The death of Conall, son of Comgall, king of Dalriada, in the thirteenth year of his reign, is recorded by Tighernac, and he adds that a battle was fought in Kintyre, at a place called Delgon, in that year, in which his son Duncan and a large number of the tribe of Gabran were slain.[142] This battle seems to have been a further attack by the Picts with the view of suppressing them altogether, as the same poem thus alludes to it:—
The death of Conall opened the succession to the children of Gabran according to the law of tanistry, and so far as we can gather from a statement in Adamnan’s Life of St. Columba, it fell to Eoganan to fill the throne, but St. Columba was led by a vision to prefer his brother Aidan, whom he solemnly inaugurated as king of Dalriada, in the island of Iona.[144] It is more probable that he was led to prefer Aidan from his possessing qualities which pointed him out as the fittest man to redeem the fortunes of the Dalriads, and took this mode of giving a sanction to his choice, which Aidan appears soon to have vindicated, as he is termed in the Albanic Duan ‘king of many divisions,’[145] that is, of extended territories. The Dalriads seem, as yet, to have been considered as forming a part of Irish Dalriada, and as a colony from them, to have been still subject to the mother tribe; but St. Columba resolved to proceed a step further, and to make him an independent king. Accordingly he, along with Aidan, attended a great council held at Drumceat in the year 575, when a discussion arose between him and the king of Ireland as to the future position of Scotch Dalriada towards Ireland, and it was agreed that the Scotch Dalriads should be freed from all tributes and exactions, but should join with the Irish Dalriads, as the parent stock, in all hostings and expeditions.[146] Aidan thus became, as it were, the second founder of the Dalriadic colony in Scotland, and its first monarch as an independent kingdom.[147]
The third of the Barbarian tribes who had assailed the Roman province, and afterwards effected a settlement in the island, and the second of those who were foreign settlers, were the Saxons. The traditionary account of their settlement is thus given. Gildas tells us that when the Picts and Scots crossed the southern wall in their last invasion of the province, and drove the Britons before them, the provincial Britons applied to Aetius, a powerful Roman citizen, for protection. He states that this letter bore the address ‘To Aetius, now consul for the third time, the groans of the Britons,’ and contained the expression, ‘The Barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea throws us back on the Barbarians; thus two modes of death await us, we are either slain or drowned;’[148] that no assistance being given from Rome, the more warlike part of the Britons overthrew their enemies, who had been for so many years living in their country; that the Picts then settled for the first time in the northern part of the island, and the Scots returned to Ireland; that this was followed by a great plenty in Ireland; that a rumour suddenly arose that their inveterate foes were rapidly approaching to destroy the whole country, and to take possession of it, as of old, from one end to the other; that a council was called to settle what was best and most expedient to be done to repel the irruptions and plunderings of these nations; and that the councillors, along with that proud tyrant, the leader of the Britons,[149] sealed the doom of their country by inviting in among them the fierce and impious Saxons, ‘a race,’ says the Christian and patriotic Gildas, ‘hateful alike to God and men,’ to repel the invasions of the northern nations. They arrive in three “cyuls” or long ships, and land on the eastern side of the island, where they settle. They are followed by a larger body of their countrymen, who join them. The Barbarians, being thus introduced as soldiers and supplied with provisions, become dissatisfied with their monthly provisions, break the treaty, and proceed to destroy the towns and lands till they reach the Western Sea. Then follows a lamentable description of the ruin caused by them; and of the Britons, some were enslaved, some fled over the sea, and others took arms under a leader of the Roman nation—Ambrosius Aurelianus, attack their cruel conqueror and obtain a victory. A war then follows, in which sometimes the citizens and sometimes the enemy have the advantage, till the year of the siege of the Badon Mount,[150] which was also the year of his birth. Such is a résumé of Gildas’s narrative of the settlement of the Saxons in Britain, and to it only two dates can be attached. There is no question that the letter which was sent to Aetius belongs to the year 446, when he was for the third time consul; and the siege of Badon Hill took place, according to the Annales Cambriæ, in the year 516.
Procopius, who wrote at the same time as Gildas, tells us that three very numerous nations possess Brittia, over each of which a king presides; which nations are named ‘Angeloi,’ ‘Phrissones,’ and those surnamed from the island, ‘Brittones,’ He thus considers that those whom Gildas calls generally Saxons, consisted of two nations, the Angles and the Frisians; but he tells us nothing as to their settlement in the island.
In our present text of Nennius we find three different accounts of the settlement of the Saxons. The first is thus told us. ‘After the departure of the Romans, the Britons were forty years in anxiety. Guorthegirn then reigned in Britain, and while he reigned he was oppressed by fear of the Scots and Picts, the Roman power, and the dread of Ambrosius. In the meantime three cyuls came from Germany, driven into exile, in which were Hors and Hengist. Guorthegirn received them kindly, and gave them the island of Thanet. While Gratianus the Second and Equantius were ruling at Rome, the Saxons were received by Guorthegirn in the 347th year after the passion of Christ.’[151] The 347th year after the passion of Christ is equal to the 374th year after his incarnation, and in that year Gratianus was consul a second time in conjunction with Æquitius. He then proceeds, ‘After the Saxons had continued some time in the island of Thanet, Guorthegirn promised to supply them with clothing and provision, on condition they would engage to fight against the enemies of his country, but is unable to fulfil his engagement, and bids them depart. Hengist then sends for reinforcements, who come in sixteen vessels with his daughter.’ Then follows the well-known incident of the banquet, and the cession of Kent. Hengist then proposes to send for his son and his cousin to fight against the Scots, and asks Guorthegirn to give them the regions next the northern wall. Octa and Ebissa come with forty cyuls, and circumnavigating the Picts lay waste the Orkneys, and occupy several districts beyond the Frisian sea, as far as the confines of the Picts. They are followed by other ships, which come to Kent.[152]
The second account is this—‘From the first year in which the Saxons came into Britain to the fourth year of King Mervin are reckoned four hundred and twenty-nine years.’[153] The fourth year of the reign of Mervin, king of North Wales, corresponds with the year 821, and this places the arrival of the Saxons in the year 392.
The last account runs thus—‘Guorthegirn, however, held the supreme authority in Britain in the consulship of Theodosius and Valentinian, and in the fourth year of his reign the Saxons came into Britain, Felix and Taurus being consuls in the four hundredth year of the incarnation of our Lord.’[154] The consulship of Theodosius and Valentinian fell in the year 425, and that of Felix and Taurus in the year 428, which is thus given as the date of the settlement of the Saxons.
