In describing the “Stripple Stones” circle and the excavations which have taken place there, it is my intention to confine my remarks very largely to them, and to bear in mind that the work of excavation was conducted with a view of endeavouring to ascertain the approximate date of construction of this ancient monument. Descriptions, however, will be given of stone circles in the immediate vicinity, two of which the writer took the opportunity of surveying in 1905 and two in 1906, the five forming a group on Bodmin Moors.

In the days of King Edward the Confessor there was in Arundel a church dedicated in honour of St. Nicholas, which at the time of the Great Survey received from the tithes of Arundel 24s. a year. The clerks of St. Nicholas also held six hides of land in Harting, and “so it was in the time of King Edward.”

In 1900 I was invited by the University College of London to deliver a series of lectures on prehistoric chronology. I then put forward my chronological system for the Bronze Age in different parts of Europe.

The chronology of the Bronze Age in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the northern part of Germany had been treated by me already in 1885; the first period of the Bronze Age in these countries I examined more especially in 1899.

Sir Guichard d'Angle, Earl of Huntingdon, was a Frenchman, who, having seen much service under the French king, transferred his allegiance to Edward III. He was appointed Marshal of Aquitaine in 1363, and served on the English side in most of the subsequent campaigns. He accompanied the Duke of Lancaster to England in 1372, when he was appointed a Knight of the Garter as successor to the eighth stall on the Sovereign's side, then vacant by the death of Sir Walter Mauny. He was taken prisoner at Rochelle in June, 1372, and was liberated by exchange in 1374. Early in 1377 he was sent to France to negotiate the marriage of Richard, then Prince of Wales, to a daughter of Charles V. of France, and it was probably on his return from this embassy that he was robbed. After the death of Edward III., on 21st June, 1377, he was appointed one of the governors of the young king, and was created Earl of Huntingdon, for life only, at the subsequent coronation. He died early in 1380 (will proved 4th April), and was buried in the church of the Austin Friars in Bread Street. Beltz gives a long account of him, from which this note is mostly taken.

One is sorely tempted in writing upon matters connected with the Knights Templars to say something about the monstrous persecution and terrible sufferings which the unhappy brethren of the Order endured, during the opening years of the fourteenth century, at the hands of an infamous King of France, a more wicked Pope, and even of a King of England, as an excuse for bringing about their suppression.

I have the honour of submitting to the Society, on behalf of my colleagues of the Executive Committee of the Silchester Excavation Fund, the report of our investigations during the six months from the 17th May to 27th November of last year (1907), being the eighteenth successive season of our exploration of the site.

In pursuance of the plan foreshadowed in last year's report, our investigations for 1907 were resumed in the grass field which occupies a considerable area near the middle of the Roman site.

Among the most characteristic features of the life of the Roman aristocracy in classical times may be reckoned the habit of retiring from the noise and bustle of the city to a country house in the neighbourhood.

We hear of it among the Greeks, but with them it never attained the same vogue; and in Rome it was a comparatively recent development, for the first mention we have of a villa is that of the country house of the elder Scipio Africanus at Liternum (before 183 B.C.), while the next is that of the various estates of the jurist M. Junius Brutus (about 150 B.C.). From that time, however, the practice increased, and at the end of the Republic, as is clear from the correspondence of Cicero, a wealthy man like Cicero himself would probably possess several country houses. Under the Empire, and especially in the second century A.D., which seems to have been the zenith of prosperity in the Campagna di Roma, the number of villas became far greater.

Of all the numerous castles on the Marches of “Wales none can compare with the Castle of Ludlow in importance of position, the extent of its remains, or the part which it has played in history.

For a long series of years it was one of the chief strongholds of the Earl of the March, and at a later period became the place where the courts of the Lords Marchers were held, and the Lords President had their seat.