A Short History of Clent. By John Amphlett. (Parker and
Co.) — This is one of those useful parish histories of which during the past few years a good number have appeared, and deals with an interesting district at the edge of the Severn Valley, which does not figure in the history of the country during the Roman occupa- tion, but was a portion of the Saxon Kingdom of Mercia. The place is historically—or mythologically—best known for its con- nection with the murder of Kenelm, who was King of Mercia, in 796. The murder was the work of Kenelm's own sister and her lover, but it was made known to the Pope at St. Peter's by a scroll carried thither by a dove. On the scroll were these words : — "In Clent, in Cowbach, lieth under a thorn, His head off -shorn, Kenelm King-born."
Apart from this, Cleat seems to have been as little distinguished in history as most English districts. It suffered, like others, from the Wars of the Roses, and benefited, like others—more or less—from the Reformation. Its story, and the story of the com- paratively notable persons who have been associated with it at one time or another, are very clearly and agreeably told by Mr. Amphlett. After the Reform Bill of 1832, Clent was, under an Act passed for rectifying county boundaries, transferred from Staffordshire to Worcestershire, to which, curiously enough, it had belonged nearly eight centuries before.
Previous page