The geographer of Ravenna, who wrote in the same century in which the work which bears the name of Nennius was originally compiled, reports the tradition thus:—‘In the Western Ocean is the island which is called Britannia, where the nation of the Saxons formerly coming from ancient Saxony, with their chief Anschis, are now seen to inhabit.’[155]
Finally, Bede, in the succeeding century, the historian of the Anglic nation, gives us the traditionary history in the following shape. He repeats in very much the same terms the account given by Gildas of the incursions of the Picts and Scots beyond the southern wall; the letter to Aetius asking assistance, which, he adds, he was unable to give on account of the war with Blaedla and Attila, kings of the Huns; the great famine; the efforts made by the more warlike part of the Britons; the return of the Irish plunderers to their own home,[156] and the quietness of the Picts in the extreme part of the island; the great plenty which followed; the alarm of renewed invasion, when ‘they all agreed with their king Vortigern to call over to them and from the parts beyond the sea the Saxon nation.’[157] Bede then proceeds thus:—‘In the year of our Lord’s incarnation 449, Martian, being made emperor with Valentinian, and the forty-sixth from Augustus, ruled the empire seven years. Then the nation of the Angles or Saxons, being invited by the aforesaid king, arrived in Britain with three long ships, and had a place assigned them to dwell in by the same king in the eastern part of the island, that they might thus appear to be fighting for the country, whilst their real intentions were to enslave it. Accordingly they engaged with the enemy, who had come from the north to give battle, and obtained the victory; which, being known at home in their own country, as also the fertility of the country and the cowardice of the Britons, a more considerable fleet was quickly sent over, bringing a still greater number of men, which, being added to the former, made up an invincible army. The new-comers received from the Britons a place to inhabit among themselves, upon condition that they should wage war against their enemies for the peace and security of the country, whilst the Britons agreed to furnish them with pay.’ Bede then tells us that those who came over were of three nations, the Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes; and that from the Angles came all the tribes that dwell on the north side of the river Humber, and the other nations of the English, and that the two first commanders are said to have been Hengist and Horsa. He then says—‘In a short time swarms of the aforesaid nations came over into the island, and they began to increase so much that they became terrible to the natives themselves who had invited them. Having on a sudden entered into a temporary league with the Picts, whom they had by this time repelled to a distance by the force of their arms, they began to turn their weapons against their confederates.’[158] Bede then takes from Gildas the account of the ravages by the Saxons, and their victory by Ambrosius Aurelianus, down to the mention of the siege of ‘Mons Badonicus,’ which he places forty-four years after the arrival of the Saxons, or in the year 492. He then narrates the breaking out of the Pelagian heresy, the coming of Germanus and Lupus to Britain, the war upon the Britons by the Saxons and the Picts, which he connects with the league he had just mentioned as having been entered into between them, and the victory under the influence of Germanus, usually called the Allelujatic victory. This part of his narrative he takes from the life of Germanus, written within forty years of his death by Constantius of Lyons.[159]
Such is the form into which Bede has reduced this legendary history. Let us now see how far, by the aid of contemporary notices, we can extract the few really historical facts imbedded in it. Though Gildas tells us very distinctly that the Barbarians who assailed the Roman province after Maximus, who usurped the Empire, had departed with the Roman army, and the British youth consisted solely of the two nations of the Picts and Scots, yet certain it is that bodies of Saxons were joined with them in their incursions. For the fact that they formed one of the barbarian tribes who burst into the province in 360 we have the united testimony of Ammianus and Claudian, and the latter authority is equally clear that they formed one of the bands who invaded the province after Maximus and were driven back by Stilicho. Ammianus tells us that in 368 the Count of the Maritime Tract was slain, and in the Notitia Imperii we find the same functionary termed Count of the Saxon Shore. In the same document this designation of the Saxon Shore is also applied to the country about Grannona in Gaul,[160] where the Saxons had established regular settlements. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that the name of the Saxon Shore was given to the coast extending from the Wash on the north to near Portsmouth in the south, not because it was exposed to the ravages of the Saxons, but because they had likewise made settlements there.[161] We may well believe, then, that between the year 368 and the date of the Notitia, about the beginning of the fifth century, the Saxons who had been assailing the province from the east had effected a settlement on the shores of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Kent; and this accords with the two earliest dates given in Nennius, 374 and 392. The statement by Gildas that the Saxons came on the invitation of a proud tyrant and leader of the Britons, to whom, in the succeeding century, the name of Guorthegirn is given, and who is associated with the arrival of the Saxons at these early dates, seems to find its counterpart in the invitation given to the Barbarians to invade Gaul and Britain by Gerontius, a Count of Britain in the service of Constantine, in the year 407, and in the later form of the tradition they are certainly identified.[162] Bede tells us that after the arrival of the Saxons in 449 they united with the Picts, whom they had driven back, and attacked the Britons, when they were defeated in the Allelujatic victory; but Constantius, from whom this event is taken, and who was nearly a contemporary writer, dates this event in the year 429, thus showing the Saxons in combination with the Picts twenty years before the date assigned by Bede for the arrival of the former; and here again the true date of this event is in harmony with the third date assigned in Nennius for the arrival of the Saxons, viz., the year 428.
Finally, we have the testimony of Prosper Aquitanus, whose chronicle was compiled in the year 455, that in 441 the British provinces had already been reduced under the power of the Saxons.[163] Five years after this the letter to Aetius was written, and it follows that the Barbarians, against whom it made that despairing cry for assistance, were the Saxons, and to them the expressions quoted from the letter are much more applicable than to the Picts and Scots.[164] The misplacing of this document in Gildas’s narrative has given rise to the false chronology which has been attached to it, and we are warranted in concluding that the settlement of the Saxons on the south-eastern shore had commenced as early as the year 374, and that Britain was considered as under subjection to them at least eight years before the date in which Bede places their first arrival.
Gildas records no events between the victory, which he attributes to the leader of the Roman party, Ambrosius Aurelianus, and the siege of Mount Badon in 516. Nennius, who connects Ambrosius with the Roman power, and alludes to a discord between him and Guitolin, of which he gives no particulars, but which he places in the year 437, fills up this interval with the exploits of Arthur.
The Arthur of Nennius was, however, a very different personage from the shadowy and mythic monarch of the later Welsh traditions, and of the Arthurian romance. He is described by Nennius as merely a warrior who was a military commander in conjunction with the petty British kings who fought against the Saxons.[165] The Saxons referred to were those whom Nennius had previously described as colonising the regions in the north under Octa and Ebissa, and it is to that part of the country we must look for the sites of the twelve battles which he records. The first was fought at the mouth of the river Glein. The second, third, fourth, and fifth, on another river called Dubglas, in the region of Linnius, and this brings us at once to the Lennox, where two rivers called the Douglas, or Dubhglass, fall into Loch Lomond. This was certainly one of the districts about the wall called ‘Guaul’ which had been occupied by Octa’s colony; and Nennius tells us elsewhere that Severus’s wall, which passed by Cairpentaloch to the mouth of the river Clyde, was called in the British speech ‘Guaul.’[166] The sixth battle was fought at a river called Bassas. The seventh in the Caledonian wood,[167] which again takes us to the north for the site of these battles. The eighth in the fastness of Guinnion, which is connected by an old tradition with the church of Wedale, in the vale of the Gala Water. The ninth at the City of the Legion. The tenth on the strand of the river called Tribruit. The eleventh in the mount called Agned, which once more brings us to the north, as there can be no doubt that Edinburgh, called by the Welsh Mynyd Agned, is the place meant, and this battle appears to have been directed against the Picts, who were in league with the Saxons.[168] The twelfth was the battle at Mount Badon,[169] in which Nennius tells us that 960 men of the enemy perished in one day from the onslaught of Arthur, and that he was victorious in all of these battles. Nennius adds that while the Saxons were defeated in all of these battles, they were continually seeking help from Germany, and being increased in numbers, and obtaining kings from Germany to rule them till the reign of Ida, son of Eobba, who was the first king in Bernicia, with which sentence he closes his narrative, and this still further tends to place these events in the north. So far we may accept Arthur as a historic person, and this account of his battles as based on a genuine tradition.[170] The chronicle attached to Nennius tells us that he was slain twenty-one years afterwards in the battle of Camlan, fought in 537 between him and Medraud.[171] As Medraud was the son of Llew of Lothian, this battle again takes us to the north for its site.[172]
Ten years after this we find the scattered tribes of the Angles and the Frisians occupying the districts on the east coast from the Tees to the Forth, and those who had been the opponents of Arthur in most of these battles, formed into the kingdom of Bernicia by Ida, son of Eobba, in the year 547,[173] who placed his capital on a headland not far from the Tweed, where he erected a fort called in British Dinguardi, or Dinguoaroy, and in Anglic Bebbanburch, afterwards Bamborough. Ida reigned twelve years, and died in 559, when he was succeeded by Ella, who belonged to a different family, and added the districts between the Humber and the Tees, termed Deira, thus forming one kingdom of Northumbria, extending from the Humber as far north as the territory occupied by the Angles reached. The province of Bernicia, however, remained under the rule of Ida’s sons, and it is with this province alone that we are concerned in this work.[174]
Ida left twelve sons, six of whom reigned successively over Bernicia, and it is with these sons that the conflict between the Britons and Saxons in the north was continued. Adda, the eldest, reigned seven years, and was followed by Clappa, one year, which brings us to the year 567, when Hussa, the next brother, begins to reign; and we are told that ‘against him four kings of the Britons—Urbgen, Riderchen, Guallauc, and Morcant—fought.’[175] One of their kings, Riderchen, belonged to that party among the Britons who were termed Romans, from their supposed descent either from Roman soldiers or from Roman citizens; the other three to the native or warlike party among the Britons. These seem mainly to have belonged to that part of the nation which occupied the western districts, while the so-called Romans were to be found principally in the central regions. Of the result of this war during Hussa’s reign we are told nothing; but dissensions seem now to have broken out among the Britons themselves, who formed two parties, arising from other grounds besides those of supposed descent. The existence in the country of a pagan people like the Angles, and the extent to which they had subjected the natives, exercised a great influence even over those who were not subject to their power. The Picts, who were either subjected by them or in close alliance with them, were more immediately under their influence, and seem to a great extent to have apostatised from the Christianity introduced among them by St. Ninian, and a great part of the British population in the south fell back upon a half paganism fostered by their bards, who recalled the old traditions of the race before they had been Christianised under the Roman dominion. There was thus a Christian and what may be called a Pagan party. The so-called Romans mainly belonged to the former, and this Riderchen or Rhydderch was at their head. The latter embraced the native Britons, whose leaders traced their descent from Coil Hen, or the aged, and their head was Gwendolew.
