It also happened, that Camden, when treating of Berkshire, had quoted from the Chronicle of Abingdon, a passage which set forth, that, before the abbey was founded at, or removed to, that place, its name had been “Sheouesham,” and was a royal residence. This name, thus brought forward by Camden, struck the fancy of Somner the learned compiler of the earliest Anglo-Saxon Dictionary,[35] who, collating it with Camden’s hesitation at the Cliffe-at-Hoo tradition, thought he saw in “Sheouesham” a scriptorial erroneous variation of “Clouesho or -ham;” Abingdon being, in accordance with the conception of the greater constancy of the frontiers of the “Heptarchy” then prevalent, more likely to be the place of councils, at which the Mercian kings so often presided. And this seemed to be the more likely; because the Abingdon Chronicle also said, that Abingdon had hitherto been a royal residence, when the abbey was founded, from which it got its new name. The Abingdon Chronicle is, of course, good for its proper uses, but where it says that “Seouescham civitas” had been a “sedes regia,” although the name has an English colouring, it is evidently speaking of British or ante-Saxon times. If a royal residence during the reign of Æthelbald, it must have been of the West Saxons, and not of the Mercians. It could not, therefore, have been the Cloveshoe where Æthelbald presided. If this liberty of interpretation should be permitted, it is plain that it would be enough to shake almost any recorded name. Indeed another example of its use, if also tolerated, would reverse the one itself that had been proposed: would, if the other was enough to carry it to Abingdon, be strong enough to bring it back again to Hoo. In the charter, dated A.D. 738,[36] four years before the earliest recorded Cloveshoe Council, a piece of land is called “Andscohesham.” This is certainly within the very Hoo district itself, which is the site of the Cloveshoe of the tradition; being described as “in regione quæ uocatur Hohg.” Mr. Kemble prints the charter from the Textus Roffensis, but omits the title or endorsement that fixes the very spot in the Hoo that it refers to. This is, however, preserved in Monasticon Anglicanum:[37] “De Stokes, que antiquitus vocabatur Andscohesham;” and Stoke is now a parish in the Hoo, and close to Cliffe. There can be no doubt that the “And-” stands for, or is a corrupt reading of, “aed-” or the preposition “æt,-” so continually carried, along with vernacular Anglo-Saxon names, into Latin documents; and the name of this “Scohesham” of the Kentish Hoo would thus be practically identical with that of the “Scheouesham”--also written “Seuekesham”[38]--the alleged ancient name of Abingdon. Not that it is intended here to say that “Andscohesham” is a corruption of “Clovesham,” although it would have been just as reasonable as Somner’s inference; but that Somner’s conjecture for removing the place, might be retorted by one equally efficient to bring it back again.