street at Brentwood, and apparently afterwards still continuing the same line: probably to Watling Street; any rate to the heart of the Mercian dominions: say, to Hertford, if you like.

There are various other substantial evidences of great ancient intercourse of Essex with the Hoo of Kent, by a trajectus at this place, between East Tilbury and Higham; and Higham is only five miles from Rochester bridge, by which the Watling Street entered that city. Morant says, of the manor of Southall in East Tilbury, “This estate goes now to the repair of Rochester bridge: when and by whom given we do not find.”[65] He also mentions the “famous Higham Causeway” in connection with Tilbury.[66] Until the reign of Stephen, the church at Higham had belonged to the Abbot and Convents of St. John, Colchester.[67] The importance of this Essex traject to the kingdoms north of the Thames, when the domination of Mercia in Essex and Kent was beginning, may be inferred from the fact that one of the two colleges, or capitular churches, founded by Cedda, A.D. 653, in Essex, was at Tilbury.[68] There is a place called Chadwell by West Tilbury. Some years later, A.D. 676, when Æthelred of Mercia first devastated Kent, it is evident that he used this passage; for the destruction of Rochester, five miles south of Higham and Cliffe, is the only one of his exploits, on that expedition, specified by name.[69] So late as A.D. 1203, Giraldus Cambrensis passed from Kent to Essex by Tilbury. These incidents, connecting Tilbury and Higham, may qualify the surprise that has hitherto troubled church historians at finding that “Clofeshoch,” at so early a date as A.D. 673, was appointed, at “Herutford,” as the place for future councils, even if Herutford had been Hertford, as some say.

The conclusion that the line of approach, and of the first invasion of Kent by the Mercians, was by a passage from the Essex coast to Higham or Cliffe; and that the peninsula of Hoo, adjoining Rochester, had then and long after been the basis of their domination of that kingdom; had been already formed, from what has been already said. And it was at this point, that it was thought worth while to see what the chief county historians say about the two termini of the trajectus.

This is Hasted’s statement:--

“_Plautius_, the _Roman_ General under the _Emperor Claudius_, in the year of Christ, 43, is said to have passed the river _Thames_ from _Essex_ into _Kent_, near the mouth of it, with his army, in pursuit of the flying _Britons_ who being acquainted with the firm and fordable places of it passed it easily. (Dion. Cass., lib. lx.) The place of this passage is, by many, supposed to have been from _East Tilbury_, in _Essex_, across the river to _Higham_. (By Dr. Thorpe, Dr. Plott, and others.) Between these places there was a _ferry_ on the river for many ages after, the usual method of intercourse between the two counties of Kent and Essex for all these parts, and it continued so till the dissolution of the abbey here; before which time Higham was likewise the place for shipping and unshipping corn and goods in great quantities from this part of the country, to and from _London_ and elsewhere. The probability of this having been a frequented ford or passage in the time of the _Romans_, is strengthened by the visible remains of a raised causeway or road, near 30 feet wide, leading from the _Thames_ side through the marshes by _Higham southward_ to this _Ridgway_ above mentioned, and thence across the _London_ highroad on _Gads-hill_ to _Shorne-ridgway_, about half-a-mile beyond which adjoins the _Roman Watling-street_ road near the entrance into _Cobham-park_. In the pleas of the crown in the 21st year of K. Edward I., the _Prioress_ of the nunnery of _Higham_ was found liable to maintain a bridge and causeway that led from _Higham_ down to the river _Thames_, in order to give the better and easier passage to such as would ferry from thence into Essex.”[70]

It may be added that the Hoo peninsula has other marks of having been, at much earlier times, a district of great transit. There is, perhaps, no other part of England, of so small an extent, which has so many and clustered examples of “Street” in names of secluded spots--including the almost ubiquitous “Silver Street”[71]--quite disengaged from those that follow the line itself of Watling-street. Yet Mr. Johnson of Cranbrook goes on to say, “As Cliffe in Hoo was never a place of note itself, so it lies, and ever did lie, out of the road to any place of note.” It is believed that he has greatly under-rated the substantial results of such a dynastic change as we are now considering; followed, for a thousand years, by its sequential changes on the material surface of the earth.

At all events, this was, evidently, the earliest line of approach, by which Mercia, with its contingents, the other Anglian nations and the East Saxons, whom it had either subdued or otherwise allied, invaded Kent; and this continued to be its chief or only access for some years. A single glance, at the geography of the Hoo, will show the value of such an advanced peninsula, as the basis of such an incursion upon the centre of Kent; and as the stronghold from which the subjection of that kingdom could be maintained. We have other means of knowing that it was probably, at least, thirty years before a second or optional approach was secured by way of the east of Kent. This second access must have been a much coveted one, and when it came into hand must have been of great value; particularly in regard to the occasional, or at least frequent, royal residence already established at the Hoo. The Watling Street, the greatest and most frequented of all the highways then existing, led from the very heart of Mercia, in a direct line through Middlesex, to the very isthmus of the peninsula itself. Although Kent had been already invaded, A.D. 676, yet so late as A.D. 695,[72] London remained subject to Essex; but, as we have already seen, only nine years afterwards Twickenham, in the province called “Middelseaxan,” had become subject to Mercia.

