* I may refer the reader on this subject to my paper on the ^ Eailj Frisian Settlements in Scotland," printed in the Proeeedm^ ^ IIU Sfidehf of Antiquariei (voL £▼. p. 169). For the struggle in th« ioat]^ the reader cannot do better than refer to Dr. Quest's rvj abk papcn in the AreiteoUyical JownaL 52 STATE OF COUNTRY IN SIXTH CENTURY.
Firth of Forth is meant That they may have had settlements beyond the Firth is very probable, but the regions next the wall, as far as the confines of the Picts, can mean nothing but the districts lying between the Forth and Clyde, through which the northern wall passes, as far as the river Forth, which formed at all times the southern boimdary of the kingdom of the Picts. These regions are nearly equivalent to the modem counties of Stirling and Dumbarton, AH Welsh traditions connected with this war invariably designate Octa and Ebissa, or Eossa as they termed him, and their successors, as Arthur's opponents, and we shall see that the localities of his twelve battles, as recorded by Nennius, are all more or less connected with the districts in the vicinily of the northern walL The first battle was ''in ostium fluminis quod dicitur GleixL** There are two rivers of this name — one in Northumberland, mentioned by Bede as the river where Paulinus baptized the Angles in 627, and the other in Ayrshire. It rises in the moimtains which separate that county from Lanarkshire, and falls into the Irvine in the parish of Loudoun. It is more probable that Arthur advanced into Scotland on the west^ where he would pass through the friendly country peopled by the Cymry, than through Bemicia, already strongly occupied by bodies of Angles; and it is at the mouth of the latter river, probably, that he first encountered his opponents. It accords better, too, with the order of his battles, for the second, third, STATE OF COUNTRY IN SIXTH OEMTUBT. 53 fourth, and &£Qi^ were ''super aliud flumen quod dicitur Dubglas et est in regione Linnuis.* Here must have been the first severe struggle, as four battles were fought on the same river, and here he must have penetrated the ''regiones juzta murum," occupied hy the Saxons. Dubglas is the name now called Douglas. There are many rivers and rivulets of this name in Scotland; but none coidd be said to be "in regione Linnuis,*' ejccept two rivers — the Upper and Lower Douglas, which fall into Loch Lomond, the one through Glen Douglas, the other at Inveruglas^ and ace both in the district oi the Lennox, the Tiinnuis of Nen* nius. Here, no doubts the great struggle took places and the hill called Ben Arthur at the head of Loch Long^ which towers over this district between the two rivers, perpetuates the name of Arthur in connection with it The sixth battle was ** super flmnen quod vocatur Bassas.''* There is now no river of this name in Scot- land, and it has been supposed to have been somewhere near the Bass Rock, the vicinity of which it is presumed may have given its name to some neighbouring stream. The name Bass, however, is also applied to a peculiar mound having the appearance of being artificial^ which is formed near a river, though really formed by natural causes. There is one on the Uiy river in Aberdeenshire termed the Bass of Liverury, and tiiere are two on the bank of the Carron, now called' Dunlr * The printed text of tlie Vatican MS. of Kennini hat * but this is a mistake. The original MS. reads * ^---*' 54 STATE OF COUNTRY IN SIXTH CENTURY.
pace^ erroneously supposed to be fonned from the Graelic and Latin words Duni pacts, or hills of peace^ but the old form of which was Dunipais, the latter syllable being no doubt the same word Bass. Directly opposite, the river Bonny flows into the Carron, and on this river I am disposed to place the sixth battle.
The seventh battle was '' in silva Caledonis, id est. Cat Coit Celidon " — that is> the battle was so called, for Cat means a battle, and Coed Celyddon the Wood of Celyddon. This is the Nemus Calcdonis that Merlin is said, in the Latin Vita Merlini, to have fled to after the battle of Ardderyth, and where, according to the tradition reported by Fordun (B. iii. c xxvi.), he met Eentigem, and afterwards was slain by the shepherds of Meldredus, a regulus of the coimtry on the banks of the Tweed, ^ prope oppidum Dimmeller.'' Local tradition places the scene of it in Tweeddale, where, in the parish of Drumelzier, anciently Dunmeller, in which the name of Meldredus is preserved, is shown the grave of Merlin. The upper part of the valley of the Tweed was once a great forest^ of which the forests of Selkirk and Ettrick formed a part, and seems to have been known by the name of the Coed Celyddon.
