The Alfred Jewel / An Historical Essay

IT is full fifty years since I began to contemplate the Alfred Jewel with a wonder and curiosity which became a habit. At length, in the latter half of that period, the vague attitude of enquiry began to point in a definite direction, and to exhibit susceptibility of development suggesting promise of possible discovery. Prompted by such anticipations, I one day ventured to express a wish to the Principal of Hertford College that he would exercise his well-known graphic talent upon the Alfred Jewel, and make some enlarged drawings of it suitable for a Public Lecture. The result was that he gave me a beautiful set of coloured drawings of the Jewel in various aspects admirably calculated for exhibition in the Lecture


 Room. Thus equipped, I was able to make the subject more intelligible and more attractive, and I lectured upon it the oftener. As it has not been my wont to write my lectures out in full, it was all the more necessary for me on every new occasion to make a fresh study of the Jewel. In this recurring process new lights rose at wide intervals of time, and drew me on to devote more thought to the object and to the times associated with it; and I found more than I had looked for in the design, and more (I think) than I should have found, but for the generous aid so readily extended to me by Dr. Boyd.

It was after such a lecture delivered in May, 1899, that I had the great and unexpected pleasure of a proposal from the Delegates of the Press to make a book of it. I was able to accept this proposal without misgiving, because I was satisfied that I had a solid interpretation to offer—one which had been slowly matured and scrupulously tested by 


every means in my power. All the old theories had come to nothing: there was not one of them that could be seriously advocated as resting upon evidence either in history or in common sense and the natural reason of things. In saying so much as this, I am only accounting for my readiness to accept the task, and not by any means prejudging the general verdict upon the validity of my argument. In this argument I seek to establish the intimate relation of the Jewel with the history and the mind and the person of Alfred of Wessex, not indeed as a scientifically demonstrated fact, but as a well-founded and abundantly supported probability. I have no desire that this conclusion should be admitted without a complete and rigid scrutiny.

In the carrying out of this undertaking I have received welcome and much-needed help from many quarters. The subject is one that calls for illustration by maps and drawings and I desire to express my sincere acknowledgements


 to Mr. Alfred A. Clarke of Wells for his four drawings, among which I will particularly mention his characteristic landscape of the Isle of Athelney.

The map of Athelney and the lands adjacent is very ingeniously devised for exhibiting the contrast between the low level of the moorland and the contours of the rising country around; it is expressive and intelligible at a glance: and for this excellent illustration my acknowledgements are due to Mr. Bernhard V. Darbishire.

My hearty thanks are due to Mr. Charles H. Read of the British Museum for the ample information he kindly afforded me concerning the gold rings of the Saxon period which are in his department. Also for the permission which he gave (as Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries) to transfer to these pages their engraving from the Book of Kells, and also their three figures of the gold ring of queen Æthelswith.

To those gentlemen of Somerset who have aided me with local information and hospitality


and personal guidance, I have good cause to be always grateful. Major Barrett, junior, of Moredon, the owner of the Isle of Athelney, took me over the ground in a manner that is very agreeable to remember, and caused me to see the historical sites of his country with every advantage. It was under his auspices that I first realized the full import of Alfred’s fort at Borough Bridge, and what a speaking object-lesson it certainly is. I had seen it in 1856, but I had not adequately appreciated it.

From Mr. Cely Trevelian of Midelney Place I learnt much that was useful to me concerning the history and present conditions of the moorlands of Somerset. He was my hospitable friend and companion over the country on either side of the Parrett in the circle of Langport, and from that to Borough Bridge. Under his guidance I revisited Aller (pronounced Oller), and renewed acquaintance with its sacred associations, after an interval of forty-four years. In 1856 I was conducted by an old Oriel friend


 who was my host, the Rev. James Coleman, then Curate of the parish in which Athelney is situated; he subsequently became Vicar of Cheddar and Prebendary of Wells. When I entered upon the present work, after so long an interval, it was with Mr. Coleman that I began to make enquiries for local information.

To Sir Alexander Acland Hood I am indebted for genealogical and topographical information, and particularly for some new light on the history of the Jewel, now for the first time made public. The statement in the manuscript of Mr. Thomas Palmer, which is preserved at Fairfield, that the Jewel was ‘dug up,’ is a new item in the circumstances of the discovery, to which I attach important evidential weight.

I have also to thank Sir Cuthbert Slade of Maunsel, for his courtesy in answering my enquiries, genealogical and territorial, concerning the Slade family.

On Mr. C. F. Bell, the Assistant Keeper of the


 Ashmolean Museum, I chiefly depended for help in that part of my subject where I was most wanting, namely in the technicalities of ancient art, and especially concerning enamels.

To my friend Dr. Shadwell my obligations are not the less but the greater for that they are somewhat indefinable. He has read through the proofs, and has given me valuable suggestions, and he has always been ready to help when I needed advice.

For me this trinket has assumed the proportions of a serious historical problem, and its investigation has been rewarded with new light in many directions, and I do not think I shall regret the time spent upon it, even though my conclusions should hereafter be modified or even refuted. I hold that, apart from the conclusions, the investigation itself was worth the while, but when I say this I am not to be understood as admitting that I have little confidence in my conclusions.

In putting forth this Essay, I desire to


 convince the reader only as fully as I am convinced myself, that is to say, with a conviction which makes no claim to finality, but lies open to correction in case of new light or better use of old data; yet which nevertheless, in the mean time and for the main issues of the enquiry, reaches a degree of probability whereby all doubt and uncertainty is practically excluded.

J. E.