Some of our most learned historians describe the “Middle Saxons” as a very small people, forming a part of the East Saxons; but they are obliged to confess that they find very little to say about them. It is believed that there never was a separate people called Middle Saxons. They have been created out of a snatched analogy, of the mere name “Middlesex,” with “Essex,” “Sussex,” and “Wessex.” There can be little doubt that Middlesex represents the original civitas, or territory, of the local government, of its urbs or burgh of London, the capital of the kingdom of Essex. Like other great commercial seaports or staples, this already great mart had maintained much of the condition of a free city; and, in passing, along with its territory from Essex to the ascendant power of Mercia, it may not have been by conquest, but by a voluntary exercise of that instinct, to unite in the fortunes of an advancing supremacy, which is often associated with, and perhaps closely allied to, commercial habits. At all events, it is at this time that the name, Middlesex, first comes to light;[73] and it is believed that instead of being, like the names of the Saxon nations, formed by the addition of an adjective; the “middle” of this newer name is a preposition, and that it means, that Anglian acquisition which had now thrust itself _between_ the East Saxons and the South and West Saxons. The Anglo-Saxon Dictionaries produce an example, from one of the glossaries of Ælfric, of “Middel-gesculdru” = the space _between_ the shoulders.

But although, in the existing records of the series of Councils and Synods that were held during the ascendancy of Mercia, and often presided over by the Mercian kings in person, the name of Cloveshoe is frequent, as the place of convention; other places, as “Cealchythe” and “Acle,” are also frequent and continuous. And the names of the councillors, who sign the acts as witnesses, have a certain current identity, with only such changes as may be expected by lapse of time, rather than of change of the region where the assemblies had been convened. After the king, usually follows the Archbishop of Canterbury; then the Bishop of Lichfield, followed by the other Mercian Bishops; and then of the other subject kingdoms.

These two places, Cealchythe and Acle, have been as great puzzles to enquirers as Clovesho itself; and they also have been placed in very distant regions; the sounds of their names being apparently thought to be the only consideration. Cealchythe was thought by Archbishop Parker to be in Northumbria; but Alford said Chelsea; Spelman that it was within the kingdom of Mercia.[74] Gibson suggests Culcheth in Lancashire, as although in Northumbria, not far from Mercia. Miss Gurney also says “Perhaps Kilcheth on the southern border of Lancashire.” Dr. W. Thomas gives it to Henley-on-Thames, partly because he considered it “near” Cloveshoe; Wilkins nor Kemble make any venture; others, adopted by Messrs. Haddan and Stubbs, and, as far as the name alone would have settled it, with a very great deal of apparent reason, would have placed it at Chelsea. The ancient forms of the name of Chelsea, of which examples are by no means scarce, seem all directly to lead up to an identity with that of the councils. One of these, of the baptism, A.D. 1448, of John, son of Richard, Duke of York, recorded in Will. Wyrcester’s Anecdota, is, for example, at “Chelchiethe.” But the name of the council seems to resolve itself into “Chalk-hythe,” and there is no chalk at Chelsea. But even this has been got over by taking the first portion of “Chelsey” for “chesil” or gravel; and this favours the ancient forms of Chelsea = Chelchythe, rather more than it does the variations in the name of the council; which on the whole lean towards “chalk” or “Chalkhythe.” Dr. Ingram[75] adopts “Challock, or Chalk, in Kent;” and Mr. Thorpe repeats that suggestion, with the addition of a “?”

As to this “Chalk,” it is also in the district of the Hoo, and is the adjoining parish westward of Higham; on the same chalk ridge, whereon both Higham and Cliff-at-Hoo are situated. The village is two miles west of Higham church, and all three are practically the same place, within a space of four miles; of which the ancient trajectus above mentioned is at the centre. The face of the cliff, upon which Cliffe stands, is still quarried for chalk, which is shipped in a small creek that runs up to the cliff. It will at once come to mind, how constantly such wharfs are called “hythe,” throughout the navigable portion of the Thames; and how frequently that word forms a part of the names of them. That river has, indeed, almost--not quite--a monopoly of this name-form. But the Ordnance Surveyors[76] show an eastward detachment of Chalk parish, within half a mile of Higham church, and close to that point of the shore which would have been the hythe of the traject. There can be little doubt that this detachment is a survival of the “Chalkhythe” at which some of the councils were dated, whilst others were at Cliffe-at-Hoo adjoining. An endorsed confirmation,[77] under Coenulf, has the formula, “in synodali conciliabulo _juxta_ locum qui dicitur caelichyth.”