The eighth battle was " in Castello Guinnion.'' The word castellum implies a Roman fort^ and Ouinnion is in Welsh an adjective formed from gwen, white. The •Harleian MS. adds that Arthur carried into battle upon his shoulders an image of the Virgin Mary, and that the Pagani were put to flight and a great slaughter made of them by virtue of the Lord Jesus Christ and of Saint STATE OF GOUNTRY IK SIXTH GENTUBY. 55 Mary his mother. Heniy of Himtmgdoii, who like- wise gives this account, says the image was upon his shield; and it has been well remarked that the Welsh ysgwyd is a shoulder and ysgwydd a shield, and that a Welsh original had been differently translated. Another MS. adds that he likewise took into battle a cross he had brought from Jerusalem, and that the firagments are still preserved atWedale. Wedale is a district watered by the rivers Gala and Heriot^ cor- responding to the modem parish of Stow, anciently called the Stow in Wedale. The name Wedale means ** The dale of woe,'' and that name having been given by the Saxons implies that they had experienced a great disaster here. The church of Stow being dedicated to St Mary, while Qeneral Soy places a Roman castellum not far from it, indicates very plainly that this was the scene of the battle.
The ninth battle was '' in urbe Leogis " according to the Vatican, '' Legionis" according to the Harleian text The former adds ''qui Britannice Kairlium dicitur." It seems unlikely that a battle could have been fought at this time with the Saxons at either Caerleon on the Esk or Caerleon on the Dee, which is Chester; and these towns Nennius terms in his list not Kaerlium or Kaerlion, but Eaer Legion. It is more probably some town in the north, and the Menumxbir lia of Nennius will afford some indication of the town intended. The first of his Mernorabilta is ** Stagnum Lumonoy," or Loch Lomond, and he adds *^ non vadit ex eo ad mare nisi unum flumen quod vocatur Leum " — that is the Leven. The Irish Kennius gives the name 56 STATE OF COUNTRY IN SIXTH CENTURY.
coirectly Leamhuin, and the Ballimote text gives the name of the town, Cathraig in Leomhan (for Leam- Y Aan), the town on the Leven. This was Dumbarton, and the identification is confirmed by the Bruts, which place one of Arthur's battles at Alclyd, while his name has been preserved in a parliamentary record of David n. in 1367, which denominates Dumbarton ** Castrum ArthurL'' The tenth battle was '' in littore fluminis quod vocatur Treuruit^ There is much variely in the readings of this name, other MSS. reading it '' Trath tniiroit,* or the shore of Truiroit; but the original Cymric fonn is given us in two of the poems in the Black Book: it is in one Trytoruid, and in the other Tratheu Trywruid. There is no known river bearing a name approaching to this. Tratlie% or shores, implies a sea-shore or sandy beach, and can only be applicable to a river having an estuary. An old description of Scotland, written in 1165 by one familiar with Welsh names, says that the river which divides the *^ rcgna Anglorum et Scottorum et currit juxta oppidum de Strivelin" was ''Scottice vocata Frochf Britannice Werid*** This Welsh name for the Forth at Stirling has disappeared, but it closely resembles the last part of Nennius' name, and the difierence between wruid, the last part of the name * ChroMde of ike PieU and SeoU, p. 136. — ^It may seem strange that I aliOQld asMit that Gwiyd and Forth aro the lame word. But Owr in Welsh is repreeented bj Fear in Irish, the old fonn of which wai For, and final d in Welsh is in Irish ck, in Pictish tK The riyer which lalls into the Dee near Bala, in North Wales, is called the Tiy-weiyn, a ymj similar combination.
STATE OF GOUNTRY IN SIXTH OENTUBY. 57 Try-wTuidy and Werid is trifling. The original form must have been Gwruid or Owerid, the G disappearing in combination. Ifby the^rae^AeuTVy-tiTUuItheLiiilGi of Forth are meant^ and Stirling was the scene of this battle, the name of Arthur is also connected with it bjr tradition, for William of Worcester, in his Itinerary, ' says ''Rex Arthurus custodiebat le round table in castro de Styrlyng aUter Snowdon West Castle.* The eleventh battle was fought ^ in monte qui dici- tur Agned," — ^that is in Mynyd Agned, or Edinburgh, and here too the name is preserved in Sedes Arthuri or Arthur's Seat This battle seems not to have been fought against the Saxons, for one MS. adds ** Cathro- gonnimi,'' and another '' contra illos que nos Cathbreg- yon appellamus.'* They were probably Picts.
