grants liberty of election the monastery at
Wimborne, presided over by the sister of the king. There is also some
evidence for the existence of a community of monks at Wimborne, as well
as of nuns. But of these original religious houses not a trace remains:
the very position of St Cuthberga's Church is uncertain; we cannot
be sure that the present building occupies the same site; the last
resting-places of the two royal foundresses are not even pointed out
by tradition. Probably the buildings were destroyed, the nuns slain or
driven out, when the raiding Danes overran Wessex in the ninth century.

The next historical event that we meet with in connection with Wimborne
is the burial of King AEthelred, the brother and immediate predecessor
on the throne of the great West Saxon king AElfred. As there is doubt
about the year of the foundation by Cuthberga, so again there is a
conflict of testimony as to the date, place, and manner of the death of
AEthelred--the inscription on the brass (about which more will be said
when we come to describe the interior of the minster) not agreeing with
the usually accepted date for the accession of AElfred, 871; but as the
brass is itself many centuries later than the burial of the king whose
likeness it professes to bear, its authority may well be questioned.
Anyhow, AEthelred died either of wounds received in some battle with the
Danes, in some spot which different archaeologists have placed in Surrey,
Oxford, Berkshire, or Wilts, or worn out by his long and arduous
exertions while struggling with the heathen invaders; and his body--this
alone is certain--was brought to Wimborne for burial. It has been
conjectured that AElfred, after he had defeated the Danes and established
himself firmly on the throne of Wessex, would naturally rebuild the
ruined abbey. He founded, as we know, an abbey at Shaftesbury; he is
recorded to have built at Winchester and London; he had undoubtedly a
taste for architecture, and he was a devout son of Mother Church, so
that it is by no means improbable that he would erect a church over the
grave of his brother: but no record of such building remains, and there
is no trace of any pre-Norman work in the existing minster.

The original church and conventual buildings having been swept away by
the Danes, whether AElfred restored it or not is uncertain, but it is
certain that a house of secular canons was established at Wimborne by a
king of the name of Eadward; but