Excerpt from Memorials of Old Hampshire Hampshire may claim in a certain sense to be the premier country of England, since though not quite so ancient a kingdom as Kent or Sussex, it is, as Grant Allen calls it, "the real original nucleus of the British Empire." It is also one of the most interesting of the counties, from the importance in early English history of its charming capital, the architectural value of its Cathedral and three of its other churches, its beautiful combinations of woodland and sea, its possession of more genuine forest than all the rest of England put together, and its chief place in the naval position of England, owing to the two great harbours afforded by its fortunate coast-line. To an editor of Memorials of Old Hampshire the first difficulty, therefore, is clearly of selection. It would not be difficult to imagine another volume of the present size made up only of those subjects that - for one reason or another - I have been obliged to pass over. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com 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.