The twelfth battle was " in Monte Badonis.* This is evidently the " obsessio Montes Badonici'' of Oil* das, and was fought in 516. It has been supposed to have been near Bath, but the resemblance of names seems alone to have led to this tradition. Tradition equally points to the northern Saxons as the opponents, and in Ossa Cyllellaur, who is always named as Arthur's antagonist, there is no doubt that a leader of Octa and Ebissa's Saxons is intended; while at this date no conflict between the Britons and the West Saxons could have taken place so far west as BatL The scene of the battle near Bath was said to be on the Avon, which Layamon mentions as flowing past Badon HilL But on the Avon, not far from Linlithgow, is a very remarkable hill, of considerable size, the top of which is strongly fortified with double ramparts, and 58 STATE OF COUNTRY IN SIXTH CENTURY.
past which the Avon flows. This hill is called Bouden HilL Sibbald says^ in his Account of Linlithgowshire in 1710: — " On the Buden hill arc to be seen the ves- tiges of an outer and inner camp. There is a great cairn of stones upon Lochcote hills over against Buden, and in the adjacent ground there have been found chests of stones with bones in them, but it is uncertain when or with whom the fight was." As this battle was the last of twelve which seem to have formed one series of campaigns, I venture to identify Bouden Hill with the Mons Badonicus.
According to the view I have taken of the site of these battles, Arthur's course was first to advance through the Cymric country, on the west, till he came to the Glen where he encountered his opponents. He then invades the regions about the wall, occupied by the Saxons in the Lennox, where he defeats them in four battles. He advances along the Strath of the CaiTon as far as Dunipace, where, on the Bonny, his fifth battle is fought; and from thence marches south through Tweeddale, or the Wood of Celyddon, fighting a battle by the way, till he comes to the valley of the Gala, or Wedale, where he defeats the Saxons of the east coast He then proceeds to master four great fortresses: first, Kaerlium^ or Dumbarton; next, Stirling, by defeating the enemy in the trcUheu Tryvoeryd^ or Carse of Stirling; then Mynyd Agned, or Edinburgh, the great stronghold of the Picts^ here called CcUhhregion; and, lastly, Boudon Hill, in the centre of the country, between these strongholds.
The BruU probably relate a facf^ in which there is wm STATE OF COUNTRY IK SIXTH CENTUBT. 59 a basis of real history, when they state that he gave the districts he had wrested fix>m the Saxons to three brothers — Uricn, Llew, and Arawn. To Urien he gave Reged, and the district intended by this name appears firom a previous passage, where Arthur is said to have driven the Picts fix>m Aldyde into ** Mureif, a country which is otherwise termed Reged^ and that they took refuge there in Loch Lomond.
Loch Lomond was therefore in it, and it must have been the district on the north side of the Boman wall or MuVf from which it was called Mureif. To Llew he gave Lodoneis or Lothian. This district was partly occupied by the Picts whom Arthur had subdued at the battle of Mynyd Agned; and this is the Lothus of the Scotch traditions, who was called King of the Picts, and whose daughter was the mother of Kentigcm. And to Arawn he gave a district which they call Yscotlont or Prydyn, and which was probably the most northern parts of the conquered districto, at leart as far as Stirling. 1 In 537, twenty-one years after, the Chronicle of 977 records, ''Gweith Camlan in qua Arthur et Medraut coruere;'' the battle of Camlan, in which Arthur and Medraut perished. This is the celebrated battle of Camlan, which figures so largely in the Ar^ thurian romance, where Arthur was said to have been mortally wounded and carried to Avallon, that mysterious place; but here he is simply recorded as having been killed in battle. It^is surprising that historians should have endeavoured to place this battle in the south, as the same traditions, which encircle it 60 STATE OP COUNTRY IK SIXTH CENTURY.
