Pete M Sussex born and bred, I am, and my Dad holds that Kent should not be so proud of the name Invicta, since they were not conquered, but surrendered. Which seems to be true, as there's a memorial not far from me at Swanscombe actually celebrating that Kent negotiated a deal with William before he'd completed his terror march around London and the Witan surrendered at Berkhampstead. Still that is all water under the Medway bridge, and I won't hold grudges. Harold's elite hung out at Wallingford, which William razed on his perambulation. I would be interested in other evidence of Harold's top men being Kentish. I've read quite a bit about the period, and not met the idea elsewhere. It could be supported by evidence from Domesday on land holdings- they'd have forfeited theirs. As for peasants breaking ranks - what else do you expect? But current works on the battle emphasise what close run thing it was, which suggests that it couldn't have been quite so unskilled as all that. I won't get involved further. I have an abiding memory of an academic row about the size of the Danish army in Alfred's time which was as heated as if they were at the door.

As to Celtic placenames. the river at Dover, for starters, the Dour, is dwr, water, and Dover itself is a direct transliteration of Dubris 'at the waters' to 'Dofras' with the same case ending, in English, then to Dover. Reculver has hardly changed. Rochester can be traced from Durobrivae to D'bri, to Hrofi's cester to Rochester. Apparently. By common linguistic development. The river Darent is cognate with Derwent, another common Celtic river name, and Dartford is the ford on the Darent. That's all I can do off the top of my head, but there is also evidence from archaeology that the incoming English simply took over existing estates in Kent lock stock and villein, relatively peacefully. If you want more, I'll have a look.

Your friend's Yorkshire lass wife wouldn't be called Tricia, would she?

Bruce O, I went to my history books last night - I haven't much, but one on Wycliffe was so scathing about Ball "a half mad hedge-priest" and seemed to feel the rebellion was such a Bad Thing that I feel he should have been writing letters to the Telegraph about it. It always seems strange to me that academics can get so heated about long dead people. I've even seen it over the character of Odysseus. He was very anxious to prove that Wycliffe's followers had nothing to do with fomenting rebellion. I must get a better source. I don't think I can continue to give this one house room. I should be able to manage the Jack Straw one in our library's local history section. Funny thing, in the 60's when my sister was at the LSE, we thought the current Jack Straw a worthy inheritor of the name.