These dissensions now broke into open rupture, and a great battle is recorded to have taken place between them in the year 573, which was to decide who was to have the mastery. It was termed the battle of Ardderyd, and the scene of it was at Arthuret, situated on a raised platform on the west side of the river Esk, about eight miles north of Carlisle. This name is simply the modern form of the word Ardderyd. Two small hills here are called the Arthuret knowes, and the top of the highest, which overhangs the river, is fortified by an earthen rampart. About four miles north of this is a stream which flows into the Esk, and bears the name of Carwhinelow, in which the name of Gwendolew can be easily recognised; and near the junction of the Esk and the Liddel, at no great distance from it, is the magnificent hill-fort called the Moat of Liddel. Here this great battle was fought, the centre of a group of Welsh traditions.[176] It resulted in the victory of the Christian party and the establishment of Rhydderch as the king of the Cumbrian Britons. We find him mentioned in Adamnan’s Life of Saint Columba as reigning at Alclyde or Dumbarton, and from the seat of his capital his kingdom came to be called Strathclyde. Adamnan tells us that Rodercus, son of Tothail, who reigned at the Rock of Cluaithe (Petra Cloithe, Alclyde, or Dumbarton), being on friendly terms with St. Columba, sent him a message to ask him whether he would be killed by his enemies or not, and the saint replied that he would never be delivered into the hands of his enemies, but die at home on his own pillow; which prophecy, adds Adamnan, regarding King Roderic, was fully accomplished, for, according to his word, he died quietly in his own house.[177] Adamnan was born only twenty-one years after the death of Rhydderch.
The next brother who reigned over Bernicia was Freodulf, for six years, but no war is recorded in his reign; but that of his successor Theodoric, who reigned from 580 to 587, introduces us to a new champion for the Britons, Urbgen, the City-born—the Urien of the Bards—who, with his sons, is said to have fought stoutly against him; and it is added that sometimes the enemy and sometimes the natives prevailed. This Theodoric is the Flamddwyn or Flame-bearer of the Bards.[178] He was succeeded by the last of the brothers who reigned, Aethelric, who, after a short reign of two years, was followed in 594 by his son Ethelfred Flesaurs, of whom Bede tells us that he was a most powerful king and covetous of glory, who more than all the chiefs of the Angles ravaged the nation of the Britons. For no one among the tribunes, no one among the kings, after exterminating or subjugating the natives, caused a greater extent of their territory to become either tributary to the nation of the Angles or to be colonised by them.[179]
During the last three reigns another actor had appeared on the scene, and this was Aidan the Scot. Before his accession to the throne of Dalriada in 574 he appears as one of the kinglets among the nations south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and seems to have had claims upon the district of Manau or Manann, peopled by the Picts. After his accession he allied himself with Baedan, son of Cairell, who then ruled over the Irish Cruithnigh, and called himself king of Ulster. By him the Saxons were driven out of Manann, and he retained possession of it till his death in 581.[180] Two years after Tighernac records the battle of Manann by Aidan, of which, however, we have no particulars except that he was victorious; and again, in 596, the battle of Chirchind, in which four of his sons were slain.[181] Adamnan evidently refers to this battle, which he calls ‘the battle of the Miathi,’ when he tells us in his Life of Saint Columba that while the Saint was in Iona ‘he suddenly said to his minister, Diormit, “Ring the bell.” The brethren, startled at the sound, proceeded quickly to the church, with the holy prelate himself at their head. There he began, on bended knees, to say to them, “Let us pray now earnestly to the Lord for this people and king Aidan, for they are engaging in battle at this moment.” Then, after a short time, he went out of the oratory, and, looking up to heaven, said, “The barbarians are fleeing now, and to Aidan is given the victory—a sad one though it be;” and the blessed man in his prophecy declared the number of the slain in Aidan’s army to be three hundred and three men.’[182] It is difficult to fix the site of this battle, but it was no doubt fought against the Southern Picts, who seem to have been still known by the name of Miathi, perhaps the same as Mæatæ.
In 603 Rhydderch appears to have died, and Bede tells us that Aidan came against Aedilfrid with a large and powerful army. It consisted no doubt of a combined force of Scots and Britons, at whose head Aidan was placed as Guledic, and he appears also to have had the aid of Irish Picts. He advanced against the Bernician kingdom, and entered Aedilfrid’s territories by the vale of the Liddel, from the upper end of which a pass opens to the vale of the Teviot, and another to that of the North Tyne. The great rampart called the Catrail, which separated the Anglic kingdom from that of the Strathclyde Britons, crosses the upper part of the vale of the Liddel. Its remains appear at Dawstaneburn, whence it goes on to Dawstanerig, and here, before he could cross the mountain range which separates Liddesdale from these valleys, Aidan was encountered by Aedilfrid and completely defeated, his army being cut to pieces at a place called by Bede ‘Degsastan,’ in which we can recognise the name of Dawstane, still known there. On the part of Aedilfrid, his brother Theobald, called by Tighernac, Eanfraith, was slain by Maeluma, the son of Baedan, king of Ulster, and the body of men he led into battle cut off.[183] On Nine Stone Rig, opposite Dawstane, there still exists a circle of nine stones; and on the farm of Whisgills, some miles lower down the valley, there is an enormous cairn in the middle of an extensive moor, and near it a large stone set on end about five feet high, called the standing stone; and at Milnholm, on the Liddel, an ancient cross of one stone. These are probably memorials of the battle and flight which followed it. It was fought within sight of the ancient hill-fort which we have identified as Coria, one of the cities of the Ottadeni in the second century.
Bede adds that this battle was fought in the year 603, and the eleventh year of the reign of Aedilfrid, which lasted for twenty-four years, and that from this time forth till his own day (that is, till 731), none of the kings of the Scots ventured to come in battle against the nation of the Angles, and thus terminated the contest between these tribes for the possession of the northern province substantially in favour of the latter people, who under Aedilfrid now retained possession of the eastern districts from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, as far west as the river Esk.
102. Hibernia is first mentioned as being also called Scotia by Isidore of Seville in 580.
103. Procop. Bell. Goth. iv. 20. (A.D. 540-550.)
104. Steph. Byzant. De Urbibus (A.D. 490).
105. Exceptis diversorum prolixioribus promontoriorum tractibus, quæ arcuatis oceani sinibus ambuitur.—Hist. Gild. § 3.
106. Quantum tamen potuero, non tam ex scripturis patriæ scriptorumve monimentis—quippe quæ, vel si qua fuerint, aut ignibus hostium exusta, aut civium exsilii classe longius deportata, non compareant,—quam transmarina relatione, quæ crebris irrupta intercapedinibus, non satis claret.—Hist. Gild. 4.
107. It is hardly conceivable that Gildas, if he was a native of Strathclyde, as is generally supposed, could have used the language he does regarding the northern part of the island; but there is much confusion regarding his life, and great difficulty in ascertaining the real events of it. Usher came to the conclusion that there were at least two persons of the name, whom he distinguishes as Gildas Albanus and Gildas Badonicus, whose acts have been confounded together, and his opinion has been very generally adopted. Mabillon considered that there was only one Gildas. There are four lives of St. Gildas preserved. One by Caradoc of Llancarvan, printed in Stevenson’s edition of his writings; another in the Bodleian, printed by Capgrave; another by a monk of Ruys, printed by Mabillon; and a fourth in the British Museum, still in MS. (Egerton, No. 7457). It is, however, impossible to compare these lives without seeing that they relate to the same person. Gildas in his work states that the battle of Badon was fought in the year he was born, and that he was then forty-four years, which, as that battle was fought, according to the Annales Cambriæ, in 516, gives us 560 as the year in which he composed his history.
The confusion has arisen, in this as in everything relating to Welsh history, from not discriminating between his acts compiled before Geoffrey of Monmouth’s fabulous history appeared, and those which bear the impress of that work. The third and fourth life belong to the former period; that by Caradoc of Llancarvan, and the second, which is substantially the same, to the latter.
In the fourth life he is said to have been born in Bretagne; to have been educated by St. Phylebert, abbot of Tournay; to have founded a monastery, which, by its description, answers to that of Ruys; and to have gone to Island, by which, however, Ireland is evidently meant—when it terminates abruptly. In the life by the monk of Ruys, he is said to have been born in ‘Arecluta fertilissima regione,’ which ‘Arecluta autem regio, quum sit Britanniæ pars, vocabulum sumpsit a quodam flumine quod Clut nuncupatur.’ His father, Caunus, had four other sons—Cuillus, who succeeded him; Mailocus, who founded a monastery at ‘Lyuhes in pago Elmail;’ Egreas; Alleccus; and Peteona, who became a nun. Mailocus is evidently St. Meilig, son of Caw, to whom the church of Llowes in Elfael, Radnorshire, is dedicated. Egreas, Alleccus, and Peteona are Saints Eigrad, Gallgo, and Peithien, children of Caw, to whom churches in Anglesea are dedicated. If he was born, therefore, in Britain, it is more probable that Arecluta was the vale of the Clwyd in North Wales, where St. Kentigern founded the church of Llanelwy, or St. Asaphs. He is said in this life to have been educated by Illtutus, and to have gone to Ireland in the reign of King Ainmere, and after going to Rome to have gone to Armorica when he was thirty years old, and founded the monastery of Ruys, where after ten years he wrote his history. This places the date of his leaving Britain for Armorica in 546, and his history in 556, and he is said to have died an old man in Armorica. Ainmere, king of Ireland, reigned according to Tighernac, from 566 to 569, and the Annales Cambriæ have at 565, ‘Navigatio Gildæ in Hybernia,’ and Tighernac has at 570 ‘Gillas quievit.’ He therefore probably died in Ireland, and the monk of Ruys has made his visit to Ireland precede his going to Armorica in order that he may claim Ruys as the place of his death.
The acts compiled subsequent to the appearance of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s history identify Cuillus, his father’s eldest son, with Geoffrey’s Howel, king of Alclyde—transfer his birth to Strathclyde, where his father is in the one life Nau rex Scotiæ—in the other Caunus rex Albaniæ—increase his family from four to twenty-four sons—import the element of Arthur and his times into his acts; and finally take him to Glastonbury, where he dies after it has been besieged by King Arthur,—additions which have led to the solution of two Gildases, but which may more reasonably be rejected as spurious.
108. In ea prius habitabant quatuor et gentes; Scoti, Picti, atque Saxones, Britones.—Nennius, Hist. Brit. 2. Omnes nationes et provincias Britanniæ, quæ in quatuor linguas, id est, Brettonum, Pictorum, Scottorum, et Anglorum divisae sunt, in ditione accepit.—Bede, Ec. Hist. iii. c. vi. Gildas terms the latter people simply Saxones. Bede, in narrating their settlement, ‘Gens Anglorum sive Saxonum.’
109. Procopius makes the important statement that, after the departure of Constantine, although the Romans were unable to recover the island, the kingly government did not cease and the island fall into anarchy; but ‘that it remained subject to tyrants.’—Procop. Bel. Van. i. 2.
110. St. Patrick tells us in his Confessio that his father lived at Bannavem Taberneæ, and in his epistle to Coroticus that he was a ‘decurio.’
111. Interea fames dira ac famosissima vagis ac nutabundis hæret, quæ multos eorum cruentis compellit prædonibus sine delatione victas dare manus, ut pauxillum ad refocillandam animam cibi caperent, alios vero nusquam; quin potius de ipsis montibus, speluncis ac saltibus, dumis consertis continue rebellabant. Et tum primum inimicis per multos annos in terra agentibus, strages dabant.—Gild. de Excidio Brit. 17.
112. Ab aquilone; strictly north-north-east.
113. Pro indigenis.
114. See Fordun, Chron. vol. ii. p. 380, note.
115. ‘Post intervallum vero multorum annorum non minus octingentorum Picti venerunt et occupaverunt insulas quae vocantur Orcades, et postea ex insulis vastaverunt regiones multas, et occupaverunt eas in sinistrali plaga Britanniæ, et manent ibi usque in hodiernam diem, tertiam partem Britanniæ tenentes.’ The previous paragraph shows that he counted the 800 years from the traditionary settlement of the Britons, which he places in the time when Eli judged Israel, that is, in the twelfth century before Christ.
116. Ut perhibent.
117. Bede, Hist. Ec. i. § 7.
118. Prædicaturus verbum Dei provinciis septentrionalium Pictorum, hoc est, eis quæ arduis atque horrentibus montium jugis, ab australibus eorum sunt regionibus sequestratæ. Namque ipsi australes Picti, qui intra eosdem montes habent sedes, etc.—Bede, Hist. Ec. B. iii. c. 4.
119. These Cruithnigh are repeatedly mentioned by Adamnan in his Life of St. Columba, who wrote between the years 692 and 697. See ed. 1874, pp. 120, 146, 253. In the Life of St. Cadroë we find, ‘Igitur ad terram egressi, ut moris est, situm locorum, mores et habitum hominum explorare, gentem Pictaneorum reperiunt.’—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 108.
120. Chalmers, in his Caledonia (i. p. 358), states dogmatically that Galloway was colonised in the eighth century by Cruithne from Ireland, and that they were followed by ‘fresh swarms from the Irish hive during the ninth and tenth centuries,’ and this statement has been accepted and repeated by all subsequent writers as if there were no doubt about it. There is not a vestige of authority for it. Galloway belonged during these centuries to the Northumbrian kingdom, and was a part of Bernicia. Bede, in narrating the foundation of Candida Casa by St. Ninian (B. iii. c. iv.), says, ‘qui locus ad provinciam Berniciorum pertinens;’ and there is abundant evidence that Galloway was under the rule of the Northumbrian kings after his time. It is antecedently quite improbable that it could have been colonised from Ireland during this time without a hint of such an event being recorded either in the Irish or the English Annals.
The only authorities referred to by Chalmers consist of an entire misapplication of two passages from the Ulster Annals. He says, ‘In 682 A.D., Cathasao, the son of Maoledun, the Maormor of the Ulster Cruithne, sailed with his followers from Ireland, and landing on the Firth of Clyde, among the Britons, he was encountered and slain by them near Mauchlin, in Ayr, at a place to which the Irish gave the name of Rathmore, or great fort. In this stronghold Cathasao and his Cruithne had probably attacked the Britons, who certainly repulsed them with decisive success.—Ulster An. sub an. 682.’682.’ In 702 the Ulster Cruithne made another attempt to obtain a settlement among the Britons on the Firth of Clyde, but they were again repulsed in the battle of Culin.—Ib. sub an. 702. The original text of these passages is as follows:—‘682. Bellum Rathamoire Muigeline contra Britones ubi ceciderunt Catusach mac Maelduin Ri Cruithne et Ultan filius Dicolla. 702. Bellum Campi Cuilinn in Airdo nepotum Necdaig inter Ultu et Britones ubi filius Radgaind cecidit [adversarius] Ecclesiarum Dei. Ulait victores erant.’ Now, both of these battles were fought in Ulster. Rathmore or great fort of Muigeline, which Chalmers supposes to be Mauchlin, in Ayr, was the chief seat of the Cruithnigh in Dalaraidhe, or Dalaradia, and is now called Moylinny.—See Reeves’s Antiquities of Down and Connor, p. 70. Airdo nepotum Necdaig, or Arduibh Eachach, was the Barony of Iveagh, also in Dalaradia, in Ulster (Ib. p. 348); and these events were attacks by the Britons upon the Cruithnigh of Ulster, where the battles were fought, and not attacks by the latter upon the British inhabitants of Ayrshire.
The natural inference from an examination of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History is that apparently he knew of no Picts south of the Firth of Forth. He certainly mentions none, and expressly says (B. iv. c. xxvi.), in describing the result of the defeat and death of Ecgfrid, king of Northumbria, by the Picts in 686, that Trumwine, with his Angles, fled from the monastery of Abercorn, ‘posito quidem in regione Anglorum, sed in vicinia freti quod Anglorum terras Pictorumque disterminat;’ but he is here talking of the territories belonging to each kingdom, and not of the distribution of the population; and as the territory of Galloway undoubtedly belonged to the Anglic kingdom, its population must have been either a subject British or Pictish population, as Bede elsewhere implies that twenty years later it was but partially occupied by Angles. In another work, however, Bede clearly implies that the population of Galloway was Pictish at that time. In his Life of St. Cuthbert (cap. xi.) he says, ‘Quodam etenim tempore pergens de suo monasterio pro necessitatis causa accidentis ad terram Pictorum, qui Niduari vocantur navigando pervenit.’ His monastery was Melrose. Mr. E. W. Robertson was inclined to think that St. Cuthbert had sailed from the mouth of the Tweed, and been driven northwards by contrary winds into the Firth of Tay, landing near Abernethy, on the coast of Fife, the inhabitants of the banks of the Nethy probably being the ‘Picti qui Niduari vocantur;’ and he refers in a note to a suggestion of the author’s that Cuthbert may have crossed the Firth of Forth and landed at Newburn, the old name of which was Nithbren (Scotland under her Early Kings, vol. ii. p. 383), but a more careful consideration has satisfied him that neither view is tenable. Bede says (B. i. c. xv.), ‘De Jutarum origine sunt Cantuari et Victuari, hoc est, ea gens quæ Vectam tenet insulam et ea quæ usque hodie in provincia Occidentalium Saxonum Jutarum natio nominatur, posita contra ipsam insulam Vectam.’ Now, the term Niduari is a word evidently formed in precisely the same way from the root Nid, as Cantuari and Vectuari are from the roots Cantia and Vecta, and certainly signifies the ‘gens’ on the Nid, which can only mean the river Nith, now forming the eastern boundary of Galloway, and which separated it in the lower part of its course from the Strathclyde kingdom. Ptolemy terms the river Nith ‘Novius;’ and from this in the same way was formed the name ‘Novantæ,’ a tribe which occupied the territory from the ‘Novius,’ which here separated them from the Selgovæ, to the Irish Sea. As the name Nith is the equivalent of Ptolemy’s ‘Novius,’ so Bede’s ‘Niduari’ is the exact equivalent of Ptolemy’s ‘Novantæ;’ and the author does not now doubt that they were the same people to whom the name of ‘Picti’ was likewise applied. In either view St. Cuthbert had to go some distance by land from Melrose to reach the sea. If he proceeded to the Solway Firth, he would pass from Teviotdale by Ewisdale, and his course is marked by the church being dedicated to him. The most prominent headland on the north side of the Solway is where the Dee enters into it, and here the parish of Kirkcudbright is also dedicated to him. He landed ‘sub ripa,’ where he and his companions passed three days between the highland and the shore, waiting for a fair wind. ‘The line of coast from Mullock bay on the east to Torr’s point extends about three miles. It is bold and rocky, except for a short space immediately below the farmhouse of Howell, and at a point east of that called “the Haen,” i.e. Haven, in Balmae.... In a precipice, on the Balmae shore, to the west, and not far from the mouth of the Dee, is a remarkable natural cavern called Torr’s Cove which extends sixty feet into the rock.... The door is said to have been originally built with stone, and to have had a lintel at the top, which is now buried in the ruins. The cave is thought to have been sometimes used as a hiding-place in former times.’—(N. S. A. vol. iv. Kirkcudbright, p. 6.) This may have been the scene of St. Cuthbert’s adventure.
121. See Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, Pref. pp. xviii-xxiii.
122. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 6.
123. Ibid. p. 410.
124. Liber Hymnorum, i. pp. 97, 105.
125. Ib. p. 117.
126. ‘Near to the parish church of Anwoth, in Galloway, is a low undulating range of hills, called the Boreland Hills. One of these goes by the name of Trusty’s Hill, and round its top may be traced the remains of a vitrified wall.’—Stuart’s Sculptured Stones, vol. i. p. 31. Anwoth is on the east side of Wigtown Bay; Whithern in the peninsula on the west side.
127. Mailcon is the genitive form of Mailcu. It is the same name as Milchu, the Dalaradian king who held St. Patrick in slavery.
128. Venit autem Brittaniam Columba, regnante Pictis Bridio filio Meilochon, rege potentissimo, nono anno regni ejus, gentemque illam verbo et exemplo ad fidem Christi convertit.—Hist. Ec. B. iii. c. iv.
129. Adamnan, Vit. Columbæ, ed. 1874, p. 174.
130. 580 Cendaeladh rex Pictorum mortuus est.—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 67.
131. The old name of the parish of New Abbey, in Kirkcudbright, was Loch Kindeloch, as appears from the Chartulary of Kelso, No. 253. The loch seems to have taken its name from Cendaeladh.
132. Scotorum a circione, Pictorum ab aquilone.
133. Revertuntur ergo impudentes grassatores Hiberni domum post non multum temporis reversuri (§ 21). The author considers this the correct reading in preference to ‘ad hibernas domos,’ as it is supported by the best MSS.
134. The MSS. differ so much that it is impossible to give a correct quotation, and the reader is referred to any of the recent additions of Nennius. The settlement of the Dam Hoctor, or company of eight, was probably that in Gwyned or North Wales, which he afterwards states was driven out by Cuneda, as was the settlement in ‘regione Dimetorum’ or S. Wales. That by Istoreth in Dalmeta or Dalrieta was the same as that described by Bede. The Irish translator, in transferring the first to Ireland, and in connecting the latter with the Picts, is probably making alterations at his own hand; but is right in identifying the settlers of Builc in Eubonia with the Firbolg who fled to the isles of Man, Arran, and others.
135. Bede, Hist. Ec. B. i. c. 1.
136. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 18.
137. Feargus mor mac Earca cum gente Dalriada partem Britanniæ tenuit et ibi mortuus est.—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 66.
138. The tripartite life of St. Patrick contains an account of the conversion of Erc and his people by St. Patrick.—Ib. p. 17.
139. The tale told by the Irish historians is this:—Conare, son of Mogalama, chief of a tribe of Munster Scots called the Degada, became king of Ireland, and reigned eight years, from 158 to 165. He had three sons: Cairbre Musc, from whom descend all the septs of the Muscraidhe in Munster; Cairbre Baschaein, from whom descend the Baiscnidh of Corco Baiscinn in Munster; and Cairbre Riada, who established himself with his sept in Ulster, and whose possessions there were termed Dalriada. He is said to have passed over to Argyll and settled the Scots there, and is the Reuda of Bede. Pinkerton adopts this story, and dates their earliest colony in 258. He identifies it with the Attacotti, which he absurdly explains to mean—Hither Scots, and in this Mr. Burton seems disposed to follow him; but this part of his argument is based entirely upon the spurious Richard of Cirencester. Chalmers, with more judgment, rejects it, and in fact there is no authority for it in the Irish Annals. The Scotch Chronicles are opposed to it. The oldest which gives the Dalriadic history expressly says of Fergus, son of Erc, ‘ipse fuit primus qui de semine Chonare suscepit regnum Alban.’ The Albanic Duan knows of no earlier colony than that under the sons of Erc. Flann Mainistrech and Tighernac know nothing of it, nor do the Irish additions made to Nennius. Gildas, too, knows nothing of it. It is to be found in Nennius and Bede alone, and the Irish translator neutralises Nennius’s statement of a settlement of Scots in Dalrieta under Istoreth, son of Istorinus, by converting it into a settlement of Picts, while he removes the colony of Dam Hoctor, or the company of eight, from Britannia to Erin. The only Irish authority which at all points to an earlier settlement is the curious legend contained in Cormac’s Glossary, under the word Mog-Eime (a lap-dog). It is there said, ‘Cairbre Musc, son of Conaire, brought it from the east from Britain, for when great was the power of the Gael in Britain, they divided Alban between them into districts, and each knew the residence of his friend; and not less did the Gael dwell on the east side of the sea than in Scotia (Ireland), and their habitations and royal forts were built there. Inde dicitur Duin Tradui, i.e. Dun Tredui, i.e. the triple fort of Crimthan mor, son of Fidach, king of Erin and Alban, to the Mur n-Icht (Straits of Dover), et inde est Glasimpere of the Gael, i.e. a church on the borders of Mur n-Icht ... and it is in that part is Duin Map Lethain in the land of the Cornish Britons, i.e. the Fort of Mac Liathain, for Mac is the same as Map in the British. Thus every tribe divided on that side, for its property to the east was equal (to that on the west).’—Goidilica Sanas Cormaic, p. 29. But it will be remarked that in this passage the legend is attached to Cairbre Musc, and there is no mention of Cairbre Riada; there is also no allusion to a settlement of Dalriada, and it evidently points to an occupation of the whole country by the Scots. The reference to Duin Map Liathan connects it with Nennius’s list of the Scottish colonies in Britain, one of which was by the sons of Liathan, while the reference to Crimthan mor mac Fidach, king of Erin and Alban, who is said to have reigned over Ireland from 366 to 378, as clearly connects it with the invasion of the Scots who occupied Britain for eight years, from 360 to 368, when they were expelled by Theodosius. The occasional occurrence of names in their Welsh form seems to point to a British origin for this legend; and the author considers that the tradition of an earlier settlement in Dalriada is a British and not an Irish legend; that it arose when the Britons and Angles came in contact with Dalriada as a settled kingdom in Britain; that it is not older than the seventh century; and that its sole historical foundation is the temporary occupation of Britain by the Scots during the last fifty years of the Roman province.
140. Tighernac terms these three kings ‘Ri Alban,’ which implies a considerable extent of territory; but in 560 he has ‘Bass (death of) Gabrain mic Domanguirt, Ri Albain. Teichedh do Albanchaib ria (flight of the people of Alban before) m-Bruidi mic Maelchon Ri Cruithnech (king of the Picts),’ and he terms Conall and the subsequent kings Ri Dalriada, or kings of Dalriada only.—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 67.
141. Ib. p. 82.
142. 574 Bass Conaill mac Comgaill Ri Dalriada xiii. anno regni sui qui oferavit insulam Ia Coluimcille. Cath Delgon a Cindtire in quo Duncadh mac Conaill mic Comgaill et alii multi de sociis filiorum Gabrain ceciderunt.—Ib. p. 67. Delgon seems to be afterwards called Cindelgen. It is probably the place from which the Lord of the Isles dates a charter in 1471, apud Ceandaghallagan in Knapdal.
143. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 83.
144. Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. 81.
145. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 60.
146. Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. 264.
147. This is evidently alluded to in the passage in the tripartite life of St. Patrick, when he blesses Fergus, son of Ere, in Irish Dalriada, and says, ‘Though not great is thy land at this day among thy brothers, it is thou shalt be king. From thee the kings of this territory shall for ever descend, and in Fortrenn (Pictland), and this was fulfilled in Aidan, son of Gabran, who took Alban by force.’—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 17.
148. Aetio ter consuli gemitus Britannorum. Repellunt nos Barbari ad mare, repellit nos mare ad Barbaros; inter hæc oriuntur duo genera funerum, aut jugulamur, aut mergimur.—Gildas, 17.
149. The name Gurthrigern, usually inserted in the text, is not to be found in the best MSS., and is an interpolation. The ‘concilium’ or council was evidently the Roman provincial council, and the leader is here called Dux Britannorum, also a Roman military title.
150. ‘Usque ad annum obsessionis Badonici montis.’ The words which follow, ‘qui prope Sabrinum ostium habetur,’ are not in the best MSS., and are an interpolation.
151. ‘Transactoque Romanorum imperio in Brittannia per quadraginta annos fuerunt sub metu. Guerthigirnus regnavit in Brittania et dum ipse regnabat in Brittannia urgebatur a metu Pictorum Scottorumque et a Romanico impetu necnon et a timore Ambrosii. Interea venerunt tres cyulæ a Germania expulsæ in exilio in quibus erant Hors et Hengist.... Guorthigernus suscepit eos benigne et tradidit eis insulam quæ in lingua eorum vocatur Tanet Britannico sermone Rusihen. Regnante Gratiano secundo Equantio Romæ Saxones a Guorthigirno suscepti sunt anno trecentesimo quadragesimo septimo post passionem Christi.’ This account appears to belong to the work as originally compiled in the seventh century.
152. Invitabo filium meum cum fratrueli suo, bellatores enim viri sunt, ut dimicent contra Scottos et da illis regiones, quæ sunt in aquilone, juxta murum qui vocatur Guaul. Et jussit ut invitaret eos et invitati sunt Octha et Ebissa cum quadraginta ciulis. At ipsi, cum navigarent circa Pictos, vastaverunt Orcades insulas, et venerunt et occupaverunt regiones plurimas ultra mare Fresicum usque ad confinia Pictorum. Some MSS. connected with Durham add after ‘mare Fresicum,’ ‘quod inter nos Scottosque est.’ The author understands Nennius to mean that this body of invaders arrived on the east coast, went round the island, ravaging the Orkneys on their way, and entered the districts about the wall and on the north of the Firth of Forth by the west.
153. A tempore quo primo Saxones venerunt in Bryttanniam usque ad annum quartum Mermeni regis computantur anni ccccxxix. This account is in the Vatican MS. only, and has obviously been added in an edition compiled in 821. It corresponds with an old Welsh chronicle in the Red Book of Hergest, which commences thus:—‘From the age of Guorthegirn Guorthenau to the battle of Badwn are 128 years.’—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 161. The date of the battle is 516, and deducting 128 years gives us 388 as the beginning of Guorthegirn’s reign, and the fourth year when the Saxons came 392.
