All documents which bear upon the history of Westminster Abbey must have a considerable interest for Englishmen. A church in which so many of the English kings since the Conquest have been crowned and anointed will always be venerable in the eyes of the more thoughtful portion of our countrymen, just as Aken and Rhemes must be honoured by Germans and Frenchmen. But, unlike Rhemes, Westminster is not an episcopal church. It became cathedral only for a moment, after its suppression as a monastery, in the reign of Henry VIII. as Aken became cathedral for a few years at the beginning of this century, also a time of much confusion. When we cross the Alps we find again a like case in a church which is not episcopal but collegiate, the church of St. Ambrose at Milan, where the kings of Italy took the iron crown; and a still greater instance in the Vatican Basilica, only a collegiate church, where the golden crown of the world was bestowed upon the Roman emperor. There is a further likeness in the history of St. Peter's at Westminster and of St. Peter's across the Tiber. In both cases the bishop who bestowed the crown has left his seat close to his own metropolitan church and come to live hard by the church where he should crown and anoint his sovereign. The successor of St. Anselm, papa alterius orbis, has left Christchurch, Canterbury, for his manor of Lambeth; just as the pope has left his patriarchal church of St. John Lateran for his palace on the Vatican.

In treating of the parish of Standon, Salmon, in his History of Hertfordshire, relates that “At the Extremity of this Parish are two large Barrows on the Brink of the Hill which overlooks Thundritch Church, between which and the Barrows is the Course of the Rib. This Place is called Haven End; probably for having been the Harbour where the Danes laid up their Vessels, which they brought from the Thames to Ware and Hertford to carry off their Plunder. Here they were well seated to have the Roman Road for Carriage of what they could pick up, and to drive the Cattle they stole. And these Tumuli being at that Haven, which could never be used as such by any but the Danes, helps forward the Conjecture that these in England are chiefly Danish Work, set up for Victory and Terror.”

The Oratory of the Holy Trinity at Barton, in the Isle of Wight, came to an end long before the general dissolution of religious houses, and thus escaped the notice of Dugdale. Sir Richard Worsley's History of the Isle of Wight (page 177) contains a short account of it. The oratory was founded in 1275, by two parish priests, master Thomas de Winton, rector of Godshill, and Sir John de Insula (de l'lsle), rector of Shalfleet. They were men of property and good family, and I suppose that their object in adding another to the numerous religious houses in the island was that there should be one such house under the direct jurisdiction of the bishop of the diocese, owing no allegiance to the pope, or to any of the existing monastic bodies under his influence.