Note 537 — LECTURE IV ALFRED’S CAMPAIGNS AGAINST THE DANES; CIVIL ADMINISTRATION

This name also comes from Ethelwerd. Ramsay, Foundations of England, i. 261, sees in this the ancient name of Westminster; and a writer in the Athenaeum for June 15, 1901, takes the same view still more positively, saying that we shall search the Colne in vain for an island called Thorney. I imagine we should search the neighbourhood of Westminster with equally little success; and if the name has become extinct in one locality, why not in the other? possibly because the thorns have become extinct which gave the name. Ethelwerd may be mistaken as to the name, but it is absolutely certain that the island on which the Danes were blockaded was in the Colne: ‘hie flugon ofer Temese, … þa up be Colne on anne iggað. Þa besæt sio fierd hie.’