as we try to do.

Soon after our arrival, Herstan sent a messenger to Dorchester to
learn at what hour the king was expected; and the answer was returned,
that they expected him in time for the banquet at the episcopal palace
this evening. So Edmund and Alfgar consented to pass the day quietly
at Cliffton.

CHAPTER XIII. THE CITY OF DORCHESTER.

Dorchester was at this period the most important city of the Midland
counties, for it was the seat of the great bishopric which extended
its sway over nearly the whole of Mercia.

Here the apostle of Wessex, Birinus, had converted and baptized
Cynegils, king of that country, Oswald, the saintly king of
Northumbria, being present, and receiving him fresh from the
regenerating waters as his adopted son. Here, the next year, Cuichelm,
his brother, was baptized, and from this centre Christianity was
widely diffused. The good bishop died in the year 650, and was buried
amongst the people he loved, but many years later his relics were
translated to Winchester. But the tale went forth that the cunning
canons of Dorchester had given them another body than that of the
saint, and their shrine was the object of veneration equally with the
rival shrine at Winchester.

Dorchester became successively the seat of two great bishoprics--the
one West Saxon, the other Mercian. The first, founded by Birinus, when
Wessex extended far north of the Thames, was divided seventy years
later into two sees--Winchester and Sherburne. For some years the city
was without bishops, owing to its insecure position during the strife
between Wessex and Mercia, but later it appears as the seat of the
great Mercian bishopric, retaining its jurisdiction until after the
Norman conquest, when the see was transferred to Lincoln. Therefore
Dorchester long enjoyed a wide celebrity and greater influence, than
the city, Oxenford, which, lying at a distance of ten miles, was
destined to supersede it eventually.

The day was closing on an evening of November 1006, and the sun was
sinking across the level country beyond the walls, when the people of
Dorchester might have been seen crowding the roads which led from the
eastern gate towards Bensington and Wallingford; the wooden bridge by
which the road crossed the Tame was covered with human beings, and
every eye was eagerly directed along the great high road. The huge
cathedral church towered above the masses, rude in architecture, yet
still impressive in its pro