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"^^^ .61 






/ 



*»',. 



THE 

FROM ANCIENT HISTORIANS AND 
AUTHENTIC DOCUMENTS. 

BY 

JOSEPH RITSON, ESQ. 



Ne tut men9oigne9 ne tut vdr, 
Ne tut folie^ ne tut saver : 
Tant out li contur cont^, 
E li fablur tunt fabl6. 
Pur lur contes enbelir^ 
Ke tuz lea fiint k fables tener. 

Ls BbFT DE BfAISTRE WaCE. 

No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail. 

Gray. 



• •• J J 



) • f 



LONDON : 

PRINTED FOR PATNB AND F088^ PALL-MALL ; 

AND HARDING^ TRIPHOOK, AND LSPARD^ 

FINSBURY SQUAR8 3 

BY WILLIAM NiCOL^ CLEYBLAND-ROW^ ST. JAMES'S. 

1825. 

r-e. 



THE 



X.tfe of JSimg ^xtt^xit. 



CONTENTS. 

Frefaccj - - - - p. i. 

The Life of King Arthur^ - - 3 

Appendix. 

No. I. Extracts from the lives of Welsh 
saints, - - 143 

No. II. The answer of the abbot of Ban- 
gor to Augustine^ the monkj word 
for word, in Welsh and English^ 

155 

No. in. British and Welsh saints, 157 

No. IV. Welsh saints, - - 160 

No. V. Cornish saints, - 164 

No. VI. Breton saints, - - If 1 



PREFACE. 



No character^ eminent in ancient history, has 
ever been treated with more extravagance, men- 
dacity and injustice, than the renowned Arthur, 
the illustrious monarch and valiant commander 
of the Britons. Extolled by some, as greater in 
power, more victorious in war, more abundant 
in dominion, more extensive in &me, than either 
the Roman Julius or the Grecian Alexander ; his 
very existence has, by others, been, positively 
and absolutely, denied. In the year 11S&, being 
the third of king Stephen, appeared an elaborate 
work, in a dassical style, and contdning two 
short pieces of elegiac poetry, of singular elegance 
for that age,* intitled ** Historia Britonum, or 

* Diva potent nemortttn, terror tylvestribut aprit ; 

Ctti Ucft an^actus ire per aethereos, 
Infemasque domos; terrestriajura resolve, 

Et die quas terras vm habitare velisf 
Die certam sedem q%ta te venerator in aevum, 

Qua tibi virginm templa dicaho charts f** 

This elegy, thus Englished by Pope : 

" Goddess of woods* tremendous in the chace 
To mountain boars and all the samge race I 

B 



ii PREFACE. 

regum Britanniae"f in which thb celebrated so- 
vereign^ a8> at least, in consequence thereof he 

Wide o'er th' aetiiereal walks extends tby sway, 
And o*er th* infernal mannons void of day ! 
On thy third realm look down ! unfold our iate» 
And say what region is our destin*d seat ? 
Where shall we next thy lasting temples raise ? 
And choirs of virgins celebrate thy praise ? 

was, according to the author in question, the address of 
Brutus to the oracular statue of Diana, in the island of Leo- 
geda, Mrhich he said nine times, himself holding, before the 
altar of the goddess, the vase of Hie sacrifice, full of wine and 
the blood of a white hart ; having encircled the altar four times ; 
and poured the wiiie into the fire ; and laid down upon the 
hart-skin, he, at length, slept About the third hour of the 
nighty it seemed to him that the goddess stood before himself, 
and in this manner bespoke him : 

" BrtUe, iub occa$um soils, trans Gallica regno, 

Intula in ouano est, undique cUmsa man; 
Jntulo in oceano est, habitata gigantibus olim. 

Nunc deserta quidem ; ^«ntt6tts opCa tuts. 
Hanc pete, namque tibi sedes erit iUe perennis : 

Sicjiet natis altera Trqja tuis. 
Sic de prole tua reges nasceniur : et ipsis 

Totius terrae subdittis orbis erit :" 

Englished by the same poet (see Milton's Poeme, by Warton, 
1791, P. 364): 

'* Brutus, there lies beyond the Gallic bounds 
An island which the western sea surrounds. 
By giants once possessed ; now few remain 
To bar thy entrance, or obstruct thy reign. 



PREFAGfe. lii 

becamej is represented as a hero of such magni- 
tude^ that> having succeeded Uther Pendragon^ 

To reach that happy shore thy sails employ : 

There fate decrees to raise a second Troy, 

And found an emfnre in thy royal line, 

Which time shall ne'er destroy nor bounds confine." 

Tliis ishind, of coarse, was Britafai, then called Albion, at 
which he arrived in good time, and which was inhabited by 
no one, except a few giants. (6. 1, C. 11 , 16.) 

Whether these two elegies were composed by Geoffrey of 
Monmonth may be, reasonably, doubted. Henry, arch-deacon 
of Huntingdon, appears to have been the best elegiac poet of 
that age. 

t The title varies in the different manuscripts and printed 
copies. There are three editions, in Latin, under these titles : 
" BrUaime utrituque regum et principum crigo tt gesta tn- 
sigma ah Oalfrido Monemutensi ex antiquissimia Britanni ser- 
momt numumentis in Latinum sermonem traduda et ah {Johanne 
Badi6\ Atcensio cura et impendio magUtri Luonis Cavellati m 
lacem edita. [Parism, MDVIII : quarto] : the second edition 
[MDXVilJ, by the same printer, differs very little, and in no- 
thing of consequence, from the former: the third: "GaJjfredi 
Monumetenm historue regum BritannuB** apud " Iterum Bri- 
tannicarum [Hieronimo Commelino editoji hagduni, c I o. I o. 
Lxxxvii : folio. Beside tlie English version by Aaron 
Thompson, in 1718, 8yo: and it is a very common manu- 
script. It is sometimes, called Liber Bruti ; and the anony- 
mous author of The Chronicle qfJervaux (falsely attributed to 
John Bromton, abbot of that monastery « in the time of Henry 
the sixth) calls it (in Latin) not only ** The history of the 
Britons," or, " The British bode ;" but, likewise, " The book 
of the gests [or actions] of the Britons, vulgarly call'd " Le 
Bru^* (see Co. 7«5, 1153). 



iv PREFACE. 

f 

his father> in the kingdom of Britain, he made a 
sudden assault upon the Saxons, and put them to 
flight ; that H96I, his nephew, king of the Ar- 
morican Britons, sent him fifteen thousand men -, 
that he made the Saxons his tributaries ; that he 
granted a pardon to the Scots and Ficts ; that he 
honoured Augusel with the scepter of the Scots, 
Urien with that of Murray, and Lot with the 
consulship or dukedom ofLoudonesia or Lothian ; 
that he added to his government Ireland, Iceland, 
Gothland and the Orkneys; that he subdued 
Norway, Dacia, or Denmark, Aquitain and Gaul, 
now France 3 that he held his grand coronation- 
feast at the cit^ of Legions or Caerleon, in Gla- 
morganshire, to which came the kings of Albany 
or Scotland, Murray, Fenedotia or North-Wales, 
Demetia or South-Wales and Cornwall; the 
archbishops of London, York and Caerleon ; the 
consuls, dukes, or earls, of the principal cities ; 
all of whom are enumerated by the most barba- 
rous names ; the kings of Ireland, Iceland, Goth- 
land, the Orkneys, Norway, the Dacians or Dimes 
and the Ruteni; the consul (or earl) of Bolonia ;, 
the Duke of Normandy, his butler ; the duke of 
Andegavia or Anjou, his sewer ; the twelve peers 
of France ;* the Duke of the Armorican Britons, 

* The mention of these twelve peers is a strong proof that 
the author of the Britbh History had read the no less&bolous 
life of Charlemagne, by a Pseudo-Turpin, which also sog- 



PREFACE. V 

^ith his nobility, who walked with so great an 
equipage of ornaments, mules and horses, as was 
difficult to describe i that, beside these, no prince 
of any price remained on this side of Spain, who 
came not at that proclamation : Nor was it won- 
derful : for, the munificence of Arthur being 
divulged through the whole wprld, had allured 
every one into the love of him : that, upon this 
occasion, he received a letter from Lucius Tiberius, 
general of the Romans (but totally unknown to 
the Roman historians), demanding justice for 
tribute withheld, and injuries done -, and threat- 
ening war on his refusal ; which is inserted at 
length, with the deliberative speeches and argu- 
ments of his privy- council, pro and con,$ that 
they unanimously agreed upon a war with the 
Romans $ that Lucius Tiberius, called together 
the eastern kings against the Britons ; that Ar- 
thur killed a Spanish giant of monstrous size -, 
that the Romans attacked the Britons with very 
great force, but were put to flight by them $ that. 



gested to ^i »" a name for Arthur*s stoord. This romance is 
conjectured, by the French antiquaries, to be of the eleventh 
•century; and was originally printed, in Latin, in *' Germant- 
earuM quatuor cetebrioret vettutioraque ckronographi, j^. 
Francqfurti, h Smone Schaadio, 1566, folio ; a licentious ver- 
sioo, howeTer, in French, having been already published by 
Jtobert Gaguin, in i5t5, 4to» 



vi PREFACE. 

in a prodigious battle^ for numbers and slaughter^ 
Lucius Tiberius was killed^ and the Britons ob« 
tained the victory ; that part of the Romans fled 
and the rest, of their own accord, surrendered 
themselves for slaves ! ! ! Events never heard 
of before this miraculous history.* 

This wonderful book was ushered into the 
world by Geo£Prey of Monmouth, a Welshman, 
and, in process of time, that is, in the year, 1151, 
bishop of Saint-Asaph, though,' by no means, 
the only prelate who has owed hi9 lidvancement 



* The Danes, fikewise, are iHtroduced, long before that 
people were known in Britain, their first irruption being in 786> 
144 years after the supposed death of Arthur. Gormund, 
khig of the Africans is, doubtless, Guthrun or Godrun, vulgarly 
called Gormund, king of the Danes, who, having been defeated 
and made prisoner by king Alfred, was, at his instance, bap- 
tised, in 878; and even " the foctst of Canute,** who died in 
1036, is mentioned in Merlin*8 Prophecies, about 430 : accu- 
rate chronology ! Moreover, in the forged laws of Edward the 
confessor, it is said " that the law oi folk-mote was 'founded' by 
Arthur [a Brithh prince to make Saxon laws], who was for- 
merly the most famous king of the Britons and so consolidated 
and confederated the whole kingdom of Britain for ever in 
one. By the authority of this law, the aforesaid Arthur 
expelled the Saracens, and enemies from the kingdom." 
{LL. Anglo-Sax* p. 204.) Edward, who made the law, was 
bom alter 1002 and Arthur, who is said to have died in 542^ 
availed himself of ^^ the authority of this law" made after 
1042. 



PREFACE. vii 

to publications of a similar nature }* who> in his 
prefiitory chapter^ being a sort of epistle dedica- 
tory to Robert earl of Gloucester^ the natural 
son of king Henry the firsts who died in 1146^ 
in which^ also^ he notices that monarch, whose 
death had happened in 1136, says, " When, re- 
volving many things with myself and oftener con- 
cerning many things in my mind, I fell into the 
history of the kings of Britain, I imputed it into 
a wonder, that within the mention which Gildas 
and Bede had*tnade of them in a creditable trea- 
tise, I could find nothing of the kings who had 
inhabited Britain before the incarnation of Christ : 
nor, even, of Arthur and the many others who 
succeeded after the incarnation : when hoth their 
actions were worthy of the praise of eternity, and, 
by many people, as if inscribed, pleasantly and by 
heart, were reported. To me, thinking these 
things and of such like, many times> Walter 



* OaM harry, another Welshman, commonly called Gt- 
raldut CambrmiM, and, by Leland and Camden, for whatever 
reason, Chester Giraldut, a volominoos writer* was elevated, 
for the like cause, to the see of Samt David, m 1214 ; as was, 
likewise, John Bale, of equal notoriety, to the see of Ossoiy, 
in 1552 and, in later times, according to honest Tom Heame, 
** the reverend and learned doctor White Keonett, dean [and, 
afterward. Bishop] of Peterborough, ^frhoae^fidelity and candour 
and veraeiUf,** he says, are veiy conspicwmi and weU knoum to 
ftm worUP* (Prefiwe to the 7th volume of Leland'i Jtmei^.) 



viii PREFACE. 

archdeacon of Oxford^ a man learned in th^ ora^ 
torial art and in foreign histories^ brought a 
certain most ancient book of the British language^ 
which, from Brute, the first king of the Britonff 
down to Cadwalader son of Cadwalo, proposed 
the acts of all daily and in order with very beauti- 
ful orations. By his request, therefore, induced, 
although within foreign gardens I had not col- 
lected fine words, nevertheless, content with a 
homespun style and my own reeds, I caused ta 
translate that book into the Latin Umguage."^ 

* This man was Walter of Wallingford» otherwise CcAenMLt, 
who was archdeacon of Oxford between, at least, 1103 and 
1152 (see Le Neve's Fostt, and Tanner's "BMuAheca) and, by 
no means, Walter de ConstonHis, who, according to Le Neve, 
succeeded in 1175, but, probably, much sooner, as he is. sa 
styled in the character of a witness to a charter of Henr^r the 
8econ(|, granted in 1168 (see Charlton's History of Whitby, p. 
137); much less Walter de Mopes, who did not succeed before 
1196 and continued to 1223, a difference of '69* years after 
the death of Geofirey bishop of Monmouth, who died in 1154. 
In a copy of Geoffrey's book in Welsh, intitled " Ystori Bretihi' 
noedhi y Brytarmied o vaith Galfridus Monemuthensis guedi i 
cky viei thy yn Gymraeg," described by Lhuyd as in the pos- 
session of Mr. Vaughan of Hengwrt, is the following entry 
in Welsh : " I Walter, Arehdeacon of Oxford, translated this 
book but of British into. Latin and, afterward> in my graver 
years, have again done it into British :" a very likely story, 
indeed ! which, however, pats an end to all pretences of a 
British original : There is no likelihood or, even pos&ibility, at 
the same time, either that Walter Calenhu (who, by the way 
had that appellation from WalUngfoid in Berksbure, the pboe 



