"Behind this building is a ruin with a stone on the chimney-piece, on
which, in ancient characters relieved on the stone, is this
inscription:
'IN . MEM . ALFREDI . REG . RESTAVR . ANO . DO . 1085.'
"It would have been inexcusable in the topographer to have passed by so
curious a place without notice; but the historian would have been
equally culpable who should not have informed the reader that this
building is an excellent imitation of antiquity. The name, the
inscription, and the writing over the doors, of the convention between
the good king and his pagan enemies, were probably all suggested by the
similarity of _Achelie_, the ancient name of this place, to _Æcglea_,
where King Alfred rested with his army the night before he attacked the
Danish camp at Ethandun, and at length forced their leader Godrum, or
Guthrum, or Gormund, to make such convention."
It is many years since I saw the inscription, and then I made no note of
it; but I have no doubt that Rudder has given it correctly, because when I
was a young man I was intimately acquainted with him, who was then an aged
person; and a curious circumstance that occurred between us, and is still
full in my memory, impressed me with the idea of his great precision and
exactness.
I would remark on the explanation given by Rudder, that the _Iglea_ of
Asser is supposed by Camden, Gibson, Gough, and Sir Richard Colt Hoare to
be _Clayhill_, eastward of Warminster; and _Ethandun_ to be _Edington_,
about three miles eastward of Westbury, both in Wilts.
Asser says that, "in the same year," the year of the battle, "the army of
the pagans, departing from Chippenham, as had been promised, went to
_Cirencester_, where they remained one year."
On the signal defeat of Guthrum, he gave hostages to Alfred; and it is
probable that, if any treaty was made between them, it was made immediately
after the battle; and not that Alfred came from his fortress of
_Æthelingay_ to meet Guthrum at Cirencester, where his army lay after
leaving Chippenham.
If the treaty was made soon after the battle, it might have been at
Alfred's Hall near Cirencester, especially if _Hampton_ (Minchinhampton in
Gloucestershire), which is only six miles from Oakley Wood, be the real
site of the great and important battle, as was, a few years since, very
plausibly argued by Mr. John Marks Moffatt, in a paper inserted, with the
signature "J. M. M.," in Brayley's _Graphic and Historical Illustrator_, p.
106. _et seq._, 1834.
The mention of Rudder's History brings to my mind an inscription over the
door of Westbury Court, which I noticed when a boy at school, in the
village of Westbury in this county. This mansion was taken down during the
minority of Maynard Colchester, Esq., the present owner of the estate.
Rudder, in his account of that parish, has preserved the inscription--
"D.
O. M.
N. M. M. H. E. P. N. C."
He reads the first three letters "Deo Optimo Maximo," and says the
subsequent line contains the initials of the following hexameter:
"Nunc mea, mox hujus, et postea nescio cujus,"
{130} alluding to the successive descent of property from one generation to
another.
Perhaps one of your readers may be enabled to tell me whether the above
line be original, or copied, and from whom.