THREE COUNTY HISTORIES.* CUMBERLAND, Worcestershire, and Hertfordshire each claim a
first volume in the "Victoria County History" series. Each is resplendent in crimson and gold, and the lightness and goodness of the paper, the clear black text and general excellence of the printing and publishing, are fully maintained. Some of the difficulties inseparable from the task of dealing simultaneously in encyclopaedic fashion with several counties are beginning to assert themselves. The first volume on Cumberland has to be issued without the chapter on the Roman occupation. As Carlisle was the western buttress of the Roman Wall, the treatment will no doubt gain in fulness by postponement to the second volume. The preface to the first volume on Hertfordshire also notes the postponement of its chapter on the Romans. But the chronological order, from earth to plants, from plants to animals, from animals to man, and from prehistoric man to the dawn and development of human records, is in every way sound, and where not entirely complete, as in some of the subsections of natural history to which local inquiry has not been particularly directed, is the best which was obtainable. The illustra- tions are excellent, and suited to the subjects dealt with. Exquisite pictures of Worcester from the Severn by William Hyde, and of St. Albans Cathedral by the same artist, are perhaps the best of the views of scenery. But the figures of relics and antiquities are numerous and good, and the maps are of great merit. Two geological maps, a prehistorical map, an orographical map, a botanical map, and many plans are available for reference in the volume on Cumberland; the Hertfordshire volume has a Domesday and Anglo-Saxon map, as well as the normal cartography ; and that on Hertfordshire is equally well equipped.
The position of Cumberland from the Norman Conquest till the reign of Elizabeth was absolutely unique. It was on the frontier of a hostile kingdom, and cut off from the rest of England. For centuries it remained rather a Crown Colony than a shire. In every feature life there was exceptional. The Bishops of Carlisle were provided with a retiring place in Lincolnshire, where their shattered nerves could recuperate after a term of Scotch raids. Cattle-raiding was a national industry, probably more so than in the youth of Nester of Pylos, whose recollections of stealing the cows of the god- like Eleans were placed at the disposal of Telemachus, There was no Domesday Survey, possibly, as Mr. James Wilson, the author of the admirable chapter on the period, suggests, because the land was of little value, or because the inhabitants were so exasperated by William the Conqueror's cruelties in the North that no juries could be found to make the requisite returns. But at the time of the Conquest the Scotch King actually held part of Cumberland. The southern boundary of his fief is stated in a note drawn up by the Canons of Carlisle in 1291 by request of Edward I., when he claimed feudal sovereignty over Scotland. They guaranteed that their inquiry was diligently made from reliable documents, and set the southern boundary at the River Duddon, the present boundary between the county and Lancashire on the south-west. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle shows that Rufus conquered it, turned out one Dolfin, and built the keep at Carlisle, that splendid monument of Norman energy, on the solid roof of which are mounted at the hour of writing the heavy cannon pointing at the Scotch border, and whose walls are still dinted by the marks of Scotch artillery. The first proper survey was the Testa de Nevin, made by order of King John, and transmitted to the Barons of the Exchequer, which gives the previous owners of land back to the reign of Henry I. The common tenure was by" noutgeld," a payment of cattle, and apparently concurrently or alternatively with a very curious military tenure due to the exceptional position of the county. The sub-tenants had to march in front of the rest of the army when the King's forces marched up to attack the Scotch, and form the rearguard when the army re- turned through Cumberland and Westmoreland, but were not bound to march beyond the borders of those two counties. The question is complicated by later changes; but in the days of Edward II. the men of the two counties maintained before the Bannockburn expedition that they were only obliged to
• Cumberland, Vol. L; Hertfordshire, VoL L; Worcestershire, Vol. L " The Victoria History of the Counties of England," edited by. AL A. Doubleday.
Loudon vArebibald.Constable and Ce.- • Ma. 55. uetTer vol.J - • •
meet him at Rerecross under Stagmoor and to go as far as the Solway, and to meet him on his return and form the rear- guard from the Solway back to Rerecross. They also declared that they had a perfect right to settle personally, in con- currence with the King's local officer, whether they would go to war with the Scots or not,—a very curious, but quite understandable, instance of particularism rare in English history.