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Another frequent name, of the place of convention of some of this series of councils during Mercian ascendancy, is “Acle” or “Acleah,” which has been as great a puzzle as the others. This name may be expected to appear in any such modern forms as Oakley, Okeley, Ockley, or Ackley, which are very numerous in nearly every part of England; indeed, wherever the oak has grown: and rather a free use of this wide choice has been made in the attempts to find the place of the councils so dated. The most accepted one seems to be Ockley, south of Dorking, near the confines of Surrey and Sussex; apparently attracted by a battle with the Danes there, A.D. 851. But this happened in later and Wessexian times. Lambarde (about A.D. 1577) thought it likely to be somewhere in the Deanery of Ackley, in Leicestershire: Spelman, in the Bishopric of Durham. Dr. Ingram says, “Oakley in Surrey.” Professor Stubbs says of one act of Offa so dated that it “is unquestionably Ockley in Surrey,” and affords “a strong presumption that the other councils of the southern province said to be at Acleah, were held at the same place,” apparently because the charter before him is a grant to Chertsey. But the substance of these royal grants does not show the place where they were executed. They are the Acts of the Supreme Court of Appeal. Ingram and Thorpe give Ockley, Surrey. Miss Gurney, “Acley, Durham?” Kemble, “Oakley or Ackley, Kent, or Ockley, Surrey,” Sir T. D. Hardy says “in Dunelmia;” no doubt adopting Spelman’s judgment.

Turning again to the Ordnance Survey,[78] at one mile-and-a-half from the church at Cliff-at-Hoo, and rather nearer to it than Higham church itself, will be seen a building marked “Oakly;” or, in the six-inch scale, two: Oakley and Little Oakley. Reverting to Hasted’s account of the parish of Higham,[79] we also find that it contained two manors, Great and Little Okeley; and he quotes the Book of Knight’s Fees, K. John, where it is written, “Acle.”[80] Oakley lies in the direct way from the ancient traject to Rochester bridge, and has been held liable to repair the fourth pier of it. In Domesday it appears as “Arclei.” But the existence of this very place can be realised at a date eight years earlier than the first recorded Synod at Aclea. Mr. Kemble has printed[81] a grant of Offa, dated A.D. 774, to Jaenberht the Archbishop, of a piece of land in a place called “Hehham,” now Higham; of which one portion is conterminous with Acleag--“per confinia acleage”,--another part touches “ad colling”--now Cooling with its Castle,--afterwards bounded by “mersctun,” since Merston, and other lands “Sc̄i andree,” _i.e._ of Rochester Cathedral. This piece of land, although granted by Offa to the Archbishop of Canterbury, is not only situated within the diocese of Rochester, but is immediately surrounded by the demesnes of Rochester Church. From a realization of the above three land-marks of the charter, it is certain that, although Cliffe is not named, the site of the church and town of Cliffe itself, as well as Higham, is included within the land-marks of the grant; and that the granted manor is identical with those parishes, as they have afterwards become. Cooling adjoins the granted land to the east; Acleag, now Oakley, to the south; Merston, is described by Hasted as a forgotten parish, and no longer appears even in his own map of the Hundred, but he identifies the ruined church among the buildings of “Green Farm,” close to Gads-hill. From this he represents it to have reached the Shorne Marshes; that is to the Thames shore; forming, therefore, the western boundary of Cliffe and Higham, and including the already mentioned detachment of Chalk parish, and having Acleag named as one of its boundaries.[82]

In this charter of Offa, we see one of the examples of those first separations of land, which afterwards became what we call a parish. What we now call a parish, is not an invention or institution by Archbishop Honorius, or Archbishop Theodore, nor of any individual genius; any more than shires and hundreds were invented by King Alfred. Our parishes are the natural and exigent result of the variety of causes that have planted churches; to the use of which, and to the privileges of the cures vested in them, neighbours have acquired customary or other rights. Territorial parishes are definitions and ratifications of these emergent rights, that pre-existed, as other political results do pre-exist, such confirmations of them. Their multiplication may have been promoted, more or less, by different men in different ages, including our own age. We shall presently see, that it is most likely that Offa founded the church at Cliffe; and this charter no doubt fixes the date of it. Higham must have been separated from it, into another parish, at a later time. The Archbishop of Canterbury continued to be the owner of Cliffe until K. Henry VIII.; and the rectory is still in the gift of the Archbishop, and exempt from Rochester which encompasses it. As Johnson of Cranbrook himself admits, “It is indeed a parish most singularly exempt; for the incumbent is the Archbishop’s immediate surrogate.”

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But there is a much later Mercian council, which deserves to be noticed; not for its intrinsic importance, but on account of the place from which it is dated.[83] It is a sale of two bits of land at Canterbury to the Archbishop, A.D. 823, by Ceoluulf, “rex merciorum seu etiam cantwariorum.” The price seems to have been, a pot of gold and silver money, by estimation five pounds and-a-half (or ? four and-a-half); more portable and convenient to Ceoluulf under Beornuulf’s usurpation of Mercia. This was just when Mercia was waning, and Wessex ascendant. The date is “in uillo regali, qui dicitur werburging wic.” It will be remembered what was the business that first called us to the Kentish Hoo: the finding one of our St. Werburgh dedications there.