That this Werburghwick was in the Hoo, will become more likely by comparison with another charter.[84] This is, a grant of a privilege to the Bishop of Rochester, by Æthelbald, A.D. 734, which has an endorsed confirmation, by Beorhtuulf “regi merciorū in uico regali uuerbergeuuic,” which endorsement must have been added about A.D. 844. Turn also to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 851 or 853, where it is said that the Heathen men having held their winter in Thanet; in the same year came 350 ships into Thames mouth, and broke Canterbury, and London, and made this same Beorhtuulf King of the Mercians fly with his army, and went south over Thames into Surrey.[85] It is thought more likely that he was at his villa regalis, in the Hoo, than at Tamworth; where however he sometimes is also found. The truth seems to be, that, when Mercia relapsed into a mere province or Ealdormanship, it still retained its hold in Kent as an appanage. Thus we have seen Ceoluulf at our Werburghwick in the Hoo, A.D. 823; and Beorhtwulf in the same place, A.D. 844, and again, apparently disturbed by the Danes, A.D. 853. In the paper, before referred to, Mr. Rashleigh has given an analytical table of a hoard of about 550 Anglo-Saxon Coins found at or near Gravesend in 1838, which must have been buried so late as A.D. 874-5. Of these 429 are of Burgred king of Mercia A.D. 852-874, and one of Ceoluulf (II.) of Mercia, A.D. 874. Probably the boundary of the latest holding of Mercians in Kent, answers to that of the diocese of Rochester, as it came down to the middle of the present century; somewhat abnormally consisting of only a part of a county. Dioceses were originally identical with civil provinces; and have been dormantly conservative of their boundaries, during those very times when political revolutions have been most active upon those of civil states. * * * * * It thus appears, that the three most frequent of the names, from which the series of Mercian synods are dated, can be accounted for as of places practically in the same locality; and that, the one to which tradition, before it had been tampered with by philological evolution, had already directly pointed; and on a piece of land, exceptionally given to Canterbury, encompassed by the lands of Rochester, for a purpose of which the circumstances here adduced are the only explanation and index. It is not inferred that all three names indicate the same building: probably not; for, in a later synod, “ad Clobeham,” (A.D. 825)[86] a judgment “prius at Cælchythe” is referred to. But so might, up to our time, a judgment at Westminster, or at Guildhall, be quoted in the Chancellor’s Court at Lincoln’s Inn; but all three would be at London. * * * * *