astic charter--to show us that a
considerable monastery had existed upon the spot for a century and a
half before this first mention in the Chronicle.

There still exists in the modern town, to the west of it, a large
artificial mound, one of those which have been discovered here and
there up and down England, and which are characteristic of a late
Saxon method of fortification. Before the advent of the Normans these
mounds were defended by palisades only, and were used as but
occasional strongholds. It may be conjectured that this Saxon work at
Oxford dates from somewhat the same period as does the first mention
of the town in the Chronicle. Twelve years later Alfred's grandson is
mentioned as dying at Oxford. It may be presumed that his death would
indicate the presence of a royal palace. We hear nothing more of this
town during the remainder of the tenth century, but we have a long
account in what is probably an accurate record of the rising of the
townsmen against the Danes in the beginning of the eleventh. The
Scandinavians made their last stand in the church of the monastery,
and the townsmen burnt it. Five years later a new host of Danes took
and burnt the town; and four years later again, Sweyn, in his terrible
conquering march, captured it, after very little resistance, in the
same year in which he took the crown of England. The brief episode of
Edmund Ironside again brings the town into history: he slept here upon
his way to London in the late autumn of 1016, and here, very probably,
he was killed. From that moment the fortress (as it now certainly was)
enters continually into that last anarchy which was only cured by a
second advent of European civilisation and the success of its armies
at Hastings.

The great national council of 1018, which may be called the settlement
of Canute, was held at Oxford, and in 1036 another national council,
of even greater importance, which was held to decide upon the
succession of Canute's heirs, was again held at Oxford, and it was at
Oxford that, four years later, the first Harold died.

Meanwhile, in the near neighbourhood of the city, at Islip, Queen Emma
had, half a lifetime earlier, borne a son, who, after the death of all
these Danes, remained the legitimate heir to the English throne. Islip
was, most probably, not royal, but a private manor of the Queen's,
which descended to the Confessor, and it is interesting to note in
passing that it was his gift of this land and