III. 591. BOOK death. His nephew, Ceolric, allied with the Cymry and the Scoti against him; and all the valour and conduct of Ceawlin, could not rescue him from a defeat, in the thirty-third year of his reign, at Wodnesburg, in Wilts, the mound of Woden already alluded to. His death soon followed, and the unnatural kinsman succeeded to the crown he had usurped. He enjoyed it during a short reign of five years, and Ceolwulf acceded. 18 THE disaster of Ceawlin gave safety to Kent. Ethelbert preserved his authority in that kingdom, and at length succeeded to that insulary predominance among the Anglo-Saxon kings, which they called the Bretwalda, or the ruler of Britain.19 Whether this was a mere title assumed by Hengist, and afterwards by Ella, and continued by the most successful Anglo-Saxon prince of his day, or con ejus vehementer," p. 197.-Langhorn fancied that he was the Gormund, whom the Britons mention with horror. Chron. Reg. Angliæ, 123. This Gormund, by some styled king of the Africans, by others a pirate of Norway or Ireland, is fabled to have invaded the Britons with 166,000 Africans. Rad. dic., 559., 3 Gale, and Jeffry, 12. 2. Alanus de Insulis, lib. i. p. 25., gives him 360,000. 18 Sax. Chron. 22. Ceola, as Flor. Wig. 225., names him, was son of Cuthulf. Ethelwerd, 835.- This village stands upon the remarkable ditch called Wansdike, which Camden thought a Saxon work to divide Mercia from Wessex, and which others have supposed to have been a defence against the incursions of the Britons. 19 Bede, lib. ii. c. 5., names him as the third qui imperavit all the provinces south of the Humber. Malmsbury amplifies this into "omnes nationes Anglorum præter Northanhimbros continuis victoriis domitas sub jugum traxit," p. 10. -The Saxon Chron. calls him one of the seven bretwaldas who preceded Egbert. The proper force of this word bretwalda cannot imply conquest, because Ella the First is not said to have conquered Hengist or Cerdic; nor did the other bretwaldas conquer the other Saxon kingdoms. The Anglo-Saxon sovereigns, to whom Bede gives this title in succession, are Ella, of Sussex; Ceawlin, of Wessex; Ethelbert, of Kent; Redwald, of East Anglia; Edwin, Oswald, and Oswy, of Northumbria; and see Hunt. 314. ceded in any national council of all the AngloSaxons; or ambitiously assumed by the Saxon king that most felt and pressed his temporary power; whether it was an imitation of the British unbennaeth, or a continuation of the Saxon custom of electing a war cyning, cannot now be ascertained. CHAP. V. 591. 603. Successes of Ethel WHILE Ceolwulf was governing Wessex, Ethelfrith, the grandson of Ida, reigned in Bernicia, and attacked the Britons with vehemence and perseve- frith. rance. None peopled more districts of the ancient Cymry with Angles, or more enslaved them with tributary services.20 It is probable that he extended his conquests to the Trent. Alarmed by his progress, Aidan advanced with a great army of Britons either from Scotland, or those who in the Cumbrian or Strat-clyde kingdoms, and their vicinity, still preserved their independence, to repress him. The Angles met him at Degsastan; a furious battle ensued, which the determination of the combatants made very deadly. The Britons fought both with conduct and courage, and the brother of Ethelfrith perished, with all his followers. At length the Scottish Britons gave way, and were destroyed with such slaughter, that the king, with but few attendants, escaped. They had not, up to the time of Bede, ventured to molest the Angles again. THE colonists of Sussex, endeavouring to throw off the yoke of Ceolwulf, this West Saxon king, who is mentioned as always engaged in quarrels with the Angles, Britons, Picts, or Scots, ventured on a conflict with him, which, disastrous to both 20 Hunt. 315. 21 Bede, lib. i. c. 34. Sax. Chron. 24. -The position of this, as of most of the Saxon battles, is disputed. Dalston, near Carlisle, and Dawston, near Jedbrough, has each its advocate. BOOK III. 607. or 612. armies, was most fatal to the assertors of their independence.22 THE Bernician conqueror, Ethelfrith, renewed his war with the Cymry. He reached Chester, through a course of victory. Apart from the forces of the Welsh, assembled under Brocmail, king of Powys, he perceived the monks of Bangor, twelve hundred in number, offering prayers for the success of their countrymen: "If they are praying against us," he exclaimed, "they are fighting against us ;" and he ordered them to be first attacked: they were destroyed23; and, appalled by their fate, the courage of Brocmail wavered, and he fled from the field in dismay. 24 Thus abandoned by their leader, his army gave way, and Ethelfrith obtained Bangor a decisive conquest. Ancient Bangor itself soon destroyed. fell into his hands, and was demolished"; the noble 22 H. Hunt. 316. Sax. Chron. p. 25. 