wounds."47 The same facts are alluded to by Jeffry, in his elegant poem, which entitles him to more literary respect than his history, and which contains more of real British traditions. 48

The pyramids or obelisks that are stated to have marked the place of Arthur's interment, long remained at Glastonbury. They had images and inscriptions, which have not yet been understood, but which do not seem to relate to Arthur. 49 A sword, fancied to have been his caliburno, was presented by Richard the First, as a valuable gift, to the king of Sicily. 50

17 Gir. in Speculo Ecclesiastico, MSS. Brit. Mus.; and ap. Lel. 44.

49 It is among the MSS. in the British Museum. Since it was noticed in this work, Mr. Ellis has given an account of it, with extracts, in his History of the Early English Romances.

49 On one of the sides of the pyramid that was twenty-six feet high, with five sides, was a figure in a pontifical dress: on the second side was a royal personage, with the letters Her, Sexi, Blisyer: on the third, Wemerest, Bantomp, Winewegn: the other sides had also inscriptions. The smaller pyramid was eighteen feet high, and had four sides with inscriptions. W. Malms. de Antiq. Glast. Gale, iii. p. 306., as collated in my copy by Hearne.

50 Usher, p. 121. These are the only circumstances which we can present to the reader as Arthur's authentic history. The romances about him contain several names of real persons, and seem occasionally to allude to a few real facts. But their great substance and main story are so completely fabulous, that whatever part of them was once true, is overwhelmed and lost in their fictions, and manifest falsifications both of manners and history.

CHAP.

III.

542.

BOOK

III.

First arri

vals in East

Anglia.

527.

Kingdom of Essex founded.

530.

CHAP. IV.

Establishment of the ANGLO-SAXONS in EAST ANGLIA, MERCIA, and ESSEX. Arrival of IDA in NorthumbERLAND. Battles with the BRITONS. Kingdoms of BERNICIA and DEira.

WHILE Cerdic and his son were conflicting with Arthur, and the other British kings and chiefs who oppposed them in Hampshire and the adjoining regions, several adventurers from the nation of the Angles in Sleswick arrived on the eastern coast of the island. The chronology of their invasions cannot be more definitely stated than by the date which an old chronnicler has affixed to them, and which accords so well with the other facts on this subject, that it may be considered as entitled to our attention. Another, more ancient, has mentioned that many petty chiefs arrived in East Anglia and Mercia in the reign of Cerdic, and fought many battles with the natives; but as they formed no kingdom and were numerous, their names had not been preserved.1 The year in which these invasions began to occur is placed by the other annalist in 527.2

Contemporary with these assailants, a body of Saxons planted themselves in Essex, and, protected on the south by the kingdom of the Jutes in Kent, and on the north by the adventurers in East Anglia, they succeeded in founding a little kingdom, about 5303, which has little else to attract our notice, than that it gradually stretched itself into Middlesex, and obtained the command of London, then but a flourishing town of trade, though destined in a subsequent age to be

1 H. Huntingd. p. 313.

The first king was Erkenwin, who died 587.

2 Matt. Westm. p. 188. Matt. Westm. p. 200.

come the metropolis of all the Jute, Saxon, and Angli CHAP. kingdoms of the island.

IV.

530.

In this state of the contest between the British nation and their Saxon invaders, while the Britons, yet masters of all the island, from the Avon to the Cornish promontory on the west, and to the Firth of Forth on the north, were resisting and arresting the progress of the son of Cerdic on the one hand, and the unrecorded adventurers in Norfolk and Suffolk on the other, the most formidable invasion which the natives had yet been called upon to oppose, occurred on the coast above the Humber. In 547, Ida led or Ida arrives accompanied, to the region between the Tweed and the Firth of Forth, a fleet of forty vessels of warriors, all of the nation of the Angles. Twelve sons were with him. The chieftains associated with him, or who afterwards joined in his enterprise, appointed him their king. Ida, like Hengist, Cerdic, and Ella, traced his pedigree to Woden, the great ancestor of the Anglo-Saxon chieftains, as well as those of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.

4

in Bernicia. 547.

North.

That part of Britain, between the Humber and the State of the Clyde, was occupied by Britons; but they were divided into many states. The part nearest the Humber was called Deifyr by the ancient natives, which, after the Saxon conquest was named Deira; and north of Deifyr was Bryneich, which became Latinised into Bernicia. Deifyr and Bryneich had three sovereigns, whose names have descended to us: Gall, Dyvedel, and Ysgwnell.