154. Guorthigirnus autem tenuit imperium in Brittannia Theodosio et Valentiniano consulibus et in quarto anno regni sui Saxones ad Brittanniam venerunt, Felice et Tauro consulibus, quadringentesimo anno ab incarnatione Domini nostri Jesu Christi.
Nennius appears to have reckoned 27 years between the incarnation and the passion of Christ. We should probably read ‘a passione’ for ‘ab incarnatione,’ which makes the year equal to 427 or 428.
155. In Oceano vero occidentali est insula quæ dicitur Britannia, ubi olim gens Saxonum veniens ab antiqua Saxonia cum principe suo, nomine Anschis, modo habitare videtur.
156. Bede quotes the passage thus:—‘Revertuntur ergo impudentes grassatores Hiberni domus,’ which shows the reading of the text in his time.—B. i. c. xiv.
157. Placuitque omnibus cum suo rege Vortigerno ut Saxonum gentem de transmarinis partibus in auxilium vocarent.—B. i. c. xiv.
158. Tum subito inito ad tempus fœdere cum Pictis quos longius jam bellando pepulerant, in socios arma vertere incipiunt.—Bede, Hist. Ec. B. i. c. xv.
159. Bede, Hist. Ec. B. i. c. xv. In his Chronicon, written apparently two years earlier than his History, Bede narrates the incursions of the Picts and Scots and the final departure of the Romans under the year 429, and the landing of the Angles or Saxons in 459. The true date of the accession of Martian to the Empire in conjunction with Valentinian is 450. Lappenberg, in his History of England, has clearly demonstrated the legendary character of this narrative; and Kemble, in his Saxons in England, takes the same view. Nevertheless, Mr. Freeman, in his Old English History, appears to accept both dates and narratives as history; and Mr. Green, in his History of the English People, describes the landing of the Saxons under Hengist and Horsa in 449 in the island of Thanet as if he had himself witnessed the event.
160. Tribunus Cohortis Primæ Novæ Armoricæ Grannona in Litore Saxonico.—Not. Imp.
161. This has been well shown by Kemble, Saxons in England, vol. i. p. 10.
162. This was first observed by Sharon Turner in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 105.
163. Theodosii xviii (A.D. 441) Britanniæ usque ad hoc tempus variis cladibus eventibusque latæ in ditionem Saxonum rediguntur.
164. Compare the expression, ‘Repellunt nos Barbari ad mare, repellit nos mare ad Barbaros; aut jugulamur aut mergimur,’ with what is said of the Saxons, ‘Confovebatur namque, ultionis justæ præcedentium scelerum causa, de mari usque ad mare ignis orientalis,’ etc.; and of the Britons, ‘Itaque nonnulli miserarum reliquiarum in montibus deprehensi acervatim jugulabantur ... alii transmarinas petebant regiones.’
165. Nennius, after describing how the Saxons increased in number in Britain, and how Octa passed from the north to Kent, from whom the subsequent kings of Kent descended, proceeds, ‘Tunc Arthur pugnabat contra illos in illis diebus cum regibus Brittonum, sed ipse dux erat bellorum.’ The ‘illos’ here is referred in another MS. to the Saxones mentioned in the beginning of the passage, and not to the ‘reges Cantiorum.’
166. ‘Et vocatur Britannico sermone Guaul.’ This district is termed in the Bruts Mureif, from ‘mur,’ signifying a wall, and is identified with Reged, the kingdom of Urien, the old form of which name was Urbgen—Urbigena—City-born, alluding probably to Dumbarton.
167. ‘Id est Cat Coit Celidon,’ the battle of the wood Celidon.
168. The Vatican MS. adds, ‘ubi illos in fugam vertit quem nos Cat Bregion appellamus.’ This strange name seems to belong to the Picts more than to the Saxons, who could hardly have possessed Edinburgh at that early period.
169. 516, Bellum Badonis in quo Arthur portavit Crucem Domini nostri Jesu Christi tribus diebus et tribus noctibus in humeros suos et Britones victores fuerunt.—An. Cam. Tradition points to Ossa Cyllellaur, a descendant of Octa, as Arthur’s opponent in this battle.
170. The author goes no further than this in this work. The question as to the true character of Arthur, and the site of these battles, is discussed in the Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. pp. 51-58; and in Mr. Glennie’s Arthurian Localities. Neither does he import into this work any matter from the old Welsh poems, which, whether genuine or spurious, afford at all events no proper basis for an historical narrative.
171. A.D. 537, Gueith Camlann in qua Arthur et Medraut corruere.—An. Cam., Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 14.
172. Mr. Nash, in his introduction to ‘Merlin or the Early History of King Arthur’ (Early English Text Society, 1865), makes a statement which appears to me well founded: ‘Certain it is,’ he says, ‘that there are two Celtic—we may perhaps say two Cymric—localities, in which the legends of Arthur and Merlin have been deeply implanted, and to this day remain living traditions cherished by the peasantry of these two countries, and that neither of them is Wales or Britain west of the Severn. It is in Brittany and in the old Cumbrian kingdom south of the Firth of Forth that the legends of Arthur and Merlin have taken root and flourished.’ To Cumbria, however, may be added Cornwall, where the Arthurian romance places the scene of many of its adventures; and it is rather remarkable that we should find in the second century a tribe termed Damnonii, possessing Cornwall, and a tribe of the same name occupying the ground which forms the scene of his exploits in the north.
173. It is usually stated by modern writers that Ida landed in 547 with a body of Angles, and founded the kingdom of Northumberland, but the older authorities give no countenance to the idea of a colony under Ida. Nennius has no hint of his having come into the island from the Continent. Bede, in the short chronicle annexed to his History, has ‘Anno 547, Ida regnare cœpit, a quo regalis Nordanhymbrorum prosapia originem tenet et duodecim annis in regno permansit.’ This statement is repeated by the Saxon Chronicle, which adds, ‘And built Bambrough, which was at first enclosed by a hedge, and afterwards by a wall,’ and by Florence of Worcester. Simeon of Durham has simply, ‘Ida rex annis regnavit xi.’ William of Malmesbury, however, connects Ida very clearly with the earlier settlements; for, after narrating how Octa and Ebissa seized the northern parts of Britain, he says, ‘Annis enim uno minus centum, Northanhimbri duces communi habitu contenti, sub imperio Cantuaritarum privatos agebant: sed non postea stetit hæc ambitionis continentia, seu quia semper in deteriora decliva est humanus animus, seu quia gens illa naturaliter inflatiores anhelat spiritus. Anno itaque Dominicæ incarnationis quingentesimo quadragesimo septimo, post mortem Hengesti sexagesimo, ducatus in regnum mutatus, regnavitque ibi primus Ida, haud dubie nobilissimus, ætate et viribus integer; verum utrum ipse per se principatum invaserit, an aliorum consensu delatum susceperit, parum definio.’ The first writer who mentions the colony is the anonymous author of the tract ‘De primo Saxonum Adventu,’ and he is copied by John Wallingford. After repeating the usual statement, ‘Ida primus rex ex Anglis cœpit regnare in Northanhymbrorum provincia,’ he adds, ‘Venerat autem Ida comite patre Eoppa cum lx. navibus ad Flamaburch, indeque boreales plagas occupans, ibidem regnavit duodecim annis.’ The statement seems to be adopted from the account of Octa and Ebissa’s colony.
174. These names, Bernicia and Deira, are taken from the British names of the same districts, Deifr and Byrneich. Nennius has a curious notice which shows that these Anglic kingdoms did not first arise from colonies as late as 547. He says of Soemil, four generations before Ella, ‘Ipse primus separavit Deur o Berneich.’ The race from which Ella sprang must have been some generations before in the country.
175. Contra illum quatuor reges Urbgen et Riderchen et Guallauc et Morcant dimicaverunt.—Gen. Nennius. The genealogy of these four kings is given in the Welsh pedigrees annexed to Nennius.—Chron. Picts and Scots, pp. 15, 16. The reader is referred to the Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. pp. 336-355, for the historical poems relating to the battles fought in this war.