PREFACE. ix 

He^ afterward, in a letter to Alexander bishop 
of Linedi^ (from 1 123 to 1 147)> says, '* The love 

of hit birtbttiie Latin name whereof is Cdeoa [qn^ Calend^ (See 
Iceland's hkuraryt IX. 50) or Walter de Mapes was a Briton, 
or understood tbe British language ; which no Englishman, it 
is beliered, has ever hcen known to acquire or even to culti- 
vate, unless it be Sharon Turner, the hbtoriau of the Saxons 
and the defender of the Welsh bards ; and to find a Welshman, 
at a period, when the Welsh were enenues, not subjects, to the 
king of England, when thdr princes were coMtmuallj be- 
headed or hanged, and the whole people, in fiict, universally, 
by the English, despised and detested, archdeacon of Oxford, 
would be not a little extraordinary, and is certainly unparal- 
lelled in the ecclesiastical history of England. That the mo- 
dem Webih, indeed, do not distinguish the original from the 
translation, admitting them to have both, b evident from their 
antiquaries having begun to print a palpable translation, in The 
Cambrian Register, as the original. Lambarde, who voucheth 
his possession of a Webh copy, older, ih hb opinion, than 
Monmouth's translation, seems, inihb conjecture, to have been 
no less unhappy than he was in mbtaldng a few lines of Robert 
of Gloucester for a Saxon fragment which substantiated the 
Story of Brute. He, clearly, tlierefore, could be no judge of 
manuscripts. Carte, who seems sufficiently inclined to credit 
the authenticity of the British hbtory, allows that the copy ip 
Jesus-college, which Wynne asserts to be the same which. 
Geo£frey made use of, " doth not seem so ancient as the time 
of GeoflFrey" (1, vi;) and " is, evidently, according to Warton, 
" not older than the axteenth century. There is reason," hq 
adds, ** to suspect that most [he might have safely said, alfj of 
the British manuscripts of thb hbtory are translations from, 
Geoffrey of Monmouth** (L a 4). ** In the library of the 
ftnuly of JDavies, atUaneik in I>enl^igbshirab" be says, "is a 
copy ^itieoffrey's book in the hand-writing of Guttyn Owen, 



X PREFACE. 

of thy nobility, Alexander bishop of lonocdn, 
compels me to translate the prophecies of Merlin 

a celebrated Welsh bard and antiquary, about tlie year 14f 0, 
who ascribes it to Tyssilio, a bishop, and the son ofBrockmael- 
Yscythroc Prince of Powis" (IW.) Lewis Morris, in one of his 
ktten, mentions this manuscript, and says " I have cleared 
the matter to Mr. Carte, that he is the greatest advocate for 
the British history, as we had [r. that we have]." (Cambrian 
register, II. 489.) In another letter, however, to Carte him- 
self, he says, " Yon surprise me with Tyssilio's history of Bri- 
tahi ; I have read of no Tyssilio a scholar^ (IbL U, 484.) The 
fact is, that Lbuyd speaks of " a chrouide written by Tyssilio, 
which," says he, *' I find inserted in H. Salbury's manuscript 
Catalogue of Welsh words, and was extant, as I have been, 
credibly, informed, within these fifty years** (Arch^eologia, 
p. 225). It appears, also, that Archbishop Usher had sud, 
when a young man, that he had seen an old book called " £c- 
desiae Britaruucae Historia, autare Tyttillo Jilio Brochmaeli 
regfs Pomym :" which book, however, had been lost, or carried 
to Rome, before 1680, (Cambrian Register, 1, 27). So much 
for the history of Tyssilio, which Guttyn Owen has confounded 
with the Welsh translation of Geoffrey's British romance. The 
editors of ** 2^ Myvyrian archmology of Wales,*' who have 
published in the Second volume of that work, two Welsh 
Translations, one under the other, mtiUed Brut TysUio and 
Brut G, db Arthur as two' originals, alledge that ** The 
first of these chronicles should have been called after the name 
of Walter de Mopes, archdeacon of Oxford [an office, it has 
been, already observed, he did not attain till upwards of forty 
years after the death of Geoffirej of Monmouth, so that he 
must have written this chronicle before he was bom] ; for there 
is no authority for asserting that Tysilio wrote anj thing 
beside some poetry* (pre&ce vi.) 



PREFACE. xi 

from British into Latin> before I had written the 
history which I had begun of the acts of the 
Britotis : for I had proposed to finish that first 
and explain this work subsequently : lest, while 
each labour should be in hand, my capacity 
should the less suffice to either. However, be- 
cause I was secure of pardon, which the subtile 
discretion of thy judgment would readily be- 
stow, I have put to the little books my rude p0n, 
and, in a plebeian stile, interpreted a language to 
thee unknown."* These prophecies, therefore, 
are inserted about the middle of the book, in 
which the history is afterward prosecuted. The 
last chapter is couched in these words : ** The 
kings, however, of those who, from that time, 
succeeded in Wales, I permit, in matter of writ- 
ing, to Carddoc of Llancarvan, my contemporary : 
the kings, truly, of the Saxons to William of 
Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon : whom 
I enjoin to hold their peace concerning the 
kings of the Britons, inasmuch as they have hot 
that book of the British language, which Walter 
archdeacon of Oxford imported out of Britain : 
which concerning the history of these [kings] 
being veraciously edited in honour of the afore- 

* This bishop, a man of learning himself, was, also, a great 
patron and encourager of men of learning. It was to him, 
likewise, that Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon, dedicated his 
hitiory of England. 



xii PREFACE. 

said princes^ iu this manner into the Latin lan- 
guage I have taken care to translate." It ap- 
pears^ from a very sensible letter of doctor 
Lloyd^ bishop of Saint Asaph, to Thomas Price, 
printed in Owen 8 British remainsj that this ftunous 
history made its first appearance in the year 
1138.* Henry of Huntingdon, in an epistle to 
Warin the Briton, which is inserted in several 
manuscripts of his history, and, according to 
bishop .Lloyd, in some editions of Sigebert*s 
chronicle, with the additions of Robert de Monte, 
otherwise de Torineio, or of Thorigny, t to whom 
Geoffrey appears to have sent, or he had himself 
procured, an early copy of the British history and 

• About the year 1100, according to Warton, Walter, arch- 
deacon of Oxford procured in Armorica an ancient chronicle in 
the British or Armorican language, intitled "Brut'y'Brenhmed ;*' 
though neither Geoffrey nor any other ancient writer says any 
such thing, and though he himself, directly referring, in two 
different places (I, sig. a 4. n. t, e c> n. z), to Geofirey's origi- 
nal, prores, in a third (I, sig. a 4> n. r. a 4 b, n. 3), that no 
such ori^ual exists. 

t The bishop quotes " App, Hun-, [r. fTor.] Wigom,** but 
there is no Appendix in either edition, nor does it contain this 
epistle. This Robert de Torineio or de Monte, published an 
edition, of Sigebiert's chronicle, which he interpolated and pol- 
luted with the new inventions of Geofirey of Monmouth. See 
bishop Uoyd's Itetter to Thomas Price, already, referred to. 
Warin would seem to have, previously to his enquiry of the 
arphdeacon, acquired something upon the story of Brutus by 
hear-say. 



PREFACE. xui 

Huntingdon thus addresses his friend: ''Thou 
enquirest from me^ O Warin the Briton, man 
gentle and facetious, why, narrating the actions 
of our country, I have hegun from the times of 
Julius Cesar, and omitted the most flourishing 
reigns, which were from Brutus unto Julius : I 
answer thee, therefore, that neither by word nor 
writing, very frequently enquiring after the 
knowledge of those times, was I ever able to find 
it : such a violent death of oblivion overshadows 
and extinguishes the successful glory of the diu- 
tumity of mortals. Nevertheless, in this year, 
which is from the incarnation 1139, as I was 
travelling to Rome, with Theobald archbishop of 
Canterbury, at Bee, where the same archbishop 
was abbot, I found, to my great astonishment, 
writings of the aforesaid things. Forasmuch as 
I there met with Robert de Thorigny, a monk of 
the same place, a man, as well of divine as of 
secular books a most studious searcher and ac- 
cumulator : who, when he questioned me con- 
cerning the order of the history of the kings of 
England, by me published, and that which he 
asked of me had willingly heard, brought to me 
a book to read, about the kings of the Britons, 
who held our island before the English ; the ex- 
tracts of which kings, as it becomes in an epistle, 
very briefly, that is, I send to thee with great 
pleasure.'* He then gives a list of Geoffrey's 



xiv PREFACE. 

kiitgs^ a sort of epitome^ that is> of the British 
history^ and concludes by saying: ''These are 
the things which to thee> most dear Warin the 
Briton^ I have promised in few words> of which> 
if thou desirest more prolixity^ thou must> dili- 
gently^ enquire after the great book of 6eo£frey 
ap Arthur^ which I found at the monastery of 
Bec^ where thou wilt find the aforesaid things 
treated with sufficient prolixity and clearness. 
Farewell." It, therefore, by this account, 
plainly appears that Henry had actually published 
the first seven books of his history (in some 
copies whereof the above letter is inserted be- 
tween the seventh and the eighth, in others at 
the end) before the year 1139, and, also, before 
he had ever seen or heard of the British history 
of Geoffrey ap Arthur, or any other book on the 
same subject. Yet it is asserted, by a late En- 
quirer into history, that " He was the first Eng- 
lish writer who adopted the fables of Geo£&ey of 
Monmouth,*** whom he, likewise, never after- 
ward, in the course of five^ additional books, once 
mentions, nor follows in the minutest respect ; 
being, it would seem, fully satisfied, upon mature 
reflection, or further enquiry, of his total want 
of veracity. The British history, therefore, had, 

* Enqtury into tfie history of Scotland, II, 153. That he was 
ihe " wortt of tlie old English historians,*' h equally illiberal 
and uDtnie. 



PREFACE. XV 

manifestly^ never been seen, or heard of» either 
s in Briton or elsewhere, before the year 1138, as 
it is next to impossible that so well informed 
and, to all appearance, so industrous and inquisi- 
tive, a historian as Henry of Huntingdon, a man, 
at the same time, of eminence and affluence, 
should not have met with a copy of it or known, 
at least, the nature of its contents : but the fact 
is glaring and notorious, that, with an excep- 
tion of the extracts here and there interspersed 
in Geoffrey's book, (which, certainly, traces the 
hand of a prodigious scholar for his age,) from 
Cesar's Commentaries, Bede's ecclesiastical his- 
* tory, Gildas*s querulous epistle on the destruc- 
tion of Britain, and Nennius*s Eulogium Britan- 
niae, the legends of saint Alban, saint Dubricius, 
saint Ursula, or others, not a single name or in- 
cident, which occurs in that work, is to be found 
mentioned or alluded to by any writer or in any 
book, before the above sera.* That the Britons 

* Henry of Huntingdon* it is true, has a " Coel rex Briton' 
ntcus de Colecester" (306), who, likewise, occurs in the British 
history ; which, at first, looks a little suspicions : but, surely ;Jf 
disposed to plagiarise, he would never hare been contented 
with *' Old king Cole" and it is, in &ct, certain that he had not 
seen Geoffrey's book till sometime after the publication of the 
seven first books of his own. This respectable historian, how- 
ever,^ according to Warton, " began his history from Cesar 
and it was only on further information that he added Bmte'* 
(I. ISO) : an assertion, at the same time, without the least 



xvi PREFACE. 

had popular stories concerning Arthur^ previous 
to the publication of Geoffrey's history^ is not 
meant to be denied ; since^ beside the evidence 
of William of Malmesbury^ which will be met 
with in another place^ and what Geoffrey himself 
says, in his epistle dedicatory^ already quoted, 
master Wace, a Norman poet> of singular merit, 
who reduced the entire work of Greoffrey into 
French rime, in 1155, observes, 

'< Fist Arthar la ronde table* 
Dunt Breton dient meint fable :*'* 

though Geoffirey of Monmouth's British history 
makes no mention of it. 

It may be possible, therefore, that Walter 
Calenius, archdeacon of Oxford, had actually 
brought some book, upon the subject of the 

proof, and a gross misrepresentation in hunt. It is admitted 
that, after the publication of his first seven books, he epito- 
mised Geoffrey's history, in a letter to his ^end Warin ; but 
he never made any such additon to his own. It is, likewise, 
manifest that the Brtito (not Brutus) of Henry could not have 
been inserted upon the authority of Geoffirey, who says noth- 
ing of Dardanui, Troius, or Anchites, He had, in fact, the 
whole of this passage from the Sd and 4th chapters of Nennius, 
as our poetical historian might have easily convinced himself 
by looking into the book. 

* LeBrut, manuscript. See, also, the motto to the present 
pages and other passages throughout that eicellent poem. 
However he came by the round-table, he was, certainly, never 
indebted to Geoffirey of Monmouth. 



