Chapter III: Britain After the Romans (2)

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.

[Sidenote: War with Octa and Ebissa’s colony.]

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]

[Sidenote: Kingdom of Bernicia.]

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.

[Sidenote: Battle of Ardderyd.]

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.

[Sidenote: Battle of Degsastane or Dawstane.]

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.

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Footnote 102:

Hibernia is first mentioned as being also called Scotia by Isidore of
Seville in 580.

Footnote 103:

Procop. _Bell. Goth._ iv. 20. (A.D. 540-550.)

Footnote 104:

Steph. Byzant. _De Urbibus_ (A.D. 490).

Footnote 105:

Exceptis diversorum prolixioribus promontoriorum tractibus, quæ
arcuatis oceani sinibus ambuitur.—_Hist. Gild._ § 3.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.’

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.’

Footnote 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.

Footnote 112:

Ab aquilone; strictly north-north-east.

Footnote 113:

Pro indigenis.

Footnote 114:

See Fordun, _Chron._ vol. ii. p. 380, note.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 116:

Ut perhibent.

Footnote 117:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._ i. § 7.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.’ 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.

Footnote 121:

See _Chronicles of the Picts and Scots_, Pref. pp. xviii-xxiii.

Footnote 122:

_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 6.

Footnote 123:

_Ibid._ p. 410.

Footnote 124:

_Liber Hymnorum_, i. pp. 97, 105.

Footnote 125:

_Ib._ p. 117.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 127:

Mailcon is the genitive form of Mailcu. It is the same name as Milchu,
the Dalaradian king who held St. Patrick in slavery.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 129:

Adamnan, _Vit. Columbæ_, ed. 1874, p. 174.

Footnote 130:

580 Cendaeladh rex Pictorum mortuus est.—_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p.
67.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 132:

Scotorum a circione, Pictorum ab aquilone.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 135:

Bede, _Hist. Ec._ B. i. c. 1.

Footnote 136:

_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 18.

Footnote 137:

Feargus mor mac Earca cum gente Dalriada partem Britanniæ tenuit et
ibi mortuus est.—_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 66.

Footnote 138:

The tripartite life of St. Patrick contains an account of the
conversion of Erc and his people by St. Patrick.—_Ib._ p. 17.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 141:

_Ib._ p. 82.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 143:

_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 83.

Footnote 144:

Reeves’s _Adamnan_, ed. 1874, p. 81.

Footnote 145:

_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 60.

Footnote 146:

Reeves’s _Adamnan_, ed. 1874, p. 264.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 157:

Placuitque omnibus cum suo rege Vortigerno ut Saxonum gentem de
transmarinis partibus in auxilium vocarent.—B. i. c. xiv.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 160:

Tribunus Cohortis Primæ Novæ Armoricæ Grannona in Litore
Saxonico.—_Not. Imp._

Footnote 161:

This has been well shown by Kemble, _Saxons in England_, vol. i. p.
10.

Footnote 162:

This was first observed by Sharon Turner in his _History of the
Anglo-Saxons_, vol. i. p. 105.

Footnote 163:

Theodosii xviii (A.D. 441) Britanniæ usque ad hoc tempus variis
cladibus eventibusque latæ in ditionem Saxonum rediguntur.

Footnote 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.’

Footnote 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.’

Footnote 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.

Footnote 167:

‘Id est Cat Coit Celidon,’ the battle of the wood Celidon.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 171:

A.D. 537, Gueith Camlann in qua Arthur et Medraut corruere.—_An.
Cam._, _Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 14.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 173: