From the date of its discovery in 1693 down to the present time, the name of ‘Newton Park’ has been associated with the Alfred Jewel as designating the property on which it was found. In our day, however, this name is no longer recognized in the neighbourhood, and indeed it is apt to be misleading. For this title is now current in Somerset in another sense, namely, as denoting the seat of Earl Temple at Newton St. Loe, near Bath. Still the honorific appellation of ‘Newton Park,’ for the estate on which the Jewel was discovered, will be found to rest upon historic antecedents, which are full of interest, and not devoid of suggestiveness for the purpose of our present investigation.  
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The extant mention of this Newton carries us back a good space behind the Norman Conquest. The Will of ?lfric, archbishop of Canterbury, who died in 1006, affords evidence that he was a landowner in Newton. It is not generally possible to identify a place by a name which became so common, but the coupling of it in Abp. ?lfric’s Will with the name of Fiddington, removes all uncertainty. The passage in the Will (which is cast in the third person) runs thus: ‘And the land in the West Country at Fiddington and at Newton he bequeathed to his sisters and their children[46].’
 
In the forest laws, which grew up after the Conquest, we find that the custody of the royal forest of North Petherton was a serjeanty, which was attached to the Manor of Newton and caused it to be distinguished by the name of Newton Forester. When this Manor was granted by King John to William de Wrotham, it was declared that he held it by the service of being 135the king’s forester in the counties of Somerset, Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall. As he does not appear to have exercised his office beyond the county of Somerset, this territorial definition suggests that some vague prerogative had attached to Newton Manor at an earlier time.
 
In the third generation from the above grant this Manor passed with an heiress into the hands of William de Placetis. A generation later it was divided between three co-heiresses, Sabina, Evelina, and Emma. Then arose a question about the office of Forester, and it was found that it appertained to a particular messuage and meadow, and that these were included within the portion of Sabina, so she was declared Forester in fee of the forests of Exmoor, Neroche, Selwood, and Mendip, likewise custodian of the warren of Somerton; and these offices she discharged by deputy. In her time (26 Edw. I) occurred the Perambulation of the forests of the county, in pursuance of the Charter of the Forests which had been granted by Henry III. The forests were to be reduced to their ancient and lawful bounds, according to their limits at the accession of Henry I. The annual value of the lands136 then disafforested was more than a hundred times as great as that of the legal forest of North Petherton.
 
In the time of Edward III the Manor of Newton with its rights and appurtenances belonged to Roger, earl of Mortimer, in whose descendants and in the dukes of York it continued to the time of Edward IV, when it came to the Crown, and then the Manor was quoted as Newton Regis. During this period the powers of Forester were delegated, and some interesting names occur in the list of deputies:
 
14 Ric. II. Richard Brettle and Gefferey Chaucer, esqrs., by the appointment of the earl of March.
 
21 Ric. II. Gefferey Chaucer, by Alienor, countess of March.
 
4 Hen. V. Thomas Chaucer, by Edward, earl of March.
 
8 Hen. VI. William Wrothe and Thomas Attemore.
 
12 Hen. VI. William Wrothe.
 
29 Hen. VI. Sir William Bonville and Richard Luttrell, by the duke of York.
 
14 Edw. IV. Sir Giles D’Aubeny, for life.
 
23 Hen. VII. Robert Wrothe, for thirty years.
 
Soon after the expiration of which term Sir Thomas Wrothe, son and heir of the last-named Robert, purchased of Edward VI the fee137 of Petherton Park and the Manor of Newton Regis. The office of Forester had now fallen into decay and the ancient glory had departed, and the transfer of this property appears to have been governed by the ordinary considerations. In the time of Queen Elizabeth the descendants of Sir Thomas pulled down the park house, and carried the materials to a lodge called the Broad Lodge, which (said Collinson in 1791) ‘the late Sir Thomas Wrothe improved to a handsome dwelling. The whole park[47] is now converted into farms.’ The improvements of Sir Thomas Wrothe, here mentioned, have a probable connexion with our subject.
 
Such is the remarkable history of the Manor which has been at different times known as Newton Forester, Newton Placey, Newton Regis, and Newton Wrothe; and this history ministers occasion for a surmise that the distinction which attended this Manor may have had its roots considerably further back, inasmuch as the extant records do not offer an adequate account of that 138peculiar prerogative which made it so famous and so dignified.
 
I venture to suggest that the beginnings of this place, which has been so eminent, and which is now known by the comparatively obscure name of North Newton, may have been connected with the retreat of the king to Athelney, that this may have been a spot of his own selection. It is reached from Athelney by simply following the rise of the ground, it is well placed for keeping an eye on the Parret, the side from which a surprize was most to be apprehended, and it was the approach to the fine hunting-fields of Quantock and Exmoor. What more natural than that he should take a liking to the place and judge it convenient for a hunting-lodge? And I venture to throw out a surmise for consideration. May it not be that the prefix ‘New’ was set by the king himself, who gave the name of New Minster to his foundation at Winchester[48]?
 
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The name of Newton properly belonged only to the Manor, but as the lordship of this Manor was long coupled with the custody of Petherton Park, and as the two were habitually associated in men’s minds, the latter came to be spoken of as ‘Newton Park,’ and this title is simply a colloquial variation and equivalent for Petherton Park. The correct name of Petherton Park is constantly used by Leland in the extract from his Itinerary which is given in the previous chapter. So that when the Alfred Jewel is said to have been found in Newton Park, this is only a popular way of saying that it was found in Petherton Park. The discovery occurred in the time of Sir Thomas Wrothe, who was also the enlarger of the mansion, and it is a probable inference that it was found in the excavations which were required for this work[49].
 
The scene now shifts from Newton to the neighbouring parish of Stogursey or, as modern research has taught us to write it, 140Stoke Courcy. In this parish is Fairfield ............