PREFACS. xvm 

British kings> compoBed in the same language, 
out of Britany^ which Geoffrey made use ofj or, 
it may be, translated^ interpolated, enlarged, 
and, in his own conceit, amended, improred, and 
rendered more palatable, to men of learning, oi^ 
to the tadte of the times : but that his own woll^ 
as we now have it, existed, in whatever shape or 
language, before his own time, or that the 
modem Welsh can produce his indubitable ori- 
ginal, in the British tongue, is utterly incredible.* 

* See before, p. vii. It roust be confessed that th^ Inquisitor 
of Geoffirey ap Arthur seetiis to be fixed in what logicians caH 
the horned syllogiHu : as, on the one hand, it maj be fiurly 
niBiOtaioed, that a Welsh priest, apparently a good scholar, 
and, certainly, in a fair way to be a bishop, at any rate, an 
eodeslldtio of some consequence and respectability, as being 
known not only to Walter Calenius, archdeacon of Oxford, 
who, he says, positively, gave him the original Welsh manu- 
8cript» from wlucb he translated the British history ; but, like- 
wise, to Alexander, bishop of lineoln, a prelate of great learn- 
ing, at whose instance, in a personal address, he asserts hlitiself 
to have laid aside this more important hisiory, in order to 
gratify his brdship mkh an imnfediste Latin version of Jkferlin's 
pit>phecies ; and, moreor^,. Robett, earl, of Olouoestefr the 
natural son of king Henry the fitst, a nobleman, it is certtun, of 
considerable importance, td whoiti he dedicated the worki|i 
question ; setting asid^ tl^ree of the gieatest historians of his 
time, of whom he speaks in terms suffidently familiar td i&diioe, 
if not an intimate fiiendilUp, at least, m free aequuntanoe, 
(William of NbJmesboiy, that is, Henry archdeacon of Hun- 
tingdon, atid Caradoo of liancarvan, his otvn countryman,) 

c ■ 



xviii PREFACE. 

This new-ancient history was^ immediately 
upon its appearance^ or, as soon> at leasts as 

would or could impose upon such and so many distinguished 
personages with the most abominable forgery, the most ex- 
tnnrag^t falsehood, and the most brazen &ced impudence, is 
by no means a proof of those circumstances : as we never find 
him reviled bj, or on the part of, any of these illustrious 
characters, for so gross an imposition. Thb, no doubt, is very 
mndi in hit finvour ; but it may be urged, with equal force, om 
the other hand, that the book wluch he produced, as a history, 
•is, certainly, a series of palpable and monstrous lies ; that, 
neither Walter Calenius, nor any other, friend or fiivoorer, of 
or near his own age, not even his own countryman, Giiald 
Barry, who, being himself a bishop, might, naturally, have 
been expected to have stood forward in the defence of such 
an illustrious precursor, whose steps, in his prelatical pursuits, 
he had followed with such good fortune : not a solitary Welsh- 
man to support him, in any respect, but by following his ex- 
ample ; that the pretended original has never been found, nor 
any, the least, evidence adduced in favour of its authenticity ; 
that there have been forgers, of as much art, talent, falsehood 
and impudence, in other ages, whose literary impostures have, 
for a time, at least, been, altogether, as successful : John 
Fordun, for instance. Hector Bois, Annius of Vlterbo, George 
Buchanan, James Macpherson, Thomas Chatterton, and a 
variety of other such respectable characters. It is a thousand 
pities that John I^nkerton had not flourished in the age, and 
enjoyed the friendship of Geoffrey of Monmouth ; that lie 
might have certified, with his sacred signature, the integrity 
and truth of the original manuscript of that veracious hbtorlan, 
08 he did the no less genuine Shakspenana, of William Henry 
Ireland. (Samuel, his father, had no hand hi this forgjeiy, 
though it cost him his life). 



PREFACE. xii 

copies could be procured, seized, with avidity, 
by the eager and the weak, whose zeal and 
ignorance disqualified them from distinguishing 
between history and fable .♦ Alfred of Beverley 

* A Welsh traiulatioD of Geoffrey ap Arthur's British his- 
tory, nnder the title of *' Brut Brenmodd ynys Prydain : tmt 
Brut y Brenifwd," or " Brut Tysilio" has been inserted in a 
Jste publication intitled ** The M^vjrnan archuology of 
Wales,** although the editors allow that "there is no authority 
for asserting that Tjrsilio wrote any thing, be^He some poetry" 
and that this chronicle " should have been called after the 
name of Walter Mapes, archdeacon of Oxford, who *' did 
tarn this book out of Welsh into Latui and, in his old age, 
turned it the second time out of Latin into Welsh." It it 
abscdotely impossible, that Walter Map£S (made archdeacon 
of Oxford in 1197) was any way connected with Geoffrey of 
Monmouth, who died in 1154) or that he or any other Walter, 
archdeacon of Oxford, did actually translate or was capable of 
translating, Geoffrey's book, either backward or forward, nor 
can any thing be more absurd than to illustrate one translation 
by another, both from ~a common original. If, indeed, any 
reliance could be placed in the genuineness of the Afallenau 
Myrddm, or Merlin's orchard, supposed to have been written 
by Myrddm ap Morfryn or Myrddm toy It, MerUnus Sylvestris or 
CaUdanuu, about the year 550, and mentioning Medrawd,Arthur, 
Owenhwyfar and the battie of Camlan, nothing would more 
effectually tend to prove that either Geoffrey or his British 
author, had worked, at least, on ancient materials : but, unless 
8 manuacript could be produced, in the Welsh language, an* 
terior to the twelfth century, (which it is believed, does not 
exist,) the probability is very powerful that every remnant of 
British literature, whether poetical or lilstorical, in which mer- 

c 2 



XX PREFACE. 

was the jQrst who^ in 1149, deflowered the chaste 
beauties of Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose narra- 
tive, he says, was then in the mouths of several, 
so that he who had no knowledge of it incurred 
^ the mark of a clown : he had procured a copy of 
it, it seems, with difficulty and never once men- 
tions his name.* To him may be added Ralph 
de Diceto, Florence of Worcester, Robert of 
Gloucester, Roger of Chester, Randal Higden, 

lion Is made of Arthur, the son of Uther Pendragon, or any 
coinddent with Geoffrey of Monmoath, has heen composed or 
interpolated since his time. ** If some accoonts of Arthur**' 
says Whitaker, anthor of the " History of Manchester,** <* be 
certainly, gpurious, others are as certainly genuine,''* (4ta edi- 
tion, II, 3i)% " The genuine actions of the chief are mentioned, 
by his own historioTis," (Jbi*) none of which, however* he is 
able to authenticate or produce : unless by quoting the forged 
** Antiquities of the church of Glastonbury,*' fetlsely imputed ta 
William of Malmesbury ; " the romance of La movie d* Arthur/* 
** founded, chiefly," he says, '* on local traditions and real 
histories." 

* He says, in one place, *' Quintut, id est, uUimus JBrifan- 
fttci r^ni status sub zii. cucurrit regUms, de quibus non parva 
parvitatem meam meditacio vexat, quid cqustB extiteritf quod de 
tnclito rege Arturo nuAil Romano, nichU Anglorum hysteria 
memmerit." (p. 76.) (Thus in £nglis|i : The fifth, that is, the 
last state of the British dominion ran undor twelve Ic^igs, of 
which no litde study troubles my littieness, what oou}d have 
been the reasons, that of the fiimous king Arthur, nothing the . 
Boman [history], nothing the history of the Engles ^hfwld 
have made mention.) . : 



PREFACE. nl 

Mattbew bf Westminster^ the author of Brttte of 
England^ iatid innumerable other bistoriatis^ Of 
tdore or less merits dcfwn, alm08t> to tho present 
time^ made it the foundation and most4>rilliaiit 
ornament of their respeGtire works. Even the 
sdp^ititious lavrs of Edward the oonlbssor lire 
convicted of forgery by the story of Arthur. Il 
spreiid rapidly^ likewise^ into foreign Countries^ 
attd was every were eagerly permitted to iii^r^^ 
nate and pollute the genuine history of ancient 
tiin^s; So that few, if any, writer* are tei be 
found who have not, iii a greater or less degree 
iil ^Vli^ an account of the Britons, adopted 
these romanUc fables jbr authentic fects.f There 
were, however, at a very early period, somie few 
m^en of penetralaoiik and judgment who coidd 
not si^er su^ a palpable and impudent Ibrgeiy 
to pass without iittdignltnt reprobation.- The first, 
^ those that appeared in the lists, was William 
c^NeWbrough, Who died in 1208, in the preface 
to his 4iWik chronicle ; where he has given a sort 
of Critkdl reineu} of this famous history which 

: * Of4erkuMVitaUt had been fortunate enough to obtain a 

oogj before.^41» jtist in tune to give an extract from Meriin'a 

pvophedieft ; ais he- finished his history in this year, in which 

also he ia snpppsed to have di^ See h. 887. 

t See what haa been, already, said of Robert de Thodg^y, 

c S 



»ii PREFACE. 

deserves to be transcribed ; as being not only a 
criticism of extraordinay merit, for the time, bnt 
even the only thing of the kind to be found in 
anci^t English history. 

'' The venerable priest and monk, Bede," he 
says, ''wrote the history of our nation that is of 
the Eogles : who, doubtless, took up his begin- 
ning the lower that he might the more com- 
petently attain to that which he especially in- 
tended : he even, with artful brevity, glanced at 
thie molee celebrated actions of the Britons, who 
^ceJuiown to have been the first inhabitants of 
our isle. The nation of the Britons, however, 
had their own historiographer, Gildas, before 
our Bede, which he also witnesseth, inserting 
certain words of his in his letters j as I myself 
proved, when, some years ago, I fell upon read- 
ing the book of the same Gildas. For, as it is 
very unpolished and insipid in stile, few caring 
either to trsAScribe or possess it, it is rarely 
found.^ It is nevertheless, no light document 

* It 18 more common at present, having gone Ihrongh no 
less than five several editions in Latin or Engjibh, and, though 
not much, indeed, of a history nor otherwise undeserving of 
the character here g^ven of it, is, at the same time, a curious 
and valuable remnant of antiquitj, to vrhich as some one, 
felsely assuming the name of -William of Malmesbury, men- 
tions " Gildas the hiitbrian, to whom the Britons owe, if they 
have any, [their] reputation among other people." More is.said 
of him hereafter. 



PREFACE. xxiii 

of his integrity^ because^ in producing the truth 
he does not spare his own nation^ and when^ 
very rarely, he speaks good of his countrymen, 
he deplores many evils in them, nor feared, that 
he would not conceal the truth, a Briton to write 
c^ Britons, that ''they were neither brave in 
war, nor fiEdthfiil in peace." But, on the other 
hand, a certain writer has started up in our 
times, for expiating these specks of the Britons, 
weaving together ridiculous fictions concerning 
them, and,'with impudent vanity, lifting them up 
^Bu* above the .valour of the Macedonians and the 
Romans. ' He is called Geoffirey, having the sur- 
name of Arthur ; for this reason, that the ^Eibles 
concerning Arthur, taken from the ancient fie* 
tions of the Britoni^ and increased out of his 
own store, by the overdrawn pretence of the 
Latin tongue, he hath clothed with the honour- 
able name of history : who, also> with greater 
daring, the most fallacious divinations of one 
Merlin, to which he has, certainly, added very 
much of his own, while he translated them into 
Latin, hathL published as prophecies, authentic, 
and supported by immoveable truth, and this 

* He takes it for granted/ therefore, that the fiibles of 
Arthur, in Geoflfrey's history were partly taken **«t priacu 
Brit&mim figmmtis." Nothing of this kind, however, i^pears 
to)ieiiowe3(tuit 



%%it PREFACEL 

M^Flin^ in fact^ he febles to have been bom of 
an kicuhUfi-devU-iEil&er of a woman : to whom^ 
be8ide> as. if tiding after his father^ he has attri- 
buted the most exedlent and extensive prescience 
of things to come : when^ assuredly^ and with 
true reasons and the saci^ writings^ we are 
taught> that the devils^ secluded from the light 
c^ god> by no means foreknow things to come 
by coat^nplation^ but collect certain future 
HffMklSi iHfm ngna, better known to. them than 
iH^ -mip^' fjl0rer by conjecture than knowledge. 
Wtfifty^ ^ their ever €0. much suftiilBB eonjec- 
tito«iy th^ 'are <^6fc^ decdved and deceive : 
wh&ij yet^ by the prestiges of divintUlons^ with 
the unskilful^ they mayM«»Mgate to l^emselves 
the prescience of things te cdnoie, which they 
assuredly hiyrei not. Trulyi'the perspicuous 
fallacy ^ifllvl^vtnations lEif Merlin is in these 
(events wMliuiHP^ knowa to have happened in 
the kingdo^ 'iE>f the Engles after: the death x)f 
tihe befi^«e«>nemed Geoffrey^ who. translated. the 
trilleS'C^' these divinations out of British; to 
which;, as it is npt vidnly believed^ he added 
fiauoh- §cowl his own fiction. Moreover^ to those 
Vfl^^cfl^ happened either before him or in his own 
44ys» hfi, in. ^ucl^L wise> teis^pered his own fictloi]|%^, 
whipji he> certainly^ could easily do> that tbey 
might receive congrudus interpretation. Beside> 



PREFACE. XMY 

• 

in his book^ which he calls The hisiory of ike 
Britont, how petulantly and how ucbitdentlt 
HB LU8> almost^ through the whole^ no one> un- 
less aeqoainted with the old historians^ when he 
i^all dip into his book> is permitted to doubt, 
lynr he^ who hath not learned the truth of things 
don^ admits^ indiscreetly^ the vanity of fables. 
I omit how srany of the acts of the Britons> be- 
fore the emfHre of JuUus Cesar, this man hatk 
feigned or> feigned by others^ hal& wrktevi ihcai 
as authentic. I omit whatsoever he^haa ravfA 
in praise Joi the Britons> against the fidUk dt 
historieal tratii> from liie time of JuSm Cemr, 
xmA&t whon^ the Sritons began to be of tiie 
Bmsian empire HntStlK time ei Honorius the 
emperor, under whott the Romans^ by reason 
of the more urgent business of the republic^ 
voluntarily departed from Britain. Certainly^ 
the Britons> the Romans departing', become 
their own masters^ yea rather left t<» themselves^ 
to their own ruin and exposed as prey to the 
Picts and Scots, are read to have had a king- 
Vdrtigem, by whom, for the protection of the 
k^igdcnn. Hie Saxons or Engles, under Hieir 
leadei^ Hengist^ came into Britain 5 the barbaric 
iMuptions they repelled for a time> but> after* 
ward> having spied the fertility of the island and 
the sloth of the natives^ the league being broken^ 



xxvi PREFACE. 

they turned their arms agamst those by whom 
they had been invited : who being shortly 
routed, their wretched remains, which are now 
called Welsh, they straitened in impassable 
mountains and woods, and had, by a series of 
succession, most brave and widely governing 
kings : of whom were Ethelbert, the great 
grandson of Hengist, who, his empire being ex- 
tended from the Gallic sea into the Humber, 
took .up the light yoke of Christ, at the preach- 
ing of Augustine ; Alfred, who, presiding over 
the N6rthumbrians, subdued, at once, the Bri- 
tons and the Scots, with vast slaughter 3 Edwin, 
lyho, succeeding to Alfred, reigned, at the same 
time, over the Engles and the Britons 3 Oswald, 
his successor, who governed all the people of 
Britain. It will be evident,^ that these things, 
according to the historical truth displayed by 
the venerable. Bede, are authentic : all things 
which this man has taken pains to write, con- 
cerning Arthur, and either his successors, or, 
after Voiftigern, his predecessors, partly by him- 
self, partly, also, by others, have, it is evident, 
been feigned, either by the unbridled passion of 
lying or even for the. sake of pleasing the Bri- 
tons, of whom a great many are reported to be 
so brutish, that they are said to expect that 
Arthur is yet^ as it were, about to come, nor can 



PREFACE. xxvu 

they bear to hear that he is dead * Finally, Ym 
makes AureUiuAmbrosm succeed toVortigern (the 

* Certaiiilj, such a tradidon exbted among the Britons or 
Welsh, before the time of Geoffrey of Monmouth. It is 
mentioned by William of Mahnesbaxy, who, observuig that 
the sepulchre of Arthur had never been discovered, adds, 
" whence the antiquity of elegiac songs and fables, that he is 
yet to come." (B. 3, P. 115.) 

Master Wace, in bis Roman de Brut, a liberal translation 
from Geoffrey of Monmouth, finished in 1155, after relating the 
battle of Camblan, proceeds to tell us, modestly enough .* 

' Artur, n la gate ne ment, 
£2 quer/ii nefn morteltmcnt, 
"En Avalon seft mener, 
Pur set pUu$ mediciner ; 
Uncore i est, Breton l^atendent. 
Si com U dient e entendent ; 
De la vendra, vncore pot vivere, 
Meistre Waoe, ki fist cest livere, 
Nen voU plus dire de safin 
Ke en dist le prophete Merlin : 
Merlin dist de Artur outdrmt, 
Ke sa mort autuse serreit. 
Ia prophete dist veritif 
Tut tens en ad lom puis dot6, 
£ dutera co crd tut dis 
Sil est mort u il est vifs." 

("—Arthur himself thoie 
Men sius he wonded sore. 
For his wondes wer to drede, 
Therfor, thei did him lede 



xxvfii PREFACE. 

8axoii8> whom Vortigern had sent for, being de- 
feated and expelled) egregionsly reigning in the 

Into the ' ile* of AYaloan 

And thus sals ilka Bretoon : 

Tb&t oly ve ther he es, 

Man in blode and in fletch 

And after him yit tbd lake. 

Maiflter Was, that « made' this boke. 

He sais no more of his fine 

Than dos the prophete Meriyne : 

Merljm sais, foil mervailoas 

That Arthur [s] dede was doutous ; 

Therfor, the Bretons drede 

And sais he ly ves in lede : 

But I say thei trowe wrong 

If he < lyve' Ms life » Ipng ; 

Bot the Bretons loiide !]•> 

He was so wooded lun^ hurd die.") 

. (BOBBET OP BrUNNE.) 

The French, in feety bavft an old rotDanoe,. in manuscript, 
intitled, « Raman d'Arthu leretimr^ (fhat is^ Arthur restored 
or revived). AUmut de Iwattt or Alla& of lile, who wrote a 
book under the following titleaod died in HOi^ 

** Prophetia Anglicana [k Brttttiwtca} et Bowuma : hoc ett, 
Merlini Ambrom Britanmi em inicnb&9lxm, ante annos mille 
duceutos in Anglia [L Britflmia} wtti iMtkmta, h Gdffredo 
McfiauMtenn Latme co/iucrifta^ mid cttoi. sfpten* explattatioitum 
m eandem prophetam, escelUntisami sui temporis oratoris, poly^ 
hiUoris [falso] et theolagi ;** FrancofarH 1608, 0ctavo. In this 
book, after reciting this part of ode of the prettfbded propecies 
of the vinonary Merlin (apud Gcdfredi Momanetensis Hittaria 
regum BrUanniag, L. T, c 3), whidi speaks of A " boar of 



PREFACE. xsix 

whole of Britain, and to him ^ves Uther-Pen* 
dragon, hia brother, for successor, reigning with 

ComwsU/'.who shall give his asnstaaoe. — ^"The house of 
UoimUuB shall draad its fierceness and his end shall he da- 
hioas :** this boas Allan applies to Arthur, and thus proeeeds : 
" Most* truly, indeed, as at this Tery day, the ▼arious opinicMi 
of men proves conoerning his life and death : bat, if yon do 
not believe me, go into the Armorican kingdom, that is Less- 
BritnB, and (Mrodaim, through the ways and streets, Arthur is 
dead, fai the manner of other dead men, and, then, certainly, 
yon will prove by the thing itself that the prophecy of Merlm 
istrae; if, nevertheless, yon should be thence able to escape 
Iwe ; butyoQ [will] either be stifled by the curses of tiie hearers 
or, certainly, be overwhelmed with stones (B. 1, P. 19, 20). 
It may be fairly inferred that, about this time (as, in fact, it is 
pioved by William of Malmesbury), that this notion had be- 
come a proverb, in use to rulicule those who were ever ready 
to believe any thing, manifestly* impossible or abstmi. This 
oocQsa la the 57th epistle of Petrus Blotenris (Peter of Blois), 
who was contemporary with Allan de insults. 

'* QuUms ncredident 
Expectare poteris 
Artarum com Britonibos." 

This idea seems to be, continually, running in his head, fbr, in 
the 34th epistle : " As yet," he says, " I conceive the wishes 
of a more fortunate event and, peradventure, with the Britons, 
I tarry for Arthur, about to come, and, with the Jews, expect 
the Messiah," 

"In Sicily," accordmg to Gervase of Tilbury, *< is mount 
iEtna. . . In the desert of this mountain the natives rdate 
that the great Arthur hath appeared in our tiroes. For when. 
Ml a certttD day, the keeper of the palfrey of the bishop of 



Vs^ PREFACE. 

Ui^ ii^iMj» 9v«tt hj one sand-blind. This Arthur^ 
l|(^^vQi^ he makes femous and respectable over 
all men» and wiUs that he should be as great in 
hia actioiis> as it has pleased him to feign. Fi- 
QAlIy> in the first place^ he makes him to triumph, 
at pleasure, over the Engles, Ficts and Scots: 
afterward to subjugate to his dominion, Ireland, 
the Orkneys, Gothland, Norway, Denmark, 
partly in battle, partly, also, by the sole terror 
of his name. To these, likewise, he adds Ice- 
land, which, according to some, is called uUbna 
Thtdty that to that Briton, in truth, may appear 
to belong that which was flatteringly said to 
Augustus the Roman, by a noble poet : 

•— — — tibi serviet ultima Thule. 

Afterward, he makes him to vex the Gauls,*^ in 
battle and over them, in a short time subdued, 
most happily to triumph : whom Julius Cesar, 
with the greatest dangers and labours, could 
scarcely subjugate in ten years : that the least 
finger, namely, of the Briton may appear [hea- 
vier] than the loins of the great Cesar. After 
these victories, he brings him back into Britain, 

* Not the Gailas, or people, but Galliat, the countries, Cis- 
alpine and Transalpine GaoL The Franks, however, and not 
the Ganls, had the possession of the latter country in Arthur's 
time, having served the original inhabitants pretty much as 
the Saxons did the Britons, « . 



PREFACE. xxxUi 

with manifold triumph and makes him^ with the 
subdued kings and princes^ celebrate a most fa- 
mous feasts at which are present three arch- 
bishops^ namely^ of the Britons^ of London^ of 
Caerleon, and of York 5 whereas, the Britons, in 
fact, never had one archbishop. For Augustine, 
having received the pallium from the Roman 
pontiff, was made the first archbishop in Britain. 
But the barbarous nations of Europe, also, for- 
merly converted to the faith of Christ, content 
with bishops, did not regard the prerogative of 
the pallium. In fine, the Irish, Norwegians^ 
Danes, Goths, when, formerly, they are known 
to have been christians and to have had bishops, 
have, in our time, begun to have archbishops.* 
Thence the fabler, that he may carry his Arthur 
to the highest pitch, makes him to denounce 



* It is probable that our author has been a little too hasty 
in asserting that the Britons had no archbishops : saint David 
is, constantly, in old Welsh manuscripts, called archbishop of 
Menevia ; as saints Dubricius and Teliaus are archbishops of 
Laiidaff. 

** About a year after [905] ," says Caradoc, ** died Asser, 
archbishop of Wales" (906. " Obiit Asser, Carabriae archie- 
piscopns"). Historic of Cambria [iSQ-i] ; V&her, 52. Asser, 
bishop of Sherbum, who wrote annals " Of the actions of 
Alfred," and died in 910, mentions an archbishop ** Novis 
(or Konis) propinquum wheum" (P. 49.) 

D 



MJtiv PREFACIJ. 

war again§t the Roxziang : before thia w&r^ ia 
single combat^ to overthrow a giant of wonderfUt 
sine ; whereas^ after the times of Davids one caa 
read of no giant. In the sequel^ by a more pro- 
pose license of lyings he makes to assemble 
agednst him> With the Romans^ the great kings 
of the whole world : that is to say, of Greece, 
of Africa, of Spain, of the Parthians, of the 
Medes, of the Iturians, of Libya, of Egypt, of 
Babylon, of Bithynia, of Phrygia, of Syria, of 
B(BOtia, of Crete, and relates that all were by 
him defeated in one battle : whereas Alexander, 
that great man, and famous in all ages, sweated 
Ibr twelve years in overcoming the princes in 
sofne of such great kingdoms. Certainly, he 
makes the little finger of his Arthur heavier than 
the loins of Alexander the great, especially when, 
before this victory of so many kings, he makes 
him commemorate to his followers, in a ha- 
rangue, the subduction of thirty kingdoms, al- 
ready made by himself and them. But our 
fabler could not find so many kingdoms in our 
globe, beside those mentioned, which, certainly^ 
he had never subdued. Does he dream of ano- 
ther globe, having infinite kingdoms, in which 
those things happened which he has above-men- 
tioned ? forasmuch as, in our globe, such things 
never happened. For how could the ancient 



PREFACE. a^xj;;v 

tdslonographersu to whom it v(9a great c^M^e to 
ojaaili» in writinigy nothing meinpral]k)e> who are 
even kaown to l^ve committed to memory in* 
different thing^> piuss over in silence this incpm- 
paraible man and his act6> above measure remark- 
able) Hqw> I say, came they to suppress in 
ailenoe either Arthur, monarch of the Britons, 
more noble than Alexander the great and his 
fieISi or MerUli> prophet of the Britons, equal to 
our Isaiah and his dyings } For what less has he 
attributed, in tbe forel^PQwlCidge, that is, qf 
foture things, to his Meidin, tha^n we to our 
Isaiah : unless that he did not dare to insert in 
bi9 prophecies. These things sqid the lord, and was 
ashamed to in#ert. These things said tlie demlf 
forasmuch as this ought to suit a prophet, tjkie 
9PP of an incubus demon ^ As, therefore, th^ 
iMicieni historians have made not the slightest 
mention of these things, it appears that wh^ti^p^ 
^ver things, about Arthur and Merlin, this ms^ 
b9A published in writing, to feed the curiositiy of 
ib^ imprudent, are feigned from liars : and it is 
to be noted, that he, afterward, relates that the 
lattie Arthur, mortally wounded in battle, having 
disposed oi his kingdom, went, to have his 
woUnds cured, into that island, which the British 
jpB^^^ h\fpc^9 of Avalon : not daring, for fear of 



xxxvi PREFACE. 

the Britons, to say that he k dead,* whom yet, 
in truth, the brutish Britons expect to come. 
But, of the successors of Arthur, he lies with 
equal. impudence, attributing to them, until, al- 
most, the seventh generation, the monarchy of 
Britain, and making petty kinglets and ministers 
of those whom the venerable Bede says were the 
bravest kings of iEngland, nobly governing uni- 
versal Britain. As, therefore, to the same Bede, 
of whose wisdom and sincerity it is not lawful to 
doubt, faith, in £ill things, should be had : that 
fabler, with his fables, without doubt, should be 
rejected by all." 

Doctor Powell, who republished the abridge- 
ment of Geoffrey's history by Ponticus Firunnius, 
along with the itinerary and description of Waled 
by Girald Barry, in 1585, observes in his preface 
to the first of those treatises that the faith of 
Newbrough in this matter is not proved to him : 
because, he says, *' in our annals, written three 
hundred years before, I find it declared, in ternis, 
that this William (who is there called Gwilym 

* Certainly, his exact words are these : " That femous king 
Arthur was mortally wounded [in Cornwall, at the river CoM' 
hula}, who, thence, being carried into the bland of Amilon 
[apples] to be cured of his wounds, to his kinsman Constantine, 
the son of Cador, duke of Cornwall, he judged in the year 
from the incarnation of the lord 54S. (B. xi. C. ii.) 



PREFACE. xxxvii 

bitchy that is Gulielmus parvus, GuUlaume Petyt, 
or William Little),* after the death of Geoflfrey 
Arthur, bishop ofElguen (otherwise Saint Asaph), 
when he had sought for the bishopric, about 
1165, and suffered a repulse, and being illtreated 
by David, the son of prince Owen, thence to 
have taken cause of back-biting and, afterward, 
vomited the venom of his malice upon the Bri- 
tish nation, which, to a prudent reader, also, 
will,** he thinks, '' easily appear, from the acri- 
mony and bitterness of his writing :** in answer 
to which, one need only say, with honest Tom 
Hearne • " I wish Powell had described the 
vejry words of these annals, and indicated in what 
place or in what library, he found it.** 

Even Girald Barry, hiniself a Welshman and 
a bishop, calls the British history a lying book : 
" Sicut FABULOSA Galfridi mentitur te^ona.*'t 
The same author, likewise, mentions a Welsh- 
man, in his own time, whose name was MelerittS) 
he was expert in magic and familiar with devils. 
Inspecting a book full of lies and either written 

* He is found under all these names (except the Welsh) ; 

-was bom at Bridlington, in 1135 and, from his being a canon 

of Newbrough, near Cox wold, in Yorkshire, is usually called 

GuUeimut Newbrigensis or William of Newbrougg. See 

Heame, Cave, Tanner, jr. 

t Dttcription of Walet C. 7. 



jdttvni PREFACi, 

ftdicly 6r even cohtainiii^ fh itfeetf %lmt vif%ft 
felse, be straftrway, though he wefre, iBltc^ther, 
illiterate^ put his fiiiger to the place of fals^ood. 
It happened^ upon a tiicne> the unclean spirits to6 
much insulting hiin> that he put In his bdsdm 
the gospel of saint John ; wheh^ instantaheously, 
these deVils^ flying like hirds^ all entirely va- 
lushed: which gospd h&Ag, afterward^ takeh 
away and the history of the Britons> written by 
^Geoffrey Arthur^ substituted in its place^ for the 
isake of the experiment, not, oidy, to his whott 
body, but, also, to the book put upon him, ihejr 
'tet a Icmg while, more frequently and more 
offensively than usual.* It is not, therefore, tnfe, 
that John Wethainst^ede, abbot of Ssdnt- Albans, 
^and a Writer of grfeat nterit, about the year 1460, 
was " the first bppofser of the story of king Brute,'* 
as bishop Nicholson asserts, from *' John Stow's 
preface to his chronicle ;" neither does it appear 
where Whethamstede has made such opposition ; 
which, however, will, undoubtedly, do him cre- 
dit when discovered.! The history of Geoffi^y, 
bishop as he was, has been, likewise, pronounced, 

• Itiwrary of WaU$, B. I. C. 5. 

t Ifis words, as ched, by Norden, in Lis Speculum Brhmi-' 
ii2ie» 159S, p. 3, are '* Tatusprocemu de Bruto ilto ett poetictte, 
potins quam historicus :" but whence lie had tfaeiii does liftt 
appear. 



PJIBFACB, xxjii: 

wi|dbo«afc tb^ leas.t oere»ioDy or respect^ hj m^r 
b^r Scriverj a Cutch critic^ '^ a greats beavy^ 
longj tbick^ palpable and most impudent^ U^; 
wbicb^*' says be^ '' tbe learned will 1j;iiow witb" 
out my admcmition or demoostratioi^j*'* aud sir 
WQliam Temple bas declared^ ** Tbat it is a tale 
forged at pleasure^ by tbe wit or folly of its first 
autbor> and oot to be regarded^*'t 

It must^ indeed^ respecting tbe Britons or 
modern Welsb^ be confessed^ tbat no people in 
the world can bave more vanity or less judgment. 
A» conclusive proofe of tbis assertion^ tbey ba^ 
all along believed and still do believe^ not only 
tbe aatbenticity of tbe celebrated bistory^ of 
wbicb we ore, at presents discussing tbe merits^ 
but, also, its internal veracity and even iufallibl-^ 
lity, as if tbe ojO&pring of divine inspiration^ 
tbougb abounding as we bave seen and sball see> 
more and more clearly, in looWng oyer it, a lie 
in £¥ery leaf, wi(b tbe most ^^traviagant aiul 
absiud events 5 andb<^ing, tbrougbout, altogetber 
fiomtradictory to i^^d contradicted by, the Eom^ 
tSRd Saxen bistory, and tbat, in sbort, pf erieiry 
flucmt oaition. To prove, if |)ossible> in a 
<«||[K>l^isr degree, the singular propensity and 
q^ervers9l»ess of tbis ei^tmordinary people^ Jobn 

* Sheringham, p. 8. 

t huireduction to ike hittory tf England. 



xl PREFACE. 

Lewis^ esquire^ barrister at law, one of its most 
esteemed antiquaries, as they call them, and, in 
the bulk, at least, if not the matter and merit, 
of his work, its principal historian, having, about 
the year 1613, composed or compiled, what he 
was pleased to intitle, '* The history of Great- 
Britain, from the first inhabitants thereof, till 
the death of Cadwallader, &c.** being printed 
and published at London, in a large and pompous 
folio, in 1729^ and edited, with a parallel intro- 
duction, by one Hugh Thomas, another Welsh- 
man, equally idiotical. This verbose historio- 
grapher, not content with the series of British 
kings, invented or improved by Geoffrey of 
Monmouth iind commencing with Brute, great- 
grandson of ^neas, 1159 years before the chris- 
tian aera, has deduced his chronology '* from the 
floude to Brute," on the immaculate authority of 
" The five books of antiquities of Berosus [the 
Chaldean],** one of the infamous and long-be- 
fore-exploded, forgeries of John Annius of Vi- 
terbo, a monk of the order of saint Dominick, 
edited at Rome in 1497> folio 5 which one might 
be well assured would be greedily swallowed by 
the Welsh antiquaries, among whom was Hum- 
phrey Llwyd, in Mr. Camden*s opinion, one of 
the best of his time; who, in his '' Britamica 
descriptionis commentariolum (Colonke^ 1568J> 



FREFACE. xli 

speaking of the antiquity of the British tongue, 
he adds, '^ Antiquissimam etiam fuisse ex Beroso, 
Annio, Giambullario et Postello, liquet'* : ad- 
mirable authorities, no doubt, for a Welsh an- v 
tiquary ! The first monarch of this more ancient 
series is " Gromer, the father of [the] Cymbri 
and Graules," the second, Samothes, Dis orDis- 
celta; and so he goes on, to Magus, Sarron, 
Druys, Bardus, Longus, Lucus, Celtes, Galates, 
Narbon, Lugdus, Belgius, Jasius, Allobrox^ 
.^Sgyptus, Fiarys, Olbius, Galates, junior, Namnes 
and Francicus : all perfect nonentities and men 
of straw ! To this mendacious, impudent, and 
absurd farago, the romance of Geoffrey Arthur, 
which, certainly, has no inconsiderable smack of 
both scholarship and talent, is truth and lustre. 
It is, nevertheless, held in the highest credit and 
estimation by the modern Welsh, as the forgeries 
of Hector Bois, adopted by Buchanan and even 
introduced by Lewis, as affording suitable com- 
panions for his ante-Bruteian kings, are by the 
Scots. 

To return, however, to '^ the long-lost Arthur i'* 
who, after being so highly extolled by the right- 
reverend father in god, Geoffrey, lord bishop of 
Saint- Asaph and his herd of plagiarists and pa- 
rasites, as the greatest, richest, . most powerful, 
valiant, glorious and successful monarch, that 



Jtlii PREFACE. 

ever reigned in the worlds hecs, not only hftd kis 
sovereignty, valour, glory and good fortune, but, 
even, his very existence, positively and absolutely 
denied, by an author of the eighteenth century, 
of scarcely less notoriety than that accomplished 
prelate of the twelfth ; whom, however he may 
imitate in one instance, he widely differs from 
in another 3 his lordship being a '' Cumri'* and 
a '' Gelt,'* his emulator, a " Goth" or '' Pik," a 
Pikish-Goth or Gothick-Pik. ''The reader," 
according to diis learned historian, " need hardly 
be told, that Arthur was, merely, a name given, 
(by the Welch, {[Welsh] to Aurelius Ambrosius 
their JEtoman defender against the Saxons" fEn- 
'<quiry,l, 76) : he refers, in support of this modest 
and Teracious assertion, to Gildas, C. 25 and 
Bede, I, 16; meaning, no doubt, GeofiErey of 
Monmouth, B. 8, C. ^ ; with the same facility 
iwad integrity, as he is, on other occasions, ac^ 
eustomed to cite John Fordun under the name 
of William of Malmesbury (see Enquiry, II. 20S, 
WU. Malms.) in whom no such thing is to be 
found : but consult, Fordun, B. 4, C. 44 ^ again 
II, ^320 : '' But William of Malmesbury [John 
.Fordun] says, that McUcom [Malcolm] only per- 
mitted Duncan, his grandson and heir, who was 
iioflsessed of Cumberland, to pay homage for 
^Hitt -province : this plain account sufficiently 



PREFACE. xliii 

refutes the usurpative style of the Saxon chroni- 
cle** and the words of Wynne, the sophisticator 
of Carddoc, for those of that author (Enquxry 
' I, 96J. Neither Gildas, in fact, nor Bede, though 
both mention (not, indeed, Aurelius Ambrosias, a 
corruption of Geoffrey of Monmouth) Ambrosms 
AureUanuSj (followed by Girald Barry) says any 
such thing, never once naming or any way al- 
luding to Arthur. Even Geoffrey himself makes 
them distinct personages, and, that they actually 
were so, will, sufficiently, appear by the direct 
s£nd positive testimony of Nennius, William of 
Malmesbury^ Henry of Huntingdon and Carddoc 
of Llancarvan ; all ancient and respectable his- 
torians. As for the first, he died long before the 
rest were born 3 although not one of the latter 
ever had or saw a copy of Geoffrey's history, as 
he himself boasts, except Henry of Huntingdon, 
who did not meet with it, till after he had pub- 
lished, at least, the first seven books of his own. 
He, nevertheless, reasserts, '* That Arthur was 
Aurelius Ambrosius is certain, but the Arthur of 
Welch history is a non-existence" {Enquiry, 
I, 76) : an assertion just as true as that Alexan- 
der the great was JuUus Cesar, or Merlin the 
prophet, John Pinkerton. 



THB 



LIFE 



OF 



KING ARTHUR. 



THE 

LIFE OF KING ARTHUR. 



CHAP. I. 

OftheBriUms. 



±BM most ancient author, from whom we have 
any account of the Britons is> unquestionably, 
JuSms Cegar, who, in the year of Rome 698* be- 
ing the 55th before the vulgar sra, invaded 
Britain, for the first time, and, in the following 
year, repeated the attempt ; having, on both oc- 
casions, had many severe, though, in some mea- 
sure, successful, engagements with the natives ; 
but, assuredly, not succeeding in his project to 
subjugate the island to the Roman dominion : 
since, as the historical poet, Lucan, makes Pom- 
pey observe : 

" Territa quaesUis ostendit ierga Britaimisf"* 

The energy, in fact, and vigour of their attacks 
or repulses, their military manoeuvres and pecu* 

• L. 2. V. 57t. 



.4 THE LIFE OF 

liar methods of war, many of which are de- 
scribed by Cesar, sufficiently prove them to have 
heeuj at this period, a brave, resolute and war- 
like nation. " The Britons themselves,** accord- 
ing to Tacitus, '' diligently performed the levy 
and tributes and the enjoined taxes of the empire, 
if injuries were absent : these they bore grievously, 
now subdued, that they should obey, not yet, 
that they should be slaves. Therefore, when 
the deified Julius, first of all the Romans, having 
entered Britain with an army, although he 
affrighted the inhabitants by a prosperous battle 
and may have obtained the coast, may be thought 
to have shewn it to posterity, not delivered it.*'* 
The interior part of Britain," says Cesar, 
was inhabited by those^ whom born in the 
island itself they said to be deduced from me- 
mory 5 the maritime part by those, who, for the 
sake of carrying on plunder and war, had passed 
over from the Belgs. . . . Of all these, by far 
the most humane, were those who inhabited 
Kent : which country was all maritime nor dif- 
fered much from the Gallic custom,* 't '' As to 
the rest,** according to Tacitus, '^ those mortals 
who, in the beginning, cultivated Britain, 
whether natives or strangers, as among barba- 

• Life &f Julhu Agricola, 13. 
^OftheGaUicwar,B.5. 






KING ARTHUR. B 

inana, being little known. The habitfi of theit 
bodies [were] Tarious^ and from these argu* 
ments : for the red hair of those inhabiting 
Caledonia [and their] large limbs asserted a Ger- 
manick origin.* The swarthy countenances of 
the SUures and their hair for the most part curled 
and Spain placed opposite to them, made faith 
that the ancient Iberians had passed over and 
occupied these seats : the next to the Gauls are* 
also, like them : whether by the virtue 'of their 
origin enduring or whether by lands running ia 
adverse [Britain], the state of the climate haive 
given the habit to their bodies : nevertheless, tb 
one estimating into the whole. It was credible 
that the Gauls occupied the neighbouring soil. 
You would discover their sacred rites by the 
persuasion of their superstrtions : their speech 
being not much different, the sdme audacity in 
dangers called for and, when they came, the 
Bame terror in refusing them.f They appear, 

* These ^^^onistttiees, howteter^ kt hhfk}Am» mtuAi mom 
indent than Tacihu, are> expressly, asserted to be the GhttiKSk 
(eristics of the Oanls. 

t Lsf« o/Agricola, P. It* The diffilMiiiy of oscertainiDg the 
origfai of an aodent laU&oia h, xaatetMf, acknowledged : the 
RomanSyeveiiy were ignorant of their own. It is, however, pe» 
cnliarly, diiicult to investigbtd'^heiic^ the BritoHs, originaUy, 
came : was it from Gaol, whtte, HHiett y^ a nafion of Britons, 
{>]aoed upon the river Samara, nti^ the Somnie, iJOithe proviaoe 

X 



6 THE LIFE OF 

in Csesar*s time^ as was the case> indeed^ down to 
a very late period^ to have been governed by 

of I^cardy, nmning between Abbeville and Sunt-Vallery, up 

to Amiens. There h, certainly, a strong analogy between 

Gallia and WaUia, Gauls and WaUs, This subject will afford 

discussion at some future period. How came ihey by the 

name of Britons, in such ancient times ? What is its etymology ? 

A curious and important object of disquisition. Why had the 

Britons, in the sixth century called their country Wallia, as 

it appears in the awdyl wraith of Taliesin (Myvyrian archai- 

ology of Wales, 1, 95)? They seem to have adopted, from the 

Romans, tiie fiabiilous idea of having come from Troy. In the 

Hones Talietm, Taliesm's history (Ibi, 19, 20) is the following 

stanza: 

** Mi afam yn Affrica 

Cyn adeilad Roma 

Mi a ddoethym yma 

iltwedillionTroia." 

(I have been in Africa 

Before Bome was built, 

I have come here 

To the remnants of Troy.) 

In another poem of Taliesin, already mentioned, Atodyl wraith, 

a principal class of metres (Ibi, 92, 94) is the subsequent 

stanza: 

" Och dduw, mar druan 

Y daw V ddarogan 

Drwy ddinoawr gwynvan 

I lin Troea.- 

(O god I how wretched I'm become 

The prophecy concerns me much. 

Through lamentation infinite, 

The line of Troy.) 



KING ARTHUR. r 

several petty kings or chieftains j to one of 
whom^ Cassivelaun, " whose borders," he says, 
^ from the maritime cities a river divided, which 

These extracts are translated as literally as possible. It 
seems, thepefore, that the bard had inagined his coantrymeD, 
as the Bomans pretended, to be Trojans and to have come, 
with Brute, mto Britain, alter the destruction of Troy ; pos- 
ttbly, he received his information from Virgil's Aeneis, with 
which, at least, Gildas was familiar, as he cites. In his 14th 
chapter, part of these two lines t 

'*N(mnc,aggerilnuruptuctbnipumeuiamms 
Exiit, tppotitasque evidt giurgite moles.** 

(L. 2, V. 496, r.) 
Their descendants, the present Welsh, call themselves 
(jynmry or Gynmry, in Ladn, Cumbri or Cambri; a name, 
however, used neither by Gildas, Bede nor Nennhu nor, in 
short, by any historian, before Geofirey of Monmouth (except 
by Fabian Ethelwerd (P, 844), who, manifestly, means the in- 
habitants of Cumberland, which name, likewise, occurs in the 
Saxon chronicle (Cumbjia-lanb, p. 115) and, apparently, 
meaning bastards. (See Glos. LL. Wal. voce Ctmhebjad.) 
William Owen, in his Welsh dictionary, explains " Cymro, 
g, fn,^^l, cymry (cy-broj A Welshman. Cymry,** he says, 
'* is the universal appellation by which the Welsh call them- 
selves ; . • . and the name," he asserts, " is, undoubtedly, the 
origin of the Cimbri and Ctmmerti, in ancient authors :" The 
Cimbri and Ctmmmi however, were, notoriously, two as dif- 
ferent people as it is possible for two people to be : the former, 
who were Germans, were never heard of before the 70th year 
before Christ ; whereas, the Cimtneni (who are mentioned by 
Homer, 907, and by Herodotus, 469, years before him) made 
war on Alyattes the second, king of Lydia, who began to 



a THE LIFE OF 

was called the Thames^ about eighty miles from 
the sea. To hiin> in fonner times^ with the re*- 
maiiung cities^ the continental wars had passed 
between : but, the Britons, bein^ thoroughly 
moved by our arrival, the whole had set him 
over the war and the government.*' He, Kke^ 
wise mentions Mandrubatms, a chief of the TVino- 
bantes, now Londoners, who had fled to him, for 
protection, in Gaul, that he might avoid the fate 
of his father, Imanuentim whom Cassivelaun had 
put to death. In Kent, alone, it seems no less 
than four kings presided, Cingetorix, Camilius, 
Taxigulus, and Segonax. Another of these petty 
princes is noticed by Florus: '' Caesar," he says, 
'^ in his second expedition, pursuing the Britons, 
In the Caledonian woods, put,^ likewise, one of 
the kings of the CkweUmi in chains/ *t Ca^ive- 

leign in the 619th year before ChriBt and reigned 57 yean. 
The Saxons called ihem,U}alaf,UJealapU}eallaf,(Wawl8> 

lUealh, UJaslijfcman, lUxlf e, lUiljX, tUyhpc (Welsh) 

lUealhaf, {oniga^n, straogen pr barbarians, for what reason 

cumptbeaacertidned; and those of South-Wal^, lUalleji- 

fente (SaxoB chronicle and Lje^s diotionaiy.) The Cumry, 
Taffy says, are Ompri, Cmerii, or Crommi, ham Crotn^ of the 
oU testament, as bor is creat etymokicfaist ant font of an olt 
peticcee. 

t Those people, though pracisely so named, are st^posed 
4o have been, the natives of Lineolnshire, Bockingh^mahiie*- 
some adjoining counties. 



KING ARTHUR. 

laun^ in fine> on the loss of a great battle^ sent 
ambassadors to sue for peace> which application^ 
Caesar^ stipulating a tribute and receiving hos- 
tages> appears to have complied with. He re- 
turned to Gaul and never after revisited Britain 
nor (excepting that '^ CaUgula, being in Germany^ 
did no more than receive the submission of Ad~ 
fninius, the son of Kinobelin^ a British prince^ 
who^ heing forced from his father^ came over to 
him> with a small body of troops ; yet> as if the 
whole island had been surrendered to him^ he 
sent bouncing letters to Rome upon it")* was 
any further attempt made tiU the reign of 

Claudvut, 

* 5uet<mtttf, Caligula, c* 44. 



10 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. 11. 

Of Carddoc^ a British kii)g. 

When (in the year of the vulgar aera 51) Osto^ 
ruts, the propraetor^ fought a battle against the 
Britons^ in which the latter were defeated. 
*' This victory,* according to Tacitus, '' was 
famous, and the wife and daughter of Carddoc 
(Caractacus), [prince of the Silures, inhabitants 
of present South-Wales, *'whom," the author 
says, '' many perilous and many prosperous 
things, had exalted so high, that he far ex- 
celled the other generals of the Britons,'*] his 
brethren, also, being received into surren- 
der. He himself (as, for the most part, unsafe 
things are adverse) when he had entreated the 
faith of Cartismandua, queen of the Brigantes, was 
chained and delivered to the victors, after the 
ninth year, when the war in Britain [was] be- 
gun : whence his fame carried into the islands 
and, spread about the nearest, was, likewise, 
celebrated through Italy, and they desired to see 
him, who had, so many years, disdained our 
riches. So that not, at Rome, truly, the name 



KING ARTHUR. ll 

of Carddoc was ignoble 5 and Caesar^ whilst his 
grace extolled [him]^ added glory to the con- 
quered. The people, moreover, being called, as 
to a fiEonous spectacle. The praetorian cohorts 
stood in arms, in the field, which lay before the 
camp. Then the royal clients walking in state, 
trappings and torques and what things he had 
got in external wars, being brought over: by 
and by, his brethren and his wife and his 
daughter: lastly he himself being presented. 
The supplications of the rest were degenerate, 
out of fear : but not Carddoc, either with a de- 
jected look or asking mercy with words. When 
he stood up to the tribunal, he spoke in this 
manner : *' If how much nobility and fortime 
was mine, so much moderation had been of pros* 
perous things, I had come into this city a friend 
rather than a captive nor disdained, to be bom of 
famous ancestors, governing many nations, to 
receive a treaty of peace. My present lot, as 
much as it is dishonourable to me, so is it mag- 
nificent to thee : I have had horses, men, arms, 
riches ; what wonder *, if I have lost these 
against my will ? Whether, if you [Romans] 
will govern all, does it follow, that all should 
receive slavery ? If, incontinently, being given 
up, I should be delivered ; neither my fortune 
nor thy glory, would grow famous and the pu- 



13 THE JjJFE OF 

nishment of m^ will be followed by oblivion : 
but> if thou shouldst preserve me safe> I shall 
be an everlasting example of thy clemency." At 
these [words] Csesar granted pardon both to 
himself and his wife and his brethren.*'* 

* AnnaU, B« xii> 36. It is, by no means probable that 
Caiftdoc actually deUverad this speech* though he might have 
said* through an interpreter, something becoming his situation. 
This is only what Tadtos concdves he should or migiht have 
said. The practice seems to have been introduced by Xivy» aiid 
ended, perchance, in Geoffirey of Monmouth. 



KING ARTHUR. IS 



CHAP. HI. 

Of Venusius^ Paulinus Suetonius^ Prasutagus^ 

and Boudicea, 

Aftsb Gar&doc was taken> Fenusms, chief in 
the science of warfare^ and in the city of the 
Jugantesj and being long faithful^ was defended 
by the Roman arms^ when he held queen Cartis* 
mandua in matrimony^ discord havings by and 
hj, risen and, straightway, also> against the 
Romans^ he had taken [up] hostilities : but^ at 
firsts it was^ only> contested among themselves, 
and Cariwnandua, by wily arts, cut off the bro- 
ther and near of kin of Venusim.* 

When Paullmus Stietoniw obtained the Britons, 
he made ready to fall upon the isle of M(ma,f 
strong in inhabitants and a receptacle of refugees, 
and bmlt ships, with a plain bottom, against a 
narrow and imcertaln shore. . So the foot-soldiers, 
following the horsemen in the ford or higher, 
among the waters^ swimming after the horses, 

* Taciti Armales, L. 12, $ 40. 

t Mm, iQ British, now Anglisetf, or the Eogles-isle, so named 
}iy the Saxons. 



14 THE LIFE OF 

passed over. On the opposite shore stood the 
army in battalia^ close with arms and men^ the 
women^ runnings to and fro, in the manner of 
furies, their vests being funereal, their hair dis- 
heveled, bore torches and the druids, round 
about, their hands being lifted up, pouring-out 
dire^ prayers, astonished the soldiers with the 
novelty of the sight, that, as if, with members 
sticking together, they would offer an immove- 
able body to wounds. Afterward, at the exhort- 
ations of the general and they themselves stimu- 
lating each other, lest they should fear a female 
and fanatic crew, they brought up the ensigns 
and threw dovm those opposing and involved 
them in their own fire. Afterward, a guard 
being set over the vanquished and the groves, 
sacred to their cruel superstitions, being cut 
down : for they held it lawful to worship [upon] 
the altars with captive blood and consult their 
gods with the entrails of men. Suetonius acting 
these things a sudden revolt of the province was 
announced.* 

Prasutagus, king of the Icenians, famous by 
long opulence, had inscribed Caesar and his two 
daughters his heir, thinking, by such obsequious- 
ness, his kingdom, and, likewise, his household^ 

• rociti ilnnai«,L. 14, $29. 



KING ARTHUR. 16 

to be far from injury; which turned out the 
contrary : insomuch that^ the kingdom by cen- 
turions^ the houses by slaves^ were wasted^ like 
as those taken by force. Now^ for the first time> 
his wife, Boudicea,* was * afflicted* with scourges 
and his daughters were violated and whosoever 
were the principal of the Icenians, as if they had 
received the whole region for a gift, they were 
stripped of their ancient possessions and their 
relations were held among the slaves of the king. 
Already (in the 62d year of the vulgar aera) [to] 
Suetonius, the fourteenth legion, with their stan- 
dard-bearers and the soldiers of the twentieth 
legion and the auxiliaries out of the nearest, 
were, almost, sent ten thousand armed men : 
but the forces of the Britdns, everywhere, by 
battalions and troops, rejoiced, exceedingly, how 
great a multitude, nowhere else and with a mind 
so savage, that their wives, likewise, they drew 
with them, as witnesses of their victory, and put 
them in wagons, which they had set upon the 
outermost place of the field. Boudicea, carr3ring 
her daughters, before her, in. a chariot, as she 
approached to every nation, testified, '' It to be 
usual, indeed, for the Britons to wage war : but 

* Otherwise, Boodicia (Tacitas, elsewhere) ; Voadica (Vit& 
Agricolae) ; pitv^nna, (Bunduica), Dion. 



