But it is with the encroachments of Æthelbald upon Wessex that we are in the first instance concerned. South of Mercia proper was another nation called Huiccia, extending over the present counties of Worcester and Gloucester, with part of Warwickshire and Herefordshire, and having the Bristol river Avon for its southern boundary. It is barely possible that it may have included a narrow margin between that river and the Wansdyke, which runs along the south of that river, at a parallel of from two to three miles from it; but of this no distinct evidence has been found. Some land, between the river and Wansdyke, did in fact belong to the Abbey of Bath, which is itself on the north of the river, but that this is said to have been bought--“mercati sumus digno praetio”--from Kenulf, King of the West Saxons[1], makes it likely that it was the river that had been the tribal boundary. Until divided from Gloucester by King Henry VIII., the Bishopric of Worcester substantially continued the territory, and the present name of Worcester = Wigorceaster = Wigorniæ civitas (A.D. 789), no doubt transmits, although obscurely, the name of Huiccia; and the church there contained (A.D. 774) “pontificalis Cathedra Huicciorum.” The name may even remain in “Warwick,” and especially in “Wickwar” = Huiccanwaru; but such instances must not be too much trusted, as there are other fruitful sources of “wick,” in names. In Worcestershire names, however, “-wick” and “-wich” as testimonials are abundant. Droitwich = “Uuiccium emptorium” (A.D. 715), almost certainly is so derived, in spite of its ambiguous contact with the great etymological puzzle of the “Saltwiches.”[2] At all events, within a hundred years from Ceawlin’s first subjugation of it, Saxon Wiccia had become entirely subject to Anglian Mercia. But there can be no doubt that its earliest Teutonic settlers were West Saxons. Even now, any one of us West Saxons, who should wander through Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, would recognise his own dialect. He would, perhaps, say they “speak finer” up here, but he would feel that his ears are still at home. If he should, however, advance into Derbyshire, or Staffordshire, or Eastern Shropshire, he would encounter a musical cadence, or song, which, though far from being unpleasant from an agreeable voice, would be very strange to him. He would, in fact, have passed out of Wiccia into Mercia proper: from a West-Saxon population into one of original Anglian substratum.