BOOK 571. mouthshire.10 The capture of three cities, then of considerable note among the Britons, as they are now to us, Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath, were the fruits of the Saxon victory.11 Seven years afterwards, we read of Cealwin pursuing hostilities against the Britons on the Severn. A bloody contest occurred at Frithern. The Britons fought with earnest resolution, and for some time with unusual success. The brother of the West Saxon king was slain, and his forces gave way. But Cealwin rallied his countrymen, and, after great slaughter, obtained the victory. The issue was as decisive as it had been long doubtful; and many towns were added to Wessex, and a vast booty divided among the conquerors.12 The Britons, with The venerable bard proceeds with his panegyrical apostrophes to his deceased friend, I heard from the meadow the clattering of shields. The city confines not the mighty. W. A. p. 112. He also laments the fall of Freuer. Is it not the death of Freuer, That separates me this night? It breaks my sleep. I weep at the dawn. W. A. p. 110. 10 I do not know that the Freuer of Llywarch means the same person as Farinmail; but it is likely that this was the Fernvail who was then reigning in Gwent or Monmouthshire. See Regis. Landew, quoted by Langhorn in his useful chronicle, p. 115. See before, p. 275. Ethelwerd calls these cities, urbes eorum clariores, p. 835. Huntingdon's epithet is excellentissimas, p. 315. 12 Flor. 224. Hunt. 315. M. Westm. omits the ultimate success of Cealwin, and states it as a British victory, p. 198. Soon after this contest, Langhorn quotes Io. Salisb, Polyc. v. c. 17. to say, that "paulo post Anglorum introitum impositum undismayed perseverance, fought again, seven years afterwards, at Wanborough, and appear to have obtained a complete victory.13 There were probably many efforts of minor importance made by the Britons which the Saxon chroniclers have not noticed.14 CHAP. V. 560. Saxons war with each But as soon as the Anglo-Saxon kings had so far The Anglosubdued the Britons, as to be in no general danger from their hostility; and began to feel their own strength other. in the growing population of their provinces, and in the habitual submission of the natives, their propensity to war, and their avarice of power, excited them to turn their arms upon each other. 568. Ethelbert It was the impatience of a young mind to distinguish itself, which thus began a new series of wars invades that lasted till Egbert. The attacks and successes of Cealwin. the West Saxons and the South Saxons had turned off from Kent the direction of British hostility. Left at leisure for the indulgence of youthful turbulence, Ethelbert, the fourth successor of Hengist, at the age of sixteen, presumed to invade Cealwin, the king of Wessex. This action seems to have been intemperate. Cealwin had displayed both talent and resources for war, and Kent never attained the territorial extent or power of Wessex. But it is probable, that the Anglo-Saxons knew nothing as yet of the geography or comparative strength of their respective kingdoms. The issue of this contest taught Kent to fuisse Angliæ nomen." Langhorn has here departed from his usual accuracy. The passage of our elegant monk is lib. vi. c. 17. p. 197., and merely mentions that "ab inventu Saxonum in insulam appellatur Anglia." These words determine no chronology like paulo post. They express only one of the consequences of the Saxon invasion, without marking the precise time of the change of name. 13 The brief intimation of the Saxon Chronicle, p. 22., is more fully expressed in Hunt. 315.; and Ethelwerd ascribes to this battle the expulsion of Cealwin from his throne, p. 835. "Thus Meigant, the British bard of the seventh century, mentions an expedition of the British chief Morial : Pacing to combat, a great booty Before Caer Lwydgoed, has not Morial taken W. A. i. p. 160. BOOK III. 568. 584. Ceawlin's death. 591. understand better its true position in the political Cealwin soon imitated, but with more success from his superior means, the ambition of Ethelbert. On the death of its sovereign, Cissa, he obtained the kingdom of Sussex. By annexing it to West Saxony, he changed the Saxon octarchy into a temporary heptarchy. Dreaded for his power and ambition, Cealwin now preponderated over the other Saxon monarchs 17; but his prosperity changed before his death. His nephew, Ceolric, allied with the Cymry and the Scoti against him ; and all the valour and conduct of Cealwin 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.18 His death soon followed, and the unnatural kinsman succeeded 15 Sax. Chron. p. 21. Flor. Wigorn. 222. Malmsbury attributes the aggression to Ethelbert's desire of engrossing præ antiquitate familiæ primas partes sibi, p. 12. 18 Hunt. 315. About this time, in 573, the Saxons obtained a settlement in France. They were placed in the Armorican region after their irruption, in finibus Bajocassium et Namnetensium. Bouquet's Recueil des Historiens des Gaules, vol. ii. p. 250.-Hence Gregory of Tours calls them Saxones Bajocassos, lib. v. c. 10. It is curious that they were sent against the British settlers in Gaul, who defeated them. Gregory, lib. v. c. 27. Their dialect, Charles the Bald, in his Laws apud Silvacum, calls Linguam Saxonicam. Bouquet, p. 250. 17 Bede, lib. ii. c. 5. He was the second Saxon prince so distinguished. — Matt. West. says generally, "magnificatum est nomen 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., Gale, iii,, and Jeffry, 12. 2. Alanus de Insulis, lib. i. p. 25., gives him 360,000. 19 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. to the crown he had usurped. He enjoyed it during CHAP. a short reign of five years, and Ceolwulf acceded. The disaster of Cealwin gave safety to Kent. Ethelbert preserved his authority in that kingdom, and at length succeeded to that insular 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 AngloSaxon prince of his day, or conceded in any national council of all the Anglo-Saxons; or ambitiously assumed by the Saxon king that most felt and pressed his temporary power; or 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. V. 591. 603. Successes frith. While Ceolwulf was governing Wessex, Ethelfrith, the grandson of Ida, reigned in Bernicia, and of Ethelattacked the Britons with vehemence and perseverance. 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 Alarmed by his progress, Aidan advanced with a great army of Britons, either from Scotland, or those who in the Cumbrian or Strathclyde 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 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; Cealwin, of Wessex; Ethelbert, of Kent; Redwald, of East Anglia; Edwin, Oswald, and Oswy, of Northumbria; and see Hunt. 314. 20 Hunt. 315. BOOK III. 603. 607. or 612. 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.21 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 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 destroyed 23; 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 a decisive con 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 Jedburgh, has each its advocate. 22 II. 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 cœlestia regna sublatus, 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 blades gleaming on the bright helmets; The battle against the Lord of Fame in the dales of Hafren; Against Brocvail of Powys, who loved my muse. Taliesin, p. 66. |