СНАР. V. 610. Bangor quest. Ancient Bangor itself soon fell into his hands, and was demolished 25; the noble monastery was levelled to the earth; its library, which is mentioned as a large one, the collection of ages, the repository destroyed. 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. Ceolwulph. But amidst their misfortunes, the Cymry some- Tewdric times triumphed. Ceolwulph from Wessex advanced defeats 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 reassume 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 25 Ancient Bangor was about eight miles distant from Chester. Caius de Antiq. Cantab. lib. i. ap. 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. 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 Anglo-Saxon 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. BOOK III. 610. Distress of the Welsh. success, and he breathed his last wishes for his people's safety at the confluence of the Severn and the Wye. The local appellation Mathern, the abbreviation of Merthyr Teudric 28, 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 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, and every man's hand against them 30; 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 28 The martyr Tewdric. Usher quotes the Register of Landaff 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. An incident somewhat like this occurred in the commencement of the English settlements in North America. General Whalley, one of the judges of Charles I., fled with his son-in-law General Gough from England to Boston a few days before the Restoration. Pursued by proclamations offering large rewards for their apprehension, their hiding-place, at first, was a cave on the top of a rock, a few miles from Newhaven, from which, in two or three years, they moved to Hadley, where they lived, concealed and unknown, for fifteen summers. A war ensuing between the English colonists and the Indian chief of Pokanoket, the Indians surprised Hadley in the time of public worship: the townspeople had their arms with them, but were panic-struck and confounded; and would have been all destroyed, if an old and venerable man, in a dress unlike that of any other, had not suddenly appeared among them. He rallied them, put himself at their head, gave orders like one accustomed to battle, charged and routed the enemy, and saved the town; but, when the victory was complete, was no longer to be seen. It was General Gough.. -Holme's Annals of America. 30 Matt. West. paints this forcibly, p. 198, and 199. domestic quarrels, and accelerated the ruin of their independence. But yet, under all these disadvantages, they maintained the unequal conflict against the Anglo-Saxons with wonderful bravery, and did not lose the sovereignty of their country until the improvements of their conquerors made the conquest a blessing. CHAP. V. 610. 614. Cynegils' Cynegils, with the West Saxons, again assailed some branches of the Britons. If Bampton in Devonshire victory. be the place which the Saxon annalist denominates Beamdune, the princes of Cornwall were the objects of attack. When the armies met, Cynegils surprised the Britons by drawing up his forces into an arrangement which was not common to that age. This display and the sight of the battle-axes, which the Saxons were brandishing, affected them with a sudden panic, and they quitted the field early, with the loss of above two thousand men.3 31 31 Hunt. 316. Sax. Chron. 25. Camden supposes the place to have been Bindon in Dorsetshire, i. 44. Gough's ed. The editor mentions favourably the opinion of Gibson, which is in the text, ib. p. 50. BOOK III. CHAP. VI. The Introduction of Christianity among the ANGLo-Saxons in THE history of the Anglo-Saxons has, thus far, been the history of fierce, barbaric tribes; full of high courage, excited spirit, persevering resolution, great activity, and some military skill; but with minds which, although abounding with talent and love of enterprise, and inventive of political institutions well adapted to their position and necessities, were void of all lettered cultivation; unused to the social sympathies, and averse from the intellectual refinements, of which they were naturally capable. These great blessings of human life were introduced among them with that peculiar form of Christianity, which the benevolent feelings and religious enthusiasm of Pope Gregory (deservedly, with all his imperfections, surnamed the Great) conveyed into England by his missionary Augustin. This great mental, moral, and, we may add from some of its results, political revolution was suggested and accomplished by a train of coincidences, which deserve to be recollected.1 1 While we give the missionaries of Gregory the honour of thus introducing Christianity amongst the conquering Saxons, we must not forget that it was already existing, and long survived independently, among the conquered Britons. Many facts show that the British church, in the fourth and fifth century, held an influential position, and took an active part in the ecclesiastical proceedings of the age. The Christian population, however, retired under the pressure of the Saxon invasion into Wales, and the south-western parts of England, and partly from the divisions in relation to the opinions of Pelagius; partly from the deep hostility between the British and Saxon populations, and partly from the active support which Rome gave to the Saxon hierarchy as in more direct dependence upon herself, the more ancient British hierarchy lost ground, and became gradually absorbed into the Roman church. In 770 the Roman reckoning of Easter-tide was accepted; and, by the end of the eleventh century, all remains of independence even in Wales had disappeared. VI. The Roman papacy had felt the advantage, to CHAP. itself, of the conversion of the Gothic nations; and Gregory, in succeeding to that dignity, would have imbibed a disposition to promote the same religious policy, if his own earnest belief in Christianity had not led him to befriend it. But the Anglo-Saxons were not the only nation of Europe that were then pagans. All Germany, and all the nations from the Rhine to the Frozen Ocean, and all the Slavonian tribes, were of this description. England, which Rome had long before amused itself with describing, as cut off from the whole world, and as approaching the frozen and half-fabled Thule, was so remote, and had been so separated by its Saxon conquerors, from any connection with the civilised regions, that it seemed to be the country least adapted to interest him. But a circumstance, which does credit to his heart, had turned the current of Gregory's feelings towards our island, before he had reached the papacy. It was then the practice of Europe to make use of slaves, and to buy and sell them; and this traffic was carried on, even in the western capital of the Christian church. As he was passing one day through the market at Rome, the white skins, the flowing locks, and beautiful countenances of some youths who were standing there for sale, interested Gregory's sensibility.2 To his inquiries from what country they had been brought, the answer was, from Britain, whose inhabitants were all of that fair complexion. Were they Pagans or Christians? was his next question: a 2 The chronicler of St. Augustin's monastery at Canterbury, W. Thorn, mentions that these were three boys: "Videt in foro Romano tres pueros Anglicos,” Decem. Script. p. 1757. In the Anglo-Saxon homily on Gregory's birth-day, published by Mrs. Elstob, it is stated that English merchants had carried them to Rome, and that the practice was continuing. "Tha gelamp het æt rumum ræle rpa spa git ron oft deth, that Englisce cythmen brohton heopa pape to Romana bypig. Inegoniur eode be thære stræt to tham Engliscum mannum heopa thing reeapigende. Tha gereah he betpuxt tham panum cypecnichtar gesette. Tha panon brites lichaman rægnes & plitan man æthelice gereaxode," p. 11. |