with 80 many fables, indicate very clearly who his an* tagonists were. Medraut or Modred was the son of that Llew to whom Arthur is said to have given Lothian, and who, as Lothus, King of the Picts^ is invariably connected with that part of Scotland. His forces were Saxons, Picts, and Scots, the very races Arthur is said to have conquered in his Scotch campaigns. If it is to be viewed as a real battle at all, it assumes the appearance of an insurrection of the population of these conquered districts^ under Medraut, the son of that Llew to whom one of them was given, and we must look for its site there. On the south bank of the Carron, in the very heart of these districts, are remains which have alwa3rs been regarded as those of an import- ant Roman town, and to this the name of Camelon has long been attached. It has stronger claims than any other to be regarded as the Camlan where Arthur en* countered Medraut, with his Picts^ Scots, and Saxons, and perished; and its claims are strengtihened by the for- mer existence of another ancient building on the opposite side of the river — ^that singular monument^ mentioned as £gu: back as 1293 by the name of ** Fumus Arthuri,'' and subsequently known by that of Arthur's O'on.
In thus endeavouring to identify the localities of these events connected with the names of Cunedda and of Arthur, I do not mean to say that it is all to be accepted as literal history, but as a legendary account of events which had assumed that shape as early as the seventh century, when the text of the ffisUnia BrUonum was first put together, and which are conmiemorated in local tradition.
STATE OF BRITAIN WHEN OILDAS WROTE. 61 CHAPTER V.
STATE OF BRITAIN IN A.D. 660 WHEN OILDAS WBOTB^ AND KINGS OF THE LINE OF DYFI.
<.
GiLDAS, in his epistle, written probably firom Armorica^ draws a dark picture of the state of Britain. The colours may be overcharged and the lines deepened; but, exaggerated though it may be by a Christian zeal, which may have driven him firom the country, his language, if there is any reality in it at all, implies a great departure &om the Christian fait^ and a deep corruption of manners. The expressions which he em- ploys regarding the state of the princes of Wales are but an echo of what is used by other writers regarding the more northern Cymry. In the oldest life of Saint Kentigem, Llew, or Lothus as he is there called, whose daughter was his mother, is described as '' vir semi- paganus; " and Joceline, who used older documents, calls him « secta paganis^jbi,'' and describes the infant J, church, which had been founded shortly before at Glasgow by Kentigem, as being oppressed by ^qui- dam tyrannus vocabulo Morken,'' that he '' viri Dei vitam atque doctrinam sprevit atque despexit,' and that after his death his '' Cognati^ obliged him to take refuge in Wales, where, under Caswallawn law Hir, the father of Maelgun, Kentigem founded the mon- N 62 STATE OF BRITAIN WHEN QILDAS WROTE, astery of Llanelwy, or St Asaph's. He also says of the Picts^ " Picti vero prius per Sanction Ninianum ez magna parte; postea per Sanctos Kentegemnm et Ck)lumbam fidem susceperunt; dein in apostasiam lapsi, iterum per predicationem Sancti Kentegemi, non solum Picti, sed et Scoti, et popnU innumeri in di- yersb finibns Britanniad constituti, ad fidem con- versi vel in fide confirmati sunt'' There is here indicated a wide-spread apostasy from the Christian church founded by Ninian, which drove Eentigem from Glasgow, and which, on his return from Wales, he was mainly instrumental in healing. His expulsion from Glasgow must have taken place between 540 and 560, as he was a considerable time in Wales and re- turned in 573. It therefore closely followed the battle of Camlan. Arthur was pre-eminently a Chris- tian leader. The legends connected with the battle in which he carried the image of Saint Mary on his shield, and the cross he obtained from Jerusalem, indicate this. Medraut was the son of that ** vir semipaganus" Llew or Loth, and his insurrection with his Pictish and Saxon allies seems like the outburst of a Pagan party. The arrival in 547, no long time after, of Ida, the Anglic king, and the consolidation of the Saxon settiements on the eastern sea-board of the north into the Anglic kingdom of Bemicia, stretching first from the southern wall to the Tweed, with Bamborough for its capital, and pushing its way nortii until it eventually reached the Firtii of Forth, must have strengthened the increasing Paganism, both by the direct sub- AND KINGS OF THE LINE OF DYFI. 63 jugation of British and Pictish population by a Pagaa king, but also by the insensible influence of the vicinity of a Pagan power. A struggle seems to have taken place between the Christian and Pagan ele- ments in the country, in which the latter at first pre- vailed, but which terminated in the triumph of the Christian party, and the consolidation of the various petty states into regular kingdoms under its leaders.