16 THE LIFE OF 

then not> as being sprung from such great ances- 
tors^ having lost a kingdom and riches $ but, 
only, as one out of the common people, having 
lost her liberty, to revenge her body, wasted by 
stripes, the chastity of her daughters violated : 
that the lusts of the Romans had proceeded so 
far, that not bodies nor, even, old-age or vir- 
ginity unpolluted, they should leave. Neverthe- 
less, that the gods of just vengeance were pre- 
sent : that a legion had fallen, which had dared 
the battle :* that the rest were hidden in their 
camps or were looking about flight. Not so 
much as the noise and clamour of so many thou« 
sands, much less their assaults and hands would 
they endure. If they would consider with them- 
selves the forces of armed men, if the causes of 
war, it behoved to conquer or fall, in that battle. 
That is destined to a woman : let the men live 
and be slaves !'* Suetofdusg truly, did not keep 
silence in so great a danger : who, although he 
confided in valour, he, nevertheless, mingled 
exhortations and prayers. . . Such ardour followed 
the words of the general, and so much did the 
soldier, old and with much experience of battles, 
bestir himself, to the flinging of piles, that the 

* At ** The Colony," as the Bonuuis called it, oib«rwise 
Camolodunum, now Colchester : it resembled Chelsea-hospital, 
in so far, as it was the residence of the invalids of the legions. 



KING ARTHUR. 17 

event was certain^ should Suetomus give the sign 
of battle andj in the first place^ the legion, with 
steadfast pace and retaining the straits of the 
place for a defence, broken forth as a wedge, 
after the enemy creeping along nearer had ex- 
hausted his darts with a certain throw. The 
same attacks of the auxiliaries and the horsemen, 
spears being outstretched, broke through the 
line, which was opposed and strong. The rest 
offered their backs, in difficult flight, because, 
their waggons laid about, barred the passages 
and the soldiers did not restrain, truly, the 
slaughter of the women, and the cattle, pierced 
with darts, had increased the heap of bodies. 
Illustrious praise and equal to ancient victories 
was obtained in that day : forasmuch as, there 
were those who reported, little less than 80,000 
of Britons to have been slain : almost, 400 of 
soldiers being killed, nor much more woimded. 
Baudicea ended her life by poison.* 

* Taciti AunaUs, L. 14> § 25. Dio, however, gives a dif^ 
forent account of this British yirago : " For the most part, Bun» 
dwca, a British woman, sprang from a royal race, persuaded 
thow [BritoDs] that they should, openly, cany on a war with 
tibe. Bomans;. she wliQ» not only, presided over them with great 
dignity, but, likewise, conducted every war; nourishing 
gjFQ^I^ ^irits than became a woman: for the army being 
assembled, to 1,90,000 of men, she mounted upon a tribunal, 
wade of loporish turves, in the Boroan manner : a woman with 



18 THE LIFE OF 

ft very large body, a fierce look, a very sour face, a rough 
▼oioe» who let her very thick hair and the same very yellow,* 
reach down to her buttocks. . She carried, abo, a large gold 
torques and wore a robe covered over with different colours and 
bound hard to her bosom, to which she had overcast a thick 
cloak, connected with the help of a brooch : which habit she, 
not only, at that time and at others, always, used, but with a 
spear, likewise, taken into her hands, with which she amaced 
all present, she spoke after thb manner : " Truly/' &c. [The 
speech is too long to recite; and may not be genuine.] When 
she had said these words, she sent a hare out of her bosom, in 
order to an omen being taken: which, afterward, ran luckily ; 
the whole multitude, with joyful minds, shouted together. 
Then Bunduica, with her hand raised to heaven, I thank thee, 
said, Adraste and a woman myself, invoke thee a woman not 
reigning over Egyptian porters, as Nitocrisi not over Assy- 
rian merchants, as Setmramit (for tliese we have received* 
already from the Romans) nor, agun, over the Romans them- 
selves, as, a little before, Messalina, afterward, Jgrippina, now 
Nero, who, being called by the name of a man, is in fact, a 
woman : that which I have been able to understand of him, 
that he sings with voice and harp and that he is dressed like 
women : but am set over men, Britons, who have learned, not 
to till fields nor to be mechanics, but to wage wars, in the best 
manner : who, as all other things, so they esteem their children 
and wives to be common among themselves and, therefore, also, 
rdigning over these women, who exerdse the same valour with 
their husbands. When, therefore, I may obtain a kingdom 
among such kind of men and women, T pour out my prayers to 



* Hentzner says of our Queen Elizabeth, who seems, in 
more instances than one, to have resembled the British Bun^ 
duica, ** she wore folse hair and that red.* 

t A celebrated queen of Babylon, mentioned by Herodotus. 



KING ARTHUR. 19 

thee and intreat from thee victory, health, liberty, against 
injurious, dishonest, insatiable and wicked men : if such beings 
are to be called men, who are washed in hot water, eating 
meats, sumptuously prepared, drinking pure wine, besmeared 
with ointments, lying softly, coupling with boys and those past 
their date, and serving a harper, indeed, a bad one. Not to 
me, I beseech, not to you, for the remaining time, let this 
Neronia or Domitia to govern ; sin^g, she should rule the 
Boman people : for he is worthy who would serve a woman of 
thu kind, whose tyranny so long a space of time, already, he 
should sustain. Thou, truly, lady, I entreat alone, wouldst 
rule over us. (Cauii Diomt Historia Btrmana, Ham, 1752, 
folio n, 1003.) 

Bunduica, having destroyed two cities of the Romans, ap- 
pointed toward the captives a most execrable punishment, 
*• it truly was veiy cruel and very barbarous, because they 
suspended the most noble and most honourable women naked 
and sewed dior paps cut off to thdr own mouths, that they 
nught seem to eat them and, afterward, transfixed those very 
women, with veiy sharp stakes, through the whole body, ac- 
cording to its length, and did all these things, performuig, 
at once, the ceremonies of their religion and feasting and bear- 
ing themselves, lasdviously, as well in their other temples as, 
especially, in the grove of Andat6 : for so they called Victory 
and worshipped her, most ebmestly.** (Ibi, 1008.) Bunduica 
was extinguished by disease and many, grievously, bewailed 
her and buried her, magnificently. (Ibi, 1011.) 



20 THE LIFE OP 



CHAP. IV. 

Of Agricola and Calgac. 

In the 78th year of the vulgar aera lulius Agri* 
cola arrived in Britain : in 80> he penetrated to the 
firth of Forth : in 82, havi ng passed over [the firth] 
in the first ship, he vanquished nations, unknown 
at that time, in frequent, at once and prosperous 
battles : in 84, he came to the Grampian-mount,^ 
which now the enemies had sitten upon : for 
the Britons, nothing broken by the event of the 
former fight, and expecting revenge or slavery. 
Forthwith, more than thirty thousand of armed 
men were beheld and, hitherto, flowed in all the 
youth and with whom the raw and green age^ 
famous in war and every onebearing his honours : 
when, among many generals, one excelling in 
valour and race, by name Calgac, who, to the 
multitude, demanding battle, delivered a speech. 
They received the oration cheerful and with 
a song of barbarous manner and shouting and 

* A hill in BachaD, now called Mimnmmd, 



KING ARTHUB. 21 

tUssonant clamours. Agricola having spoken $ 
immediately^ a running to arms. The dreadful 
battle commenced^ which is unnecessary to de- 
scribe here -, suffice it to say^ the Britons were 
defeated^ with the slaughter of ten thousand $ of 
the Romans no more than three hundred and 
fcnrty fell. The Britons, wandering and with the 
mixed wailing of men «nd women> to draw the 
wounded, to call the entire, te desert their 
houses and through anger, of tiieir owa>accord> 
to set them on fire : to^^cliyoose luridng places 
and, straightway leave them, and it appeared, 
suffidentlyi some t& have been cruel toward 
their wives and children, as much as they^ comf- 
passionated them. The next day opened the 
fece of victory more widely : everywhere a vast 
silence, secret hills, housesr smokii^ afeur off, no 
one meeting the spies : by whom, into evierypari 
dismissed, where uncertain vestiges of flight nor 
any where found the enemies to be gathered 
rounft * * Thus TacUiUs. ' ' -"^ ' -^ -' 

• Roh, the historian, observes, that (m 1746) " the Duke 
of Comberiand issued a proclamatiiMi for disarming such of 
the dans as refused to surrender themselves; a camp was 
establislied at Fort-Augustus, whence several detachments 
were sent to ram and depopulate the rebellious country $ 
where the devastation was so great, that, for the space of fifty 
miles, ndther house, man, nor beast was to be seen ; which was 

F 



33 THE LIFE OF 

For Bome centuries after this, the history of 
Britain is very obscure. It was, in flEict, a Roman 
province and, generally, speaking, perfectly tame 
and submissive.* If, however, we may believe 
two, comparatively, late historians, Dio, that is, 
and Herodian, the Britons were not essentially 
improved, in their dress or manners, by their 
intercourse with the accomplished masters of 
the world, who had strong garrisons in every 
part of the island : some of the generals, occa- 
sionally, usurping the purple. 

the entire rabjngation of this fierce and intractable people, 
whom neither the Bomans nor Saxons could reduce, and who 
had often bid defiance to their native kings." Conduct of the 
Powen of Europe, IV, 212.) [Every man of taste remembers 
and admires (and it was originally the author's intention to 
insert) the beautiful and pathetic tines of Dr. Smollett on thb 
disgraceful proceeding, beginning, 

*' Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn." EdJ} 

* Jove fix'd it certun, that whatever day 
Makes man a slave, takes half his worth awaj. 

Pope's Homer. 



KING ARTHUR. S3 



CHAP. V. 

Of the Britons, F!ct8> and Scots. 

About the year of the vulgar sera> 360^ the 
Britons began to be harassed by two barbarous 
nations, from the north and west, which, like 
devouring locusts, swarmed over the island and 
extended their depredations from beyond the 
Scotish sea or firth of Forth, up even to the 
gates of London. These savages were denomi- 
nated (whether by themselves or their enemies 
is uncertain) Picts and Scots > they, formerly, 
had established themselves, for some indefinite 
time, in the north of Caledon or modern Scotland } 
the Scots in Ireland, whence they came over In 
swarms, to associate with their allies, in the 
plunder and devastation of the now enervated 
Britons ; but whence they had come, originally, 
is a fact which it has not been possible to ascer- 
tain. The Romans, after building for the Bri- 
tons or teaching themselves to build, walls for 
their protection : a precaution, by the way, they 
never either observed themselves or recom^ 



«4 THE LIFE OF 

mended to their subjected provinces, on any 
other occasion : well knowing that it is the 
heads, the hearts, the hands, of men, which are 
to defend them from their enemies, and not 
ditches or mounds.* This, however, being as 
it may, the Romans, in or about the year 404, f 
either not esteeming the island capable or wor- 
thy, of defence or, possibly, judging their pre- 
sence and forces of greater importance to the 
state, in Gaul or Italy, withdrew, not, only, with 
their own legions, but with all the flower of the 
British youth, never ' after' to return ; and now 
the northern wtolves, regarding ndither walls 
n'or ditches, leaped over the borders, in number- 
less herds, ravaging aild devouring all before 
thie'm. The wretched and enervate Britons, in 
the year 446, not able nor, even, willing, to help 
themselves, hdd recourse to their old mastetii ; 

, * *' The 9ti«Dgth of a dt^r**! ^d Agwlaius, king of Sparta^ 
V does not consist in its walls, bat in the courage of the inha- 
bitants." The poet AUueus was of the same mind : " Not 
stones nior timber," he says, *' fior'the art of builders iune cities : 
bat, wherever there are men, themselves how to preserve 
knowing, there ftfe walls and cities.'* (Spartan manual^ P. 72.) 

. [t ThjB precise time, when the Boman l^ons finally aban- 
doned Britain, cannot be ascertamed, as the chronology of the 
age i» scanty and confused : according, however, to ]&ede, 
(Ito'l.'c. 'll. I:i2. 13.) that important 'ev6nt appears to have 
<aken place a ifew years la^. 'Ed,'] 



KING ARTHUR. 35 

addressing them> as Gildas assures us> in a que- 
rulous and whining tone> to the following effect : 
*' To Aetius, thrice consul^ The groans of the 
Britons (and> after a few words complainings) 
The barbarians drive us back to the sea ; the sea 
drives us back to the barbarians } between these 
arise two kinds of deaths^ we are either killed 
or drowned."* They received, however, no 
assistance, and were left entirely to the mercy 
and discretion of their ferocious enemies. 

• C. 17. This einstle is interpolated in Pdydoie VifgM's 
editian, vdtfa a passage written by himself. 



96 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. VI. 

Of Vortigero^ king of Britain and the inyitation;^ 
arrival and success of the Saxons. 

