[10] William Joseph Hugh Clifford, second son of the seventh Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, was the Roman Catholic bishop of Clifton from 1857 to 1888. He was a member of the Somerset Archæological and Natural History Society, and for many years a constant attendant at the yearly meetings. In 1877 he was President of the Society. His obituary, by Canon Holmes, is in vol. xxxix of the Society’s Proceedings. [11] This machinery for bringing the _baculus cantoris_ to Athelney was first employed in the interest of the stylus theory. See S. Pegge in _Archæologia_ ii, quoted above in chapter iii. CHAPTER V A JEWEL IN THE CROWN The Alfred Jewel is so made as to require a small stem or ‘stert’ for its fixture when in use. It tapers off to a socket, which is adapted to receive a small stem, and it is only when erected on such a stem that the Figure in enamel will appear in a natural position. How can we accommodate it with such a function as will correspond to these indications of design? Evidently not on the top of a standard-bearer’s pole, nor on the top of a stilus, nor at the butt-end of a music-master’s wand. It is moreover evident that the stem was a permanent fixture in the socket, for although the socket is now empty, this is due to the perishing of the stem, as appears from the fact that the cross-pin is riveted. The stem was therefore not metallic, but of some hard organic substance, perhaps walrus ivory. Our problem then is to discover a place in which this Jewel, permanently furnished with such a stem, could be so erected as to discharge some appropriate function. That function can hardly be other than personal decoration, and the place in which it might be erected is the helmet of the warrior. I imagine then that a hollow bead ran round the king’s helmet, along the rim next the forehead, and that over the very centre of the brow there was a round orifice in the upper slope of the bead, fitted to receive the ivory stem of the Jewel, and that when fixed in this position it would have minor jewels similarly fixed on either side, but that this one would be the central piece and the richest jewel in the crown or coronet. For this magnificent Jewel would have the effect of converting the helmet into a crown, transforming the most vital piece of defensive armour into the chief of royal insignia for public occasions of state.