Gildas, in his Epistle, addresses five kings by name, and of these he sufficiently indicates the locality of three. The first is Constantine, whom he terms *' The tyrannical whelp of the unclean lioness of Danmonia* (inmiuiid* le»n« Damnonia tyrannicuB catulus). «id who must have reigned in Devon and ComwalL The second is Aurelius Conanus, whom he addresses as " Thou lion's whelp'' (Catule leonine). His title of Aure- lius is equivalent to Ouledig. The third was Yortipore^ whom he calls *^ Thou foolish tyrant of the Demetians* (tyrannus Demetarum), and who must have ruled over Dyfed and the regions in South Wales rescued firom the Scots by Cunedda and his sons. The fourth was Cune- glase, whom he addresses as '^ Thou bear, thou rider and ruler of many, and guider of the chariot which^is the receptacle of the bear" (urse multorum sessor aurigaque currus receptaculi ursi); and the fifth was Maglo- cunus, whom he calls '* Thou dragon of the island'' (in- sularis draco). This was Maelgun, who, we learn fix>m the Genealogiaj ruled in Gwynedd, and was called the Island Dragon, £rom Mona or Anglesea, firom which his &ther Caswallawn law Hir had expelled the Gwyd- 64 STATE OF BAITAIN WHEN OILDAS WROTE, dyL The two kings, whose possessions are not indi- cated, probably possessed the two eastern kingdoms of Powys and Gwent, and Conan, the former, as the genealogies attached to Nennius call Brochwail Powys, who fought in 613, son of Cynan or Conanus.
It is plain, from the language of Gildas, that Maglocunus was one who swayed between Christianity .nd P.g.M«n..od w« rapidl^ rUmg into power oZ the other kings. He describes him as having ^'de- prived many tyrants as weU of tieir kingdoms as of their lives,* as " exceeding many in power," and " strong in arms,'' and that the King- of kings had made him, as well in kingdom as in stature of body, higher than almost all the other chiefs of Britain. He also describes him as in the beginning of his youth oppressing with sword, spear, and fire, the king his uncle; then repenting " and vowing himself before God a monk," and taking refuge ** in the cells where saints repose;" and then being seduced by a crafty wolf out of the fold, and returning to evil, slaying lus brother's son and marrying his widow; and he concludes by an urgent appeal to him again to repent and be converted.
There is a curious legend preserved in the old Welsh Laws. It is as follows: — After the taking of the crown and sceptre of London from the nation of the Cymry, and their expulsion from Lloeg3rr, they instituted an inquiry to see who of them should be supreme king. The place they appointed was on Traeth Maelgwn at Aber Dyvi, and thereto came the men of Gwynedd, the men of Powys, the men of South Wales, of Beinwg, Moi^ganwg, and of Seissyllwg. And there Maeldav the elder, son of Unhwch Unachen, cluef of AND KINGS OF THE LINE OF DTFI. 65 Moel Esgidion- iu Meirionydd, placed a chair compoied of waxed wings under Maelgwn, so when the tide flowed no one was abla to remain excepting Maelgwn because of his chair. And by that means Maelgwn became supreme king, with Aberfraw for his principal court, and the Jarll Mathraval, and the Jarll DinoTwr, and the Jarll Kaer Llion, subject to him, and his word pazamoimt over all, and his law paramount, and ho not bound to obaenre their law. (P. 412.)
The Dyvi or Dovey flows into the sea in Cardigan Bay, and terminates in an estuary which divides North from South Wales. On the north shore of the estiuuy rise the hills of Merioneth. On the south shore is an extensive and dreary moas, extending to the Cardigan hills in the background, and interspersed with a few green knolls rising here and there. Between this moes and the estuary is a flat sandy beach, left dry far into the estuary at low water. The moss is called Cor^ fochnOf the sandy shore Traeth Maelgwn; and here some transaction took place — ^some struggle hidden under the disguise of this fable — ^by which Maelgwn made himself supreme over the other three kings of Wales. This struggle, I take it, was the Owaeth Corsfochiio, or the affair of Corsfochno, of the Bards.
