Excerpt from St. Helen's Chapel, Colchester<br><br>St. Helen's Well, which is frequently mentioned in the Oath Book, but of which the memory is now lost.<br><br>The learned and industrious historian of Colchester, the Rev. Philip Morant, writing in the middle of the last century, stubbornly and, indeed, enthusiastically maintained the claim of Colchester to be the birthplace of Helen, whose emblem (the Cross) he professed to detect not only in the armorial bearings of the town (in which, though the point has been disputed, he may have been possibly right), but even in the plan of the streets, and of the foundation vaults of the castle! His contention, which he supported with much erudition, evoked the applause of the eccentric Stukeley, who, in a letter now in Mr. Round's possession urged that he had himself somewhat strengthened the argumentation, and angrily complained that the sceptical Gale should take any pains to rob us of a fine lady and great emperor.<br><br>Leaving these strange and bygone fancies, let us see what light the dedication to St. Helen can throw upon the history of this chapel. If, as seems to be now admitted, St. Helen was a saint in peculiar favour with the famous Offa, King of Mercia (7 58 the fact that, in the course of his victorious career, he extended his dominion over this district, suggests that we may have in this chapel an actual foundation of his own, which would give it, if accepted, an antiquity of some 1 100 years.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.