of Glastonbury, had foreseen his ignoble end, being fully persuaded of it from the gesticulations and insolent mockery of a devil dancing before him.  Wherefore, hastening to court at full speed, he received intelligence of the transaction on the road.  By common consent, then, it was determined that his body should be brought to Glastonbury, and there magnificently buried in the northern part of the tower.  That such had been his intention, through his singular regard for the abbot, was evident from particular circumstances.  The village, also, where he was murdered, was made a offering for the dead, that the spot, which had witnessed his fall, might ever after minister aid to his soul,—­William of Malmesbury, B, ii. e. 7, Bohn’s Edition.

vi A. D. 556—­Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

vii Wulfstan, and the See of Dorchester.

When Athelstane was dead, the Danes, both in Northumberland and Mercia, revolted against the English rule, and made Anlaf their king.  Archbishop Wulfstan, then of York, sided with them, perhaps being himself of Danish blood.  The kingdom was eventually divided between Edmund and Aulaf, until the death of the latter.  When Edred ascended the throne—­after the murder of Edmund, who had, before his death, repossessed himself of the whole sovereignty—­the wise men of Northumberland, with Wulfstan at their head, swore submission to him, but in 948 rebelled and chose for their king Eric of Denmark.  Edred marched at once against them, and subdued the rebellion with great vigour, not to say riqour.  He threw the archbishop into prison at Jedburgh in Bernicia.  After a time he was released, but only upon the condition of banishment from Northumbria, and he was made Bishop of Dorchester, a place familiar to the tourist on the Thames, famed for the noble abbey church which still exists, and has been grandly restored.

Although Dorchester is now only a village, it derives its origin from a period so remote that it is lost in the mist of ages.  It was probably a British village under the name Cair Dauri, the camp on the waters; and coins of Cunobelin, or Cassivellaunus, have been found in good preservation.  Bede mentions it as a Roman station, and Richard of Cirencester marks it as such in the xviii.  Iter, under the name Durocina.

Its bishopric was founded by Birinus, the apostle of the West Saxons; and the present bishoprics of Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter, Bath and Wells, Worcester and Hereford, were successively taken from it, after which it still extended from the Thames to the Humber.

Suffering grievously from the ravages of the Danes, it became a small town, and it suffered again grievously at the Conquest, when the inhabited houses were reduced by the Norman ravages from 172 to 100, and perhaps the inhabitants were reduced in proportion.  In consequence, Remigius, the first Norman bishop, removed the see to Lincoln, because Dorchester, on account of its size and small population, did not suit his ideas, as John of Brompton observes.  From this period its decline was rapid, in spite of its famous abbey, which Remigius partially erected with the stones from the bishop’s palace.