In some part of the district between the Humber and the Clyde, was a state called Reged, which Urien,

4 Flor. Wig. "In provincia Berniciorum," p. 218. So Nennius calls him the first king of Bernicia, p. 114.

5 We may record their names as specimens of their family appellations: Adda, Belric, Theodric, Ethelric, Theodhere, Osmer from his queens, and Occa, Ailric, Ecca, Oswold, Sogor, and Sogether. Most of these are significant words, or combinations of words, in the Saxon language.

BOOK

III.

547.

the patron of Taliesin, governed. In the parts nearest the Clyde, there were three other sovereigns, Rhydderc the Generous, Gwallog the son of Lleenog, and Morgant. Llywarch Hen also enjoyed a little principality in Argoed. Aneurin, the bard, was the chief of a district, called Gododin. And Mynnyddawr ruled in a part near the friths at Eiddyn, which has been conjectured to be the origin of Edinburgh, or the burgh of Edin. Cunedda was also a wledig, or sovereign, in some of these northern regions, who emigrated into North Wales; and Cau was another. All these, and some others, are mentioned in the Welsh remains; which prove that the north of Britain, like the south, was divided into many sovereignties some of them of very inconsiderable size. This state of the country, at the time of the AngloSaxon invasion, must be always recollected, when the facility and permanency of the Saxon conquests are adverted to.7 From the Kymry, or Britons, having retained possession of much of this country, for some time after the Saxon invasions, a large portion of it was called Cumbria; which is the Latin name by which their states or kingdoms in these parts have been usually expressed. As the Saxon conquests spread, the extent of British Cumbria was diminished, and the most noted of the British race, who had any Cumbrian kingdom in these parts, were the Ystradclwyd, who maintained what has been called the Strath Clyde kingdom. The word, Y-strad-clyde, literally imports the valley of the Clyde; and the region they occupied was therefore about the Clyde. After enduring wars, with various fortune, with the Britons, the Dalriads, and the Piks, their little kingdom was destroyed, in the close of the tenth century. Alclyde,

7 See for these facts Nennius- Caradoc's Life of Gildas-The Welsh Triads Aneurin's Gododin-Taliesin's Poems-Cotton. MSS. Vesp. A. 14. — - Llywarch Hen's Poems-Bodedd y Saint. W. Arch. ii.

which means the height of the Clyde, was the principal town of the Y-strad-clyde, and was in all likelihood the present Dunbarton. This circumstance increases the probability, that the Eiddyn, another town in these parts, which Mynnyddawr governed at this period, was the town on the Forth, almost parallel with Alclyde, and which has long become illustrious under the name of Edinburgh. Another British state between the Y-strad-clyde, and the Saxons, seems to have existed so late as the tenth century; as Eugenius, or Owen, king of the Cumbri, is then mentioned. 8

The defence of the Britons, according to the poems which remain in the manuscripts of their ancient poets, appears to have been peculiarly vigorous in these districts: and their warriors have received a liberal meed of praise from the bards whom they patronised.

CHAP.

IV.

547.

Of these, Urien, the chief of Reged, has been most Urien of extolled. He was the son of Cynvarc the Aged.9 Reged. Taliesin has addressed to him several poems with warm panegyric; and alludes to him in others. In these he calls him the head of the people; the shield of warriors; the most generous of men; bounteous as the sea; the thunderbolt of the Cymry. He compares his onset to the rushing of the waves; and to the fiery meteors moving across the heavens.10 But though he notices him as engaged in many battles 11, he has only distinctly described the battle of Argoed Llwyfain, and the battle of Gwenystrad.

As Ida was the war-king, who led the Angles

Mr. Pinkerton distinguishes the kingdom of Stratclyde from the kingdom of Cumbria, Inq. Hist. Scot. i. p. 60-99. But we must add to this opinion, the recollection that there were many British states at the time of Ida's invasion.

Several triads mention him and his family, as also Llywarch Hen, and Taliesin.

10 See the Yspeil Taliesin, p. 57. Canu Urien Reged, p. 55.; and his other poems addressed to Urien.

"As in his Canu i Urien, p. 57.