But the true field of the contest between the Christian and semi-pagan chiefs was further north, where the great struggle for the mastery took place not long after. The chronicle of 977 records, in 673, '' Bellum Armterid.^' About nine miles north of Carlisle, on the western bank of the river Esk, are two small rising grounds or knolls, called the Knows of Arthuret^ and still further north is a ravine, in which a stream VOL. I. F 66 STATE OF BRITAIN WHEN OILDAS WROTE, called the Carwinelow falls into the Esk. On the north side of that stream the ground rises till it reaches an elevation terminating abruptly in a cliff which overhangs the river Liddel, and on the summit of this cliff is a magnificent native stronghold, with enormous earthen ramparts, now called the Moat of LiddeL Arthuret is the Roddwyd Ardderyd, or Pass of Arddeiyd, forming the great western pass leading from the Roman wall into Scotland. Carwinelow is Caer "Wendolew, or the city of Gwenddolew, so called from the adjacent stronghold; and here, in 573, was fought the great battle of Ardderyd,* between Gwenddolew, whose name is surrounded by bardic tradition with every type and symbol of a semi-pagan cult, and on the other side three leading chiefs, who each became the founder of a kingdom — Maelgwn Gwynedd, Rydderch Hael, and Aedan, son of Gafran, called Fra- dawg, or the treacherous. The importance of this battle may be inferred from the part it playB in bardic tradition, from the exaggeration with which it is at- tended when 80,000 Gymry are said to have been engaged in it^ and, historically, from the results which followed. Rydderch Hael established himself in Alclyde, or Dumbarton, as the first monarch of the kingdom of Cambria, or Strathclyde, embracing all the petty Cym- ric states from the Derwent to the Firth of Clyde, and recalled Eentigem from Wales to resume his ecclesias- * For these identificatioiis, see notice of the nte of the battle of Afddeijd, Proe. AnL Sod toL tL p. 01.
AND KIVQ8 OF THE UKE OF HTFL 67 tical primaqr over that legioQ as Kahop of Glasgow; and Aedan was aolemnly inaogimted kiiig of Dal- riada bj St Columba in the island of Iona»* The establishment of these kingdoms seems to hare terminated the functions of the Chdedig, and moie thorooghlj separated the north, or T Oogted^ from Wales, or Cymru — Bjdderch Hael being now the monarch of the cme, and Maelgwn Gwynedd of the other; bat when we read in Bede of Aedan, t)ie pettjr long of the small Scottish state of Dalriada^ invading the kingdom of Bemida in 603 at the head of an im> mense and migh^ armj, it is difficult to avoid the suspicion that he was for the time the Dux BeUarom^ or Guledig^ in the north, and had ranged under him the whole Celtic force of the country. Maelgwn, however, by tins time must have been dead, the latest date assigned by any writer for the termination of his reign being 586. According to the Bruts he did not transmit his kingdom to his son, and the subsequent history, as given by Welsh authorities, is as follows: — Maelgwn was succeeded in the sovereignty of Britain by Caredig, and in Gwynedd, or North Wales, by lago^ son of Beli, his great-grandson. Under Caredig, the Cymry were finally driven by the Saxons across the * I cannot help tospecting that the advantases held oat bj tlis ecclesiastict were the main cause of uniting these Oeltie leaden agMiiai the poganism of the eoantiy. Colomba certainly made Aedan ihm fint independent king of Dalriada, Kentigem was closely leagued wilk Rydderch, and the Maeldav of the Welsh Lawswas probably an fflflTwkt- tic who had undertaken to make Maelgwn supreme king of Wales hff tome stratagem cloaked under the fable of the SoatiBg chair.