23 The chronology of this battle is disputed. The Saxon Chronicle dates it in 607, p. 25.; Flor. Wig. 603; the Annals of Ulster in 612; Matt. West. in 603, p. 204. The ancient Welsh chronologer, in the Cambrian Reg. for 1796, places it in 602, and fourteen years before the battle of Meigen, p. 313. Bede says, that Austin had been jam multo ante tempore ad cælestia regna sublato, lib. ii. c. 2.; but Austin died in 605. 24 Brocmail was one of the patrons of Taliesin, who commemorates this struggle: I saw the oppression of the tumult; the wrath and tribulation; The battle against the Lord of Fame in the dales of Hafren ; Taliesin, p. 66. 25 Ancient Bangor was about eight miles distant from Chester. Caius de Antiq. Cantab. lib. i. a. Usher, 133. — Leland says, “the cumpace of the abbay was as of a waullid toune, and yet remaineth the name of a gate caullid Porth Hogan by north, and the name of another, port Clays by south. Dee syns chaunging the bottom rennith now thoroug the mydle betwyxt thes two gates, one being a mile dim from the other." Itiner. vol. v.. p. 26. ; V. 610. monastery was levelled to the earth; its library, CHAP. which is mentioned as a large one, the collection of ages, the repository of the most precious monuments of the ancient Britons, was consumed 26 half ruined walls, gates, and rubbish, were all that remained of the magnificent edifice.27 We may presume that the addition of Cheshire to Bernicia was the consequence of the victory. defeats BUT amidst their misfortunes, the Cymry some- Tewdric times triumphed. Ceolwulph from Wessex advanced Cealwulph. upon them, not merely to the Severn, but crossed it into the province of Glamorgan. Affrighted at his force, the inhabitants hastened to Tewdric their former king, who had quitted his dignity in behalf of his son Mowrick, to lead a solitary life among the beautiful rocks and woodlands of Tintern. They solicited him to re-assume the military command, in which he had never known disgrace, if he sympathised in the welfare of his countrymen or his son. The royal hermit beheld the dreaded Saxons on the Wye, but the remembrance of his own achievements inspired him with hope. He put on his forsaken armour, conducted the tumult of battle with his former skill, and drove the invaders over the Severn. A mortal wound in the head arrested him in the full enjoyment of his success, and he breathed his last wishes for his people's safety at 26 Humph. Lhuyd asserts this. Comm. Frag. Brit. Descript. 58., and Giraldus Cambrensis declares that Chester also was destroyed. De illaud. Walliæ, c. 7. And it is not likely that a rude AngloSaxon warrior would take any care to preserve British MSS. This destruction was an irreparable loss to the ancient British antiquities. 27 Malmsbury, 19.-In the Triads Bangor is paralleled with the isle of Avallon, and Caer Caradog, for possessing 2400 religious. The Bangor of modern note is a city built by Maelgo on the Meneath, near Anglesea, Joh. Rossius, ap. Usher, 133. III. 610. BOOK the confluence of the Severn and the Wye. The local appellation Mathern, the abbreviation of Merthyr Teudric 23, pointed out his remains to the sympathy of posterity: in the sixteenth century his body was found unconsumed, and the fatal blow on his head was visible. 29 Distress of the Welsh. THE Condition of the Britons at this juncture was becoming more distressful and degrading. Driven out of their ancient country, they had retired to those parts of the island, which, by mountains, woods, marshes, and rivers, were most secluded from the rest; yet in this retreat they lived, with their hands against every man 30, and every man's hand against them; they were the common butt of enterprise to the Angles of Bernicia, and Deira, and Mercia; to the Saxons of Wessex, and to the Gwiddelians of Ireland; and they were always as eager to assail as to defend. The wild prophecies of enthusiasts, who mistook hope for inspiration, having promised to them, in no long period, the enjoyment of the soil from which they had been exiled, produced a perpetual appetite for war. Their independent sovereignties fed, by their hostile ambition, the flames of domestic quarrels, and accelerated the ruin of their independence. But yet, under all these disadvantages, they maintained the unequal conflict against the AngloSaxons with wonderful bravery, and did not lose the sovereignty of their country until the improve 28 The martyr Tewdric. Usher quotes the Register of Llandaff for this conflict, p. 562.- Langhorn. Chron. p. 148. 29 Godwin præsul. ap. Usher, 563. In the chancel of Mathern church an epitaph mentions that he lies there entombed. Williams's Monmouthshire, App. No. 17. 30 Matt. West. paints this forcibly, p. 198. and 199. |