In the year of the vulgar aera 428 and 16ng 
before, king Vortigern sat on the throne of Bri- 
tain or governed, at least, the southern, east^n 
and western parts of that kingdom or might, 
possibly, as had, formerly, been the case with 
the Britons and appears, even, to have been so 
at this period, as it, likewise, was, both then and 
long after with the Scots (as the Irish were then 
named), only, to have the predominant power 
or military command over his fellow-potentates. 
This monarch, [of whose] descent or title to the 
crown very little is delivered by writers of re- 
putation for their age and authenticity,* being, 

* Samuel, the scholiast or interpokitor of Nennius, as cor- 
rected by Bertram, gives this compotation : From Rafus and 
Rabellios mito Stilicho consul, there are 371 years, and from 
Stilicho unto Vaientinian, son of Phddia [Flavius Placidnu 
Vaientinumus Citsar, consul with Flamu Theodvrius Avgtuhu, 
425] and the kingdom of Vortigem, 25 : and from the reign of 
Vortigeni unto the discord of Guitolin and Ambrose, which la 



KING ARTHUR. 27 

completely harassed and overpowered by his 
barbarous and active enemies, determined, with 
the advice of his comicil, to call in the assistance 
of the Saxon pirates, who had now, at least, for 
a couple of centuries, infested, occasionally, the 
narrow seas and the coasts of Britain; insomuch, 
that long^ before the Ronums abandoned the 
island, they had a great officer, whose duty it 
wu to protect both, under the title of comet tit- 
iorit Saxomd per BrUanmam (the count of the 
Saxon shore through Britain). The Britons, 
therefore, in 449, sent over ambassadors, who, 
in a stile even more pitiful than that they had, 
already, used toward the Romans, addressed the 
Saxons to this effect : '' Most good Saxons, the 
wretched Britons, wearied with the frequent 
attacks of enemies and very much worn down, 
having heard the victories by you, magnificently, 

(huJop, that b, CatguoUph [Uie bottle of Goolopb] Vortignn 
bdd the empire in Britun, IVwiMiMt and Vmiemtmimuu (430) 
and, in die 24di year of his leign, the Saxons came into Bri- 
tain, Flavmt Fntogeaa and FUamu Jsturfw or Tttrems tlie 
aeoood AthaiuM, bdng oonsok, 449 and, finxn the year, in 
whidi iSbe Saxons came into Britain and were taken op by 
V o r ti ge n i, uito FUnmu AmetMS JuatmUmut Arngmstus and Fb»- 
mas Tkeodanu PauUmu, the last coosol of the west, 85, [534]. 
See Bertram's edition, p. 96, and die FtuH ctmtularet. 



«« THE LIFE OF 

ftdiieved^ have sent us to you, .supplicating that 
you,Mrould not withhold J&om them your assist- 
ance*. The land, hroad. and spacipus auad filled 
with a plenty of all things, they offeir ilit> yidd to 
yourdomipioii^) Und^ the prptection, of the 
Jlomans, .we have, hitherto, freely lived ) after 
th^ Romans, we are, ignorant of better than you : 
t^iereforCi we. se^ to fiy under the^ wings of your 
vfdour : with yqur valour, with your arms, only, 
^an we become ^upeiipr to tli^e ei^e0iy'i9 and, 
:iyhatever kind of service you impose upon usi 
we shall, willingly, sustain/** Complying with 
this requesjk, as, ,they said, the, staimch to th^ 
!E(ritons and, always, alike ready in their neces-r 
sity and advantage (having, no doubt, in their 
piratical expeditions, surveyed the advantages 
of the country with the eyes of :a hawk)^ they 
came over, according to saint Gildas, '^ the 
Jeremiah of Britain,** in three keels or long 
ships, and, after having performed their contract, 
by driving the old enemies out of the kingdom 
and received the solid reward of provinces and 
shires and counties, in the best and richest part 
of the island, they, forthwith, entered into an 
alliance with those identical enemies, whcnn 

♦ Wittichindy B. 1, c. 2. This writer, everywhere calls the 
Britons Bracti, 



KING ARTHUR. 29 

they had so recently defeated^ and turned their 
arms against their employers^ whom, at length, 
they drove out of the country or confined to 
the mountainous and barren districts of Wales, 
Cornwall and, for some time, the adjoining 
shires. 



8« THE LIFE OF 

had come with him from the island of Anglen^* 
asked from them what they should demand [of 
the king^] for the damsel, one counsel was to 
them all> that they should demand the region 
which in their tongue is called Canthguaraland, 
but in our tongue Cheat, (Kent) and he gave it 
to them> king Guorangon reigning in Kent and 
being ignorant that the kingdom of himself was 
delivered to the pagans and he himself alone into 
their power: too much sorrow disturbed him 
because his kingdom> secretly^ treacherously and 
imprudently, was given to the foreigners and so 
was the damsel given to him into marriage and 
he slept with her and loved her very much.f 

* " Anglia vetus stta est inter Saxones et Giotos, habem 
oppidum capitide, ijuod sermone Saxonico Sleswic nuncupatur, 
secundum verb Danos Haithaby." (Ethdwerdus, L, 1 : jthat is. 
Old England b situate between the Saxons and the Jates, 
having a chief town, which, in the Saxon language is called 
Sleswick, but, according to the Danes, Hmthaby.) 

t Nenniui, C. 36. 



KING ARTHUR. 33 



CHAP. vm. 

Of Hengi8t*8 advice to king Vortigem. 

Hs N G r 8 T said to the king^ I am thy &ther and 
will be to thee a counsellor, and, ever be unwil* 
Hng to neglect my counsel, because thou shalt 
not fear thyself to be overcome by one man nor 
by one nation ; that, my nation, is mighty. I 
shall invite, therefore, my son with his brother s 
son: those men are warriors, that may fight 
against the Scots and give thou, to them, the 
regions which are in the north, hard by the wall, 
which is called Chuil,* and he ordered that he 
should invite them : whom he invited, also; 
Ockta and Alnsa with forty keels. But they 
themselV^, When they navigated about thePidts, 
wasted the Orkney islands f and came and oc* 

. * Thus, in C« Id^— " mamm et aggerem d man tuque ad 
mare, per latitttdinem Britannue . . , et vacatur Britannico Mer- 

t Orchades inmlas. The mare Fraieum as here or Friticiim 
lUui, as Joceline hath it, in the life of saint Kentigem, is not, 
as Camden sa^s, the firth [of Forth], but the mare mtemum,oi 
Richard, or Iruh sea. 



34 THE LIFE OF 

cupied many regions and islands * beyond the 
Fresick sea, that is> that which is between us 
and the Scots, as far as to the confines of the 
Picts ; and Hengist, always invited the keels to 
himself, by little and little, so that they left the 
islands from which they came without inhabitant ', 
and when his people had increased both in va- 
lour and in multitude, they came to the above- 
said Cantuarian region .f 

In the year 455, Hengist and Horse fought 
with Vortigern, the king, in the place which was 
called JEgkiford (now Ailsford, in Kent, at the 
bank of the river Medway) and his brother Horse 
was slain and, afterward, Hengist and his son^ 
^sc, enjoyed the kingdom.^ 

In the year 457, Hengist and ^sc fought with 
the Britons, in the place which was called Crec- 
canford (now Crayford, in KentJ § and there slew 
four men (generals) and the Britons, afterward, 
departed from Kent and, with great fear, fled to 
London. 1 1 

In the year 465 Hengist and iBsc fought with 

• Probably meaning the Hebudet or MbudtK corruptly JEft^ 
hrideit and, at present, the Western isles. 

t C. 37, 

% Of Kent, that is, Chro. Saxo, p. 13. 

§ " Crecanford, quod est Crickelade.*' Leland's CoUectanea, 
I. 218. 

II Chro, Saxo. ibi. 



KING ARTHUR. 35 

the Welsh, nigh Wyppedes-fleot (now Wipped- 
fleet in Kent) and there slew twelve aldermen, 
all Welsh 5 one, also, of their own, a very noble 
man, whose name was Wipped, was there slain."^ 
In the year 473, Hengist and ^sc fought with 
the Welsh, and took nmnberless spoils, and the 
Welsh fled from the Engles, as if there had been 
a fire.t 

* Ckro, Saxo, ibu 

t Ibu He died 40 years after his arrival, in 489. See 
Henry of Huntingdon, p. 312. Mac, his sou, reigned 34 years 
and, as he succeeded his father, must hare died in 523. (IN 
and Chro. Sax, p. 14.) Many more battles were fought by the . 
Saxons against the Britons t in the year 577, Cuthwin and 
Ceawiin fought against the Britons and slew three kings. Corn- 
mail and Condidan and Favinmail, in a place which is called 
Deorham and took three dties, Gloucester, Cirencester, and 
Bathancester (now Bath) : In 607, JEthelfrid [king of the 
Northumbrians, a pagan] led his army to Leicester, and there 
killed numberless Britons. There, also, were slain two hun- 
dred monks [of the abbey of Bangor, living by the labour of 
their hands] who came thither to pray for the army of the 
Britons. Brocmail was called their general, who with fifty, 
more or less, thence escaped : In 710, Ina and Nun, his 
kinsman, fought ¥dth Gerent, King of the Britons (Saxon 
a^mmicle). 



36 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. IX. 

What counsel the Britons gave to king Vortigern 
and the use he made of it. 

After these things^ therefore, the king in- 
vited to himself all his great men, that he might 
ask from them, what he should do : but they 
said. Go thou into the most remote borders of 
thy kingdom, that thou mayest build a fortified 
tower, in which thou mayest defend thyself : 
because the people whom thou hast taken upon 
thee hate thee a&d, with treacherous fraud, will 
kill theeund the whole regions, which thou hast 
loved, will occupy, with thy whole people, afitef 
thy death. Afterward, truly, the king himself 
with his magicians, went forward, about to en- 
quire after the toWer and. wandered over many 
regions and many provinces and, by no means, 
finding that which they sought, lastly, they came 
to that region which is called Guent, and he, 
going round about, in the mountains of Heriri 
(that is, Craig-eriri, the rock of the eagles) by 
the natives, Snaudun, (Snowdon) in English, at 
length obtained, in one of the mountains, a place. 



KING ARTHUR. 37 

in which it was convenient to build a tower and 
' the ma^cians said to him> Make the tower in 
this place> because it will be most safe from the 
barbarous people for ever. He, therefore^ ga- 
thered together artificers, that ia, stone-cutters 
and they gathered together stones and wood: 
but, when every matter was gathered together, 
in one night it was entirely taken away and> 
for three times, he ordered it to be gathered 
together and it nowhere appeared.* Then he 
called to .himself his magicians, and asked them, 
what was this cause of malice and why it should 
happen? But they answered to him, saying, 
[unless] he could find a child without a fether, 
that thou mayest have one who should be slain 
and the tower sprinkled with his blood, never shall 
it be built for ever.f Such a boy; being found, 
says to the king (after a quantity of lies, which 
are, likewise, in Greoffrey of'Monmouth^s British 
history) : Thou, therefore, go from this tower, 
because thou art not able to build it, and wander 
over many provinces, that thou mayest find a 
secure tower ; I, indeed, will remain here ; and 
the king said to the youth. By what name art 
thou called? He answered, I am called Am- 
brose | and the king said. Of what progeny 

* Samuel, CC, 39, 40. t Id. C.40. 

t This boy is nut intended for Ambrose-Meriin, according to 



88 THE-hWE OP 

art thou risen ? but he replied : One of the con- 
suls of the Roman nation is my father; Tlien 
he gftVe to him the tower with all the provinces 
of that country (West Britain) and> he himself^ 
with his magicians^ came to the left /^^hat is^ 
North) of Britain and fled, as fisir as thie region 
which is called Gtiennesi,* a(nd . built the city 
which is called by his name Cair^Guorth^im 
{^Guasmoric, near LttgtthaUa] (Carlisle), he there 
built that city, which, in English is cfOled Polm- 
chester.t 

tibe interpolator of tihe history of Neni^ and, as it is in 
Geo£Erey of Monmouth, bat, certainly, Ambrotktt Awelianutp' 
(a great general and, in process of time, king of Britain) as 
win appear by the sequel, and who has been hare confounded, 
with Merlin. 

* He withdrew into North Wales^ in Latin, Venedotia, after- 
waid 6i0«nt, at present in Monmouthshire, upon the Severn^ 
Gdo. 

t Samuel, C. 4^ 



KING ARTHUR. d9 



CHAP. X. 

Of the second arriral of saint German, and how 
Vortigerii, flying to Ids tower, followed by the 
saint, was, in the night, burned, with his do* 
mestios. 

Saint Gennaii, truly, preached t6 Vortigern 

that he would make himself an. alien from the 
illicit mixture of his own daughter, and convert 
himself to the lord : but he, as fiir as to the 
region which, from his name had received its 
name, that is to say, Gujalrfhifjiupikum '(Vprtigem*s 
land), miserably, fled, that he might lie with his 
women. Saint German, therefore, pursued him, 
with all the clergy of the Britons, and there re- 
mained forty days and as many nights and prayed 
upon a stone and there stood, by day and by 
night and, in the mean time, Vortigem, as &r as 
Vortigern 8 tower, which he had built and im- 
posed upon his own name (that is, I>tn-Gtr%tm, 
Vortigem's tower) and in the region of the 
DifveH (the inhabitants of West Wales> now 
Pembrokeshire,) near the river Tdbi (now the 
Teivyor Tywy), ignominiously, departed. Saint 

OS 



40 THE LIFE OF 

German, however, followed him, in his usual 
manner, and there fasting, with aU his clergy, 
for three days and as many nights, for good 
cause, remained ; in the fourth night, truly, the 
whole tower, about the hour of midnight, fell, 
on a sudden, by fire sent from heaven (that is> 
lightning) ) the celestial fire burning and Vorti- 
gem, with aH his people who were with him 
and, with his own wives, ended his life,* [534.] 

* Samael, C 48. He adds : This is the end of Vordgein* 
as I found it in the book of the blessed German, others, how- 
ever, hare said otherwise. " Forasmuch as all those of- his 
family were hated for his. crime, between potent and impotent, 
between slave and freeman, between monks and laics, between 
small and gre^t, and he himself, while, wandering, he went from 
place to place, finally, broke his heart and died, without pndse.** 
(C. 49). Others, however, have said, the earth to be opened, 
which swaUowed him up, in the night, in which hb tower was 
burned abouthim, because any relics of those who were burned 
. with him in the tower# were not found (C. 50). 



KING ARTHUR. 41 



CHAP. XI. 

Of the three principal battles which Vortimer> 
the eldest son of king Vortigem> waged against 
the Saxons. 

Xh b first battle was upon the river Derwent ) 
the second, upon the ford, which is called in the 
Saxons tongue Episford, but in that of the Britons 
ScUhenegiptbail, and there fell Hors, with the son 
of Vortigern, whose name was Cantigem : the 
third battle, in the field near the stone of a mo*- 
nument, which was j^aced