Hertfordshire is a normal south-central shire in every way; with a Domesday Survey, part of the full materials of which exist in the report made by the jurors on three manors belonging to the Bishop of Ely. In the volume before us the editors have laid special stress on the interest of the natural history of the county, and have included a chapter on Hertfordshire sport, ancient and modern, as becomes the county which saw the publication of Dame Juliana Berners's Boke of St. Albans (printed at that town in 1460). Its nearness to London adds to the interest of the story of its "natural commodities." Much of the county is heavily wooded, and nearly all carefully preserved. Consequently there is an increase in such birds as haunt woods, except "vermin." Bricket Wood, between Watford and St. Albans, is a famous place for butterflies and moths ; but the ferns, never very plentiful in the county, have in parts been entirely destroyed, and have disappeared, owing to the wholesale ravages of the poor flower-gatherers who dig them up to sell in London. Most of the local natural history is contributed by Mr. J. 0. Hopkinson, and Haileybury School records are also quoted. Theobalds and Royston were favourite Royal hunting grounds, both with the Tudors and Stewarts, Queen Elizabeth having exchanged Hatfield for Theobalds for this purpose. She i'unted every other day at the age of sixty-seven, while Lady Salisbury at a later date only gave up fox-hunting and took to harriers at seventy-five. Her hunt wore sky-blue coats. We are told that James I. had been neglecting State affairs to hunt at Royston. One morning a favourite hound named Jowler ' was missing, and the King was vexed. Next day the hound turned up with this message tied to its neck:—" Good Mr. Jowler,—We pray you speak to the King for us (he hearing you every day and so doth not us) that it will please his Majesty to go back to London, for else the country will be undone, all our pro- visions spent already."
Worcestershire enjoys the advantage, from the county his- torian's point of view, of having one of the most nearly complete Domesday Records. The actual names of the Commissioners are preserved, and copies or duplicates of much of the full Survey, which was condensed for the Domes- day Book. From it, among other things, we gather that the " hide " was probably not a measure of land, but a unit of assessment, or, in other words, the amount of land which owed a certain sum of " gelt " to the Exchequer. Dr. Wood- ward's contribution to the geology of the county is important. The "small mountain range" of the Malvern Hills and the Lickey Hills have a curious history, here set out. Mr. Willis Bund, of the Worcestershire County Council, edits the volume, and himself gives an admirable account of the fish, and of the decline in the Severn of the stook of fish which run up from the sea to breed. What he has to say is a model in style and treatment for others who will have to deal with like questions in writing the history of other counties. He has long been Chairman of the Severn Fishery Board, and his book on Fishery Management is the most practical we have seen. Salmon, sea trout, two kinds of shad, lampreys, and lamperns come up the river, while eels descend to spawn in the sea. It was a most famous fishery, but is deteriorating, mainly from three causes. Towns on the tideway can discharge all waste unchecked into a river, and Gloucester does this on a great scale. The river has been deepened and canalised. Consequently, there are no gravelly shallows for fish to spawn in. Lastly, the tributaries are often almost emptied by water companies, who divert them, or form huge reservoirs in their catchment basins, as at Lake Vyrnwy. He fears that the old fishery, of salmon, shad, and lampreys, will gradually become extinct. It seems a pity that the elvers, or infant eels, should be caught by the ton, though it is a very ancient custom on the Severn. In the chapter on " Crusta,cea," among which are aimed kWh creitt_urcs uwogdlice pjad peutangdos,.as.well
crayfish, which were believed not to be found in the Severn, though they are common in the Thames and Severn Canal, is a reference to a very curious creature, the well shrimp. It is much like the ordinary fresh-water shrimp, but is subterranean and very rare. It is occasionally pumped up from wells, and is found to be almost white, probably blind, and very feeble, instead of full of activity, as the ordinary fresh-water shrimp is. The notes on the birds of the shire are full and inter- esting, and the lists of fauna and flora very copious. The maps and illustrative plates are numerous and clear, the geological map being especially well printed.
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