176. The Chronicle annexed to Nennius has, at 573, ‘Bellum Armterid,’ to which a later MS. adds—‘Inter filios Elifer et Gwendoleu filium Keidiau; in quo bello Gwendoleu cecidit: Merlinus insanus effectus est.’—An. Camb. A more detailed account will be found in the Proceedings of the S. A. Scot. (vol. vi. p. 91), in a notice of the site of the battle of Ardderyd. The Welsh genealogies annexed to Nennius, as well as those in the tract on the Gwyr Gogled, or men of the north (Four Ancient Books of Wales, ii. 455), show us very clearly the native and the Roman party. The former are in both documents traced to Coil Hen, who is supposed to have given his name to the district of Kyle in Ayrshire, and to them belonged both Eliffer and Gwendolew. The latter are brought by both from Dungual Hen, or the aged, but in this document he is made grandson of Maxim Guletic, or Maximus the emperor; but in the former and older account he is grandson of Ceretic Guletic, whose pedigree is traced from Confer or Cynfor, the reputed father of Constantine, who usurped the empire in 406. This Ceretic, the Guletic or leader of the North Britons, being four generations earlier than Rhydderch, must have lived in the middle of the fifth century, and I do not hesitate to identify him with the Coroticus to whom St. Patrick addressed his letter written between 432 and 493. It is addressed ‘ad Christianos Corotici Tyranni subditos.’ It is to be given to his soldiers, ‘tradenda militibus mittenda Corotici.’ He will not call them his fellow-citizens (civibus meis), St. Patrick being a native of Strathclyde—sed civibus dæmoniorum. He calls them ‘Socii Scotorum atque Pictorum apostatarum’—the Scots and the apostate Picts of this region. And again he says that his sheep have been plundered by robbers—‘jubente Corotico ... traditor Christianorum in manus Scottorum et Pictorum;’ and again that ‘ingenui homines Christiani in servitute redacti sunt, præsertim indignissimorum pessimorum apostatarumque Pictorum.’ It shows Coroticus as the Guletic, or one of the Tyranni who succeeded the Romans in command of soldiers, and in close contact with apostate Picts. This falling off of the Britons and Picts will be further illustrated in another part of this work. For a more detailed account of the Men of the North, see the Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. chap. x., and the genealogical tables there given. Among the descendants of Dungual Hen will be found another grandson, Nud, also called Hael or liberal, whose son Dryan fought at Ardderyd; and at Yarrow, in the centre of the districts more especially connected with the Roman party, a stone has been found with the following inscription, part of which only can be read:
This inscription appears to contain the name of Nud Hael or Liberalis, and the word Dumnogeni probably connects him with the Damnonii whom Ptolemy places here.—Proceed. S. A. Scot. vol. iv. p. 539.
177. Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, pp. 15, 136. Adamnan was born in 624.—Ib. p. 244.
178. Contra illum Urbgen cum filiis dimicabat fortiter. In illo tempore aliquando hostes, nunc cives, vincebantur.—Nennius, Gen. It is invariably assumed that Flamddwyn was a title borne by Ida, but there is no authority whatever for it. It is merely asserted by writers on Welsh history without proof. The epithet is only mentioned by the Bards in two poems: the Gweith Argoet Llwyfein or Battle of Leven Wood, and the Marwnat Owein or Death-song of Owen, son of Urien. In the one Urien and his son Owen are described as fighting against Flamddwyn, and in the other Owen is slain by Flamddwyn. (See Four Ancient Books of Wales, i. 265, 366; ii. 413, 418.) It is clear, therefore, that it was Theodoric, against whom Urien with his sons fought valiantly.
179. His temporibus signo Nordanhymbrorum præfuit rex fortissimus et gloriae cupidissimus Aedilfrid, qui plus omnibus Anglorum primatibus gentem vastavit Brittonum.... Nemo enim in tribunis, nemo in regibus plures eorum terras, exterminatis vel subjugatis indigenis, aut tributarias genti Anglorum, aut habitabiles fecit.—Bede, Hist. Ec. B. i. c. xxxiv.
180. See Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 127. Tighernac records, at 606, the death of Aidan, son of Gabran, in the thirty-eighth year of his reign and seventy-fourth of his age. This places his birth in 533, and the commencement of his reign in 569. He did not, however, succeed Conall on the throne of Dalriada till 574. There were, therefore, five years during which he reigned elsewhere before he became king of Dalriada. Welsh tradition connects him with the battle of Ardderyd as one of the contending parties; and in the tract on the Gwyr y Gogled, or Men of the North, he appears among the Roman party as grandson of Dungual Hen. His mother was Lleian, daughter of Brachan of Brecheniauc. There is a tract in the Cotton MSS. (Vesp. A, xiv.), ‘De Brachan Brecheniauc et cognatione ejus,’ which states that Brecheniauc or Brecknock, in South Wales, received its name from him, and that he was son of Aulach, son of Cormac, king of Ireland. It gives him ten sons and twenty-six daughters, but while some of these sons and daughters are connected with localities in South Wales, others are stated to have founded churches or died in the north. Thus Arthur is buried in Manau or Manann, Rhun Dremrudd was slain with his brother Rhawin or Rhuofan by the Saxons and Picts, and both founded churches in Manau; Nefydd was a bishop in y Gogledd, where he was slain by Saxons and Picts. Of the daughters Beithan died in Manau; Lleian was mother of Aidan; Nevyn was mother of Urien; Gwawr was mother of Llywarch Hen; Gwrgon Goddeu was wife of Cadrawd Calchvynydd, and the sepulchre of Brychan is said to be in an island called Yny Brychan, near Manau. The history of two different persons of the same name is here obviously combined, and one of the Brychans, the son of Aulach, is closely connected with Manau, and brought in contact with the Picts and Saxons. His daughter Lleian was mother of Aidan, and through her he may have inherited rights connected with it, and thus appear among the British knights engaged in the struggle which terminated with the battle of Ardderyd in 573. The other Brychan was probably Brychan, son of Gwyngon, who appears in the Liber Llandavensis (p. 456) as a donor of lands to Bishop Trychan, and among the witnesses are Dingad and Clydawg, two of the sons who are connected with Wales.
181. 582 or 583, Cath Manand in quo victor erat Aidan mac Gabrain.—Tigh.
590, Cath Leithrig la h-Aidan mac Gabrian.—Ib.
596, Jugulatio filiorum Aidan i Bran Domangart et Eochad Find et Artuir i Cath Chirchind in quo victus est Aedan.—Ib.
182. Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. 12. The author cannot identify the battle of Leithrig, but Adamnan tells us that Artur and Eochoid Find, two of Aidan’s sons, were killed in the battle of the Miathi, which identifies it with the battle of Chirchind, fought in 596. This was the last year of St. Columba’s life. It is difficult to fix the locality of this battle. Circinn was a name applied to the district of which Maghgirginn or Mearns, now Kincardineshire, was a part, but Aidan could hardly have penetrated so far east. Dr. Reeves thinks it may have been at the place now called Kirkintulloch. The term ‘Barbari’ is applied by Adamnan both to Picts and Saxons, but the name Miathi seems to belong to the Picts. The same war may have embraced Saxons also, as Domangart, slain the same year, perished, according to Adamnan, in battle ‘in Saxonia.’
183. Bede, Hist. Ecc. B. i. c. xxxiv. Tighernac has, in 600, ‘Cath Saxonum la h-Aedain ubi cecidit Eanfraith frater Etalfraich la Maeluma me Baedain in quo victor erat.’ The Irish annalist ignores Aidan’s defeat, and fixes upon Maeluma’s success in cutting off Theobald with his troops. By some it has been supposed that Dalstone in Cumberland was the scene of this battle; but while the word Degsastane passes naturally into Dawstone, it never could have formed Dalstone.