A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE As already pointed out, Northamptonshire lies between two broad bands of clay formation, and the north-east opening was in the early days guarded by a vast acreage of fenland, which besides harbouring British fugitives, supported the tribes known to Bede in the eighth century as the North and South Gyrwa, who seem to have confined themselves in the main to the immediate vicinity of the Fens both of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. In the Making of England they are represented as an Anglian tribe' attempting to advance through the woodlands of Rockingham to the uplands beyond, but the spread of the Angles over the county seems to be due as much to their fellow invaders from the Soar valley. The exploits of the Gyrwa have never been recorded, but with- out traversing Rockingham Forest, parties of settlers would and probably did find an agreeable home in the valley of the Nene. The finds near Peterborough will be noticed later, but it is possible that the settlements at Islip, Woodford and Addington owed their origin to the Fenmen. In the opinion of Dr. Stubbs, the political affinities of the tribe were, like the physical affinities of their country, rather with East Anglia than with Mercia, as is seen by a comparison of the descent of the two kingdoms.* Possibly too their independence lasted longer than that of the other tribes that contributed to the late formation of the Mercian kingdom. This is no more than a guess from the little that is known of their history, but the guess gains some probability from a glance at their early ecclesiastical organization. Their connection with East Anglia probably accounts for their being Christianized much earlier than their Mercian neighbours ; and as ' a line drawn from the south point of Nottinghamshire to the Cam would probably represent the western border of the Gyrwa,' it is possible that traces of their settlement may be seen in the remains at Desborough. These certainly exhibit some evidence of Christianity, and suggest that the artistic traditions of Rome had not quite died out even in the seventh century. The generally accepted view of the Teutonic conquest is that on the whole the Anglian settlements were later than the Saxon, and besides the negative evidence of the Chronicle, geographical considerations point in the same direction so far as Northamptonshire is concerned. When therefore a mixture of Saxon and Anglian elements appears in the relics of the graves, the recognition of this sequence may serve as a guiding principle. The burial ground at Marston St. Lawrence ' is five and a half miles east-north-east of Banbury, a little over a quarter of a mile north of Marston Hill Farm, and two or three hundred yards west of the Moreton road. The field was formerly called Bar-furlong or Barrow-furlong, and is situated on a high ridge overlooking the Cherwell valley to the south, being only a quarter of a mile east of Arbury Camp on Thenford Hill,
- Reasons for regarding them as British are given by Rev. Edw. Conybeare, Popular History oj
Cambridgeshire, p. 42.
- Journal of j^rchceolopcal Institute, vol. xviii. p. 195.
' The account given in Archaolo^a, vol. xlviii. is here abridged. 228
