[41] ‘Domino gloriosissimo occidentalis regni sceptra gubernanti, quem ego, ut mihi scrutator cordis et rerum testis est, fraterna caritate amplector, Gerontio Regi simulque cunctis Dei sacerdotibus per Domnoniam conversantibus, Althelmus, &c.’ Haddan and Stubbs, _Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland_, vol. iii, p. 268. [42] In the edition by F. Wise (1722) it is on p. 48; in _Monumenta Historica Britannica_, p. 486. [43] This letter is printed in the edition of Asser by F. Wise, p. 123; and the most important parts are given in English by Mr. Conybeare, _Alfred in the Chroniclers_, p. 218. [44] And þæs on Eastron worhte Ælfred cyning, litle werede, geweorc æt Æþelinga eigge, and of þam geweorce was winnende wiþ þone here, and Sumursætna se dæl se þær niehst wæs. _Sax. Chron._, Ā. 878. [45] _Forty-one Years in India_, chap. xlvi. CHAPTER IX NEWTON PARK AND FAIRFIELD HOUSE From the date of its discovery in 1693 down to the present time, the name of ‘Newton Park’ has been associated with the Alfred Jewel as designating the property on which it was found. In our day, however, this name is no longer recognized in the neighbourhood, and indeed it is apt to be misleading. For this title is now current in Somerset in another sense, namely, as denoting the seat of Earl Temple at Newton St. Loe, near Bath. Still the honorific appellation of ‘Newton Park,’ for the estate on which the Jewel was discovered, will be found to rest upon historic antecedents, which are full of interest, and not devoid of suggestiveness for the purpose of our present investigation. The extant mention of this Newton carries us back a good space behind the Norman Conquest. The Will of Ælfric, archbishop of Canterbury, who died in 1006, affords evidence that he was a landowner in Newton. It is not generally possible to identify a place by a name which became so common, but the coupling of it in Abp. Ælfric’s Will with the name of Fiddington, removes all uncertainty. The passage in the Will (which is cast in the third person) runs thus: ‘And the land in the West Country at Fiddington and at Newton he bequeathed to his sisters and their children[46].’ In the forest laws, which grew up after the Conquest, we find that the custody of the royal forest of North Petherton was a serjeanty, which was attached to the Manor of Newton and caused it to be distinguished by the name of Newton Forester. When this Manor was granted by King John to William de Wrotham, it was declared that he held it by the service of being the king’s forester in the counties of Somerset, Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall. As he does not appear to have exercised his office beyond the county of Somerset, this territorial definition suggests that some vague prerogative had attached to Newton Manor at an earlier time.