ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS east. Flanking the county on the north-west stretches an expanse of lias formation with an average breadth of twenty miles, parting the oolite on the south from the new red sandstone on the north ; while Huntingdon- shire and north Bedfordshire form a similar band of Oxford clay between the Nene valley and the chalk range of the Chilterns. With its chain of earthworks commanding all approaches from the Cherwell valley, and with its eastern extremity protected by the Fens, Northamptonshire would thus be materially cut off from its neighbours. But Teutonic enterprise would only be temporarily checked by such impediments as these, and the Roman roads would ere long bring into conflict settlers from north and south, Anglians and Saxons, on the debatable land between the Welland and the Nene. At least in the southern part of the county the relics from the cemeteries show a certain mingling of races which is quite in accordance with history. It was in the year 1889 that Grimsbury, a hamlet of Banbury, was severed from Northamptonshire, but its name and situation suggest an earlier political connection with the upper valley of the Cherwell, now included in Oxfordshire. Whatever the derivation may be, the root- word is to be found under various forms such as Grimes Ditch, Grim's Dike and Graham's Ditch in many parts of Britain. Several of these landmarks date from a very early period, and some occur precisely on the line of county boundaries ; but perhaps the most instructive parallel is on the border of Hampshire at the north-west angle of the New Forest, where there is reason to think that the Romano-British inhabi- tants of Wiltshire were able for a considerable period to stem the tide of barbarian invasion along the valley of the Salisbury Avon. The name of Grimsbury can only have been bestowed by a Teutonic people, and there seems little against the theory that the hamlet marks an ancient boundary between the West Saxons of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire on the one hand, and on the other the Romanized Britons, who must have inhabited parts of Northamptonshire in consider- able numbers during and after the Roman period. If then Grimsbury may be regarded as an outpost of the tribe or tribes who occupied most of the country between the Cotswolds and the Chilterns in the sixth century, the question arises whether it is possible to fix the period at which that stronghold ceased to mark a boundary. Once the general accuracy of the entry under 571 is conceded, it is possi- ble to connect the foundation of Grimsbury with the victory at Bedford; but a consideration of the remains in the neighbouring parts of North- amptonshire renders it probable that within a century from that date West- Saxon adventurers had not only penetrated to the Watling Street and perhaps ascended the Tove valley from the south-east, but had been joined and perhaps in their turn overwhelmed by a rival Anglian tribe either from the north or east. Due allowance must indeed be made for the distribution of characteristic objects in the course of trade, but in the general decay that set in on the withdrawal of the legions, commerce fared no better than government or education. It is consequently not 225
