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lrr|*|i|ts CamtoMi THIRD SERIES, No. X.—APRIL, 1857. WALES AND ITS MARCHES, AND THE COUNTIES FORMED OUT OF OR AUGMENTED THEREBY. (Read at Welshpool.) The Marches of Wales were the boundaries between that country and England. During the Saxon dominion in England, until the time of Offa, the Severn was considered the boundary between Wales and England; what was conquered by that monarch, on the western side of the Severn, was annexed by him to his kingdom of Mercia, and came into possession of Alfred the Great as a portion of the kingdom of England. When Alfred afterwards divided England into shires, he made part of the country west of the Severn a county by itself, under the name of Hereford, and the residue he added to the district on its eastern side, and divided the same into the counties of Salop, Worcester, and Gloucester. The Kings of England, subsequent to the Norman conquest, finding it difficult, if not impracticable, to effect a conquest of Wales by large armies, thought it better policy, in order to free themselves from the burden and charges of the war, to incite their nobility and followers, at their own cost, to seize upon and keep as their own such lands on the borders of Wales as they could win ARCH. CAMB., THIRD SERIES, VOL. III. M