68 STATE OF BRITAIN WHEN GILDAS WROTE, Severn, and confined to Cornwall and Wales. lago was slain in 603 by Cadavael, and was succeeded in North Wales by his son Cadvan, who joined Brochwel, Prince of Powis, and defeated Ethelfirth, king of Bemicia, on the banks of the Dee, in the year 607. Edwin, the son of Ella, had taken refuge with Cadvan, and was brought up along with his son Cadwallawn, who suc- ceeded his father in the s<ame year that Edwin obtained the throne — that is in 617. Cadwallawn was, after two years, expelled from his throne by Edwin, who defeated him in a great battle, and driven to Ireland; but after some years he obtained assistance from Salomon, king of Armorica, returned to Britain, and encountered Penda, king of Mercia, whom he defeated and took prisoner, but, having afterwards united with him, they jointly attacked Edwin, and defeated and slew him. During the reign of Oswald, Cadwallawn joined Penda in the war against him, which resulted in Oswald's defeat and death. He likewise took part in the war with his successor Oswy, when Penda was slain in 657, and died after a reign of forty- two years. This brings us to the year 659. Cadwaladyr succeeded him, and reigned twelve years, when the plague broke out in Britain, before which he fled to Armorica. The plague lasted eleven years, and these two periods bring us to the year 682. Cadwaladyr applies to Alan, king of Armorica, who sends his son Ivor, and his nephew Ynyr, with a large force, who carry on the war against the Saxons for twenty-eight years^ while Cadwaladyr himself goes to Rome, where AND KINGS OF THE LINE OF DYFL 69 he dies. The date of his death is variously given in the Bruts as 12th May 687, 12th May 688, and 12th day before the kalends of May 689. It is necessazy to give this narrative simply as we find it in the BratB^ without attempting to adjust it to the true history^ as has been done in later authorities. The Brut y Brenhtnoed terminates with the death of Cadwaladyr. The Brut y Tywysogion states that Ivor earned on the war for fifty-eight years, and was succeeded in 720 by Bodri Molwynog, son of Idwal Iwrch, son of Cadwaladyr.
This narrative will not stand the testof a comparison with older authorities, and the attempts to bring them more into harmony have not been very successfuL The connecting links are of course the battles, which are likewise recorded by Bede. The first battle, or that fought with Brochwel on the banks of the Dee, is mentioned by Bede without the date being given, but both the Chronicle of 977 and the Irish Annals of Tighemac agree in assigning it to the year 613. It is plain, however, from Bede's narrative, that the Britons were not the victors, but were defeated, and the death of lago, son of Beli, is placed by both chronicles in the same year. The Welsh Chronicle records in 616 the death of Ceretic, so that it is probable that a king of that name did succeed Maelgwn in the sovereign^ over all Wales. In the following year the Chronicle records, ** Etguin incipit regnare," which likewise in- dicates the year of Cadwallawn's accession, who thus appears to have succeeded Ceretig in the sovereignty 70 STATE OF BRITAIN WHEN OILDAS WROTE, of Britain, while his father Cadvan had succeeded lago in 613 in the kingdom of Gwynedd, and his not hav- ing possessed the sovereignty of all Wales will account for his not being mentioned in the Chronicle. The Welsh Chronicle records, in 629, ** Obsessio Catguol- launi regis in insula Glannauc/' which may indicate the war between him and Edwjm.
Bede narrates that, after a reign of seventeen years, Cadwalla, king of the Britons, rebelled against Edwin, being supported by Penda, a most warlike nian of the royal race of the Mercians, and that a great battle was fought in the plain called Haethfelth, when Edwin was killed, on the 12th October 633, and all his army either slain or dispersed This battle is called by Nennius ''Bellum Meicen," in which he says Edwin and his sons were slain '^ab exercitu CatguoUauni regis Gwenedote regionis; " and the Welsh Chronicle re- cords, in 630, '' Gueith Meiceren et ibi interfectus est Etguin cum duobus filiis suis. CatguoUaun autijmi t/ victor fuit" Tighemac places it in 631, and says that Edwin was slain ''a Chon rege Britonum et Panta Saxano."
Bede tells us that a great slaughter was made of the church or nation of the Northumbrians, and that Cadwalla ravaged the whole country for a long time. The kingdom of Deira had devolved upon Osric, son of Edwin's uncle Elfiric, and the kingdom of Bemicia upon Eanfred, the son of Ethelfirid, who had, during Edwin's life, lived in banishment among the Picts or Scots, but Cadwalla slew them both, Osric the next AND KINGS OF THE LINE OF DYFI. 71 summer, and Eanfred after Cadwalla had ruled over Northumberland for an entire year. Bede then tells us that after the death of his brother Eanfired, Oswald advanced with an army, small indeed in number, but strengthened by the faith of Christy and that the ** impious commander of the Britons " (infiandus Bri- /^ tonum dux) was slain, though he had most numerous forces, at a place called Denises-bum near the Boman wall