About a mile north of the town, which still bears a name that has since acquired other claims to places in history, Hastings; is a village called Ore; of which the church has another of our southern outlying dedications of St. Helen. If Offa’s conquest, as recorded by Simeon of Durham, refers to Sussex, it needs only to say so much, in order to account for this one; and to fulfil the promise of our theory; that the name of this saint and the written witnesses of Offa’s progress, shall be found to mutually confirm each other as evidence of his active presence. This village is situated on an elevation commanding the town itself; and on the southern edge of a ridge, along which, and close to the village, runs one of those great roads, of which the straight line is significant of a long, ancient, and arterial use. In fact it must have been always the almost sole approach to the town, whether from Kent or from the centre of England. Moreover, at whatever point of the neighbouring beach, at a later time, William landed; this road must have been his principal means of reaching Battle. Here, therefore, upon the door itself of the town, still remains the usual seal of Offa’s conquests. Sir Francis Palgrave’s objection, of the insufficient importance of the Gens Hestingorum, would not, it is thought, have been raised, if he had remembered that the large territory, called the “Rap de Hastings” of Domesday, and the Rape of Hastings of our own time, most likely had already existed from the first settlement of the South Saxons. Two or three years later, Offa is still found busy in that part of Kent which adjoins this most eastern of the Rapes of Sussex. But although the Hæstingas only are mentioned, as the people first encountered, there are other evidences that he extended his conquests westward throughout Sussex. One of his St. Helens remains on the foot of the South Downs, between the peninsulated stronghold called The Devil’s Dike and the sea; and, within actual eyeshot, is another, on the opposite eastern coast of the Isle of Wight. Moreover he has, as was his practice in many parts of England, also left his own name along the line, in Offham, near Lewes, Offington, near Worthing, Offham, close to Arundel Park. There are also one or two St. Helens or Elens, both in Cornwall and Wales: which would be in accordance with what otherwise has been said above, but as several local Celtic saints have names liable to become more familiar by corruption into this one, they will not be here called into evidence. * * * * *