Yorkshire and Lancashire. The first sovereign began his reign in the year 585. It is not desirable to pursue the history of Oxfordshire, as a part of Mercia, through the boisterous periods of the heptarchy; but it seems proper to remind the reader that the Mercians proved one of the bravest of the seven kingdoms; and thus it is evident that the aboriginal inhabitants (the chief part of whose youth were employed in the field by their Saxon ruler,) possessed a ready disposition for feats of hardihood, when they were duly trained to military exertion. When Egbert reduced the whole heptarchy to one kingdom in 827, he considered the Mercians so formidable a people, that he suffered them to remain beneath the peculiar jurisdiction of their former sovereign; though, in point of political power, he took strong care that the nominal monarch should exist only as actual viceroy to himself. On the division of Mercia into five bishoprics, when the Saxons embraced the Christian faith, the term Dobuni was utterly buried under that of Wiccii, a word strictly descriptive of the former local circumstances of the people, if it be allowed to mean, as Camden suggests, a race dwelling on the "nooks and creeks of rivers."* Towards the end of the ninth century a fresh enemy penetrated to the interior, and spread dismay and desolation over the Mercian districts. The Danes fixed their head quarters at Reading, and ravaged every part of Oxfordshire north of the Thames. On this occasion it does not appear that any opposition was offered by the Wiccii; and the government of the country which they inhabited was delegated, with other parts of Mercia, to a nobleman, who had been so weak and disloyal as to secede from his allegiance to the patriotical King Alfred. During the long coutests which subsequently took place between the Saxous and Danes, Oxfordshire was often the seat of warfare. Several battles of consequence were fought in the county; and the city of Oxford was four times completely reduced to ashes. So disas trously * For different opinions concerning the etymology of the term Wiccii, the reader is referred to the Beauties, &c. for Gloucestershire, p. 500. trously great was the ascendant of the fresh invader in Mercia, that the whole district is described as being, at the commences ment of the eleventh century, principally inhabited by Danes.* But, although Oxfordshire presents little satisfactory to the English reader in regard to its military aspect, during those periods in which the armies of two great foreign powers struggled for mastery, it must be ever remembered that learning received nurture in this eminent county, even amid scenes of bloodshed and devastation. Under the patronage of the great Alfred the university of Oxford took firm root, and progressively advanced, in contempt of many discouraging circumstances, until it became, to use the words of Camden, a spot whence "religion, learning, and good manners, are happily diffused through the whole kingdom." The dreadful war of the Roses, which stained so many districts with native blood, proved fatal to several of the nobility and gentry connected with Oxfordshire, among whom none suffered more severely than the august family which derived a title from the county; but, fortunately, those vales and plains, which were so often the scenes of slaughter in earlier periods, now remained free from the destructive ravages of both the great parties engaged in unnatural contests. In only one instance did either the Yorkists or Lancastrians enter Oxfordshire in arms. In the year 1469 an army of 15,000 men, composed chiefly of the farmers and common people of Yorkshire, proceeded so far south as the neighbourhood of Banbury. At this time Edward IV. sat on the throne, and he sent the Earls of Pembroke aud Devon to oppose the "rebels." The two earls quarrelled at Banbury, and the latter withdrew his forces; but Pembroke encountered the insurgents on a level extent of ground called Danesmore, on the border of Oxfordshire, where he was defeated and lost his life. When the unhappy war took place in the seventeenth century between King Charles and a part of his people, Oxfordshire was Yorkshire and Lancashire. The first sovereign began his reign in the year 585. It is not desirable to pursue the history of Oxfordshire, as a part of Mercia, through the boisterous periods of the heptarchy; but it seems proper to remind the reader that the Mercians proved one of the bravest of the seven kingdoms; and thus it is evident that the aboriginal inhabitants (the chief part of whose youth were employed in the field by their Saxon ruler,) possessed a ready disposition for feats of hardihood, when they were duly trained to military exertion. When Egbert reduced the whole heptarchy to one kingdom in 827, he considered the Mercians so formidable a people, that he suffered them to remain beneath the peculiar jurisdiction of their former sovereign; though, in point of political power, he took strong care that the nominal monarch should exist only as actual viceroy to himself. On the division of Mercia into five bishoprics, when the Saxons embraced the Christian faith, the term Dobuni was utterly buried under that of Wiccii, a word strictly descriptive of the former local circumstances of the people, if it be allowed to mean, as Camden suggests, a race dwelling on the "nooks and creeks of rivers.' Towards the end of the ninth century a fresh enemy penetrated to the interior, and spread dismay and desolation over the Mercian districts. The Danes fixed their head quarters at Reading, and ravaged every part of Oxfordshire north of the Thames. On this occasion it does not appear that any opposition was offered by the Wiccii; and the government of the country which they inhabited was delegated, with other parts of Mercia, to a nobleman, who had been so weak and disloyal as to secede from his allegiance to the patriotical King Alfred. During the long coutests which subsequently took place between the Saxons and Danes, Oxfordshire was often the seat of warfare. Several battles of consequence were fought in the county; and the city of Oxford was four times completely reduced to ashes. So disastrously For different opinions concerning the etymology of the term Wiccii, the reader is referred to the Beauties, &c. for Gloucestershire, p. 500. trously great was the ascendant of the fresh invader in Mercia, that the whole district is described as being, at the commence ment of the eleventh century, principally inhabited by Danes.* But, although Oxfordshire presents little satisfactory to the English reader in regard to its military aspect, during those periods in which the armies of two great foreign powers struggled for mastery, it must be ever remembered that learning received nurture in this eminent county, even amid scenes of bloodshed and devastation. Under the patronage of the great Alfred the university of Oxford took firm root, and progressively advanced, in contempt of many discouraging circumstances, until it became, to use the words of Camden, a spot whence "religion, learning, and good manners, are happily diffused through the whole kingdom." The dreadful war of the Roses, which stained so many districts with native blood, proved fatal to several of the nobility and gentry connected with Oxfordshire, among whom none suffered more severely than the august family which derived a title from the county; but, fortunately, those vales and plains, which were so often the scenes of slaughter in earlier periods, now remained free from the destructive ravages of both the great parties engaged in unnatural contests. In only one instance did either the Yorkists or Lancastrians enter Oxfordshire in arms. In the year 1469 an army of 15,000 men, composed chiefly of the farmers and common people of Yorkshire, proceeded so far south as the neighbourhood of Banbury. At this time Edward IV. sat on the throne, and he sent the Earls of Pembroke and Devon to oppose the "rebels." The two earls quarrelled at Banbury, and the latter withdrew his forces; but Pembroke encountered the insurgents on a level extent of ground called Danesmore, on the border of Oxfordshire, where he was defeated and lost his life. When the unhappy war took place in the seventeenth century between King Charles and a part of his people, Oxfordshire was not so favored as to escape the visitation of the sword. The inhabitants of the county do not appear to have entered, with senseless enthusiasm, into the views of either party; but it was their calamity to feel the rod of war without having toiled for the evil harvest of its thorns. The contending armies traversed the county from one extremity to the other; and, whatever might be the banner under which these armies fought, their exactions and devastations were almost equally injurious, as far as regarded the great bulk of the inhabitants. During the vicissitudes of this melancholy struggle the city of Oxford was reduced by the sectarian army, and the town of Banbury was wrested from his fanatical opponents by the king, who retained possession until he retired to Scotland. Several intrenchments remain in different parts of the county as memorials of one of the most disgraceful civil contests, in which the fever of half-enlightened intellect ever plunged a great nation. ROMAN ANTIQUITIES, The continued amity (if such a term may be bestowed on the connexion between the conqueror and the tributary,) which prevailed among the Romans and the Dobuni, prevents our meeting in Oxfordshire with many important relics of Roman military construction. At Alchester, or Aldchester, on the eastern part of the county, and bordering on the former possessions of the Cattieuchlani, there was certainly a Roman station, the remains of which are of a square form, with a ditch and bank facing the four cardinal points. At Dorchester, situate on the south-west, and adjacent to the country of the Attrebatii, it is probable, likewise, that the Romans fixed a station, although the circumstances in evidence are by no means so clear as in the former instance. The situation is such as to render the conjecture highly plausible; and it is well known that the word Cestre, or Chester, with a significant adjunct, was generally used by the Saxons to express a place erected on the site or remains of a Roman fortification. That the Romans formerly resided here in considerable strength |