“Now the lions were two lions passant regardant, very rudely carved, one on each side of the arch of the great entrance, and the Bygods, whose original arms were or, a cross gules, never bore the lion till assumed by Roger Bygod in the reign of Henry III., who took the arms of his mother, the heiress of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, in whose light he became Earl Marshal of England.” Thus Camden is disposed of, and other authorities are quoted in the letter in favour of Norwich being the Venta Icenorum. “Horsley, in his _Britannia Romani_, states that Venta was the capital of the _Iceni_, situated on the Wentfar, and thence deriving its name; and misled by and quoting Camden, he places Venta at Caistor.” “King, who, born in Norwich, might have been supposed to have been better informed, in his _Munimenta Antiqua_ follows Camden, and turns the Taes into the Wensum; and in his paper in the fourth volume of the _Archæologia_, he pronounces the existing Castle of Norwich to be ‘the very tower which was erected about the time of King Canute.’” Mr. Hudson Gurney, after setting aside Wilkins as an authority, proceeds— “In 1834, I went over the Camp at Caistor and the country adjacent, with Colonel Leake, who may be considered the greatest living authority for the sites of ancient cities and fortified camps, and he at once said that he was convinced that Norwich was the _Venta Icenorum_, and capital of the Iceni, and Caistor the fortified camp planted by the Romans over against it, on the other side of the estuary, to bridle, as was their custom, a hostile population.” After quoting a letter to the same effect, Mr. Hudson Gurney continues— “In the Roman Itineraries you have three Ventas; Venta Bulgarum, Winchester; Venta Silurum, Caer Went, in Monmouthshire; and Venta Icenorum; and of these Ventas, the confusion between Winchester and the Venta Icenorum seems to have been begun very early, both with the chroniclers and romancers, probably from the one having retained the rudiments of the name, and the other becoming known as Northwic.” “Sir Francis Palgrave, in the researches which he has made for his forthcoming history of ‘England under the Normans,’ being led to the examination of all contemporary authors, in order to clear up points which he found otherwise inexplicable, has referred me to the two following passages, which would seem to prove that Norwich was the Venta Icenorum almost beyond dispute.” Here follow Latin quotations from the life of William the Conqueror by William of Poictiers and from Ordericus Vitalis under the year 1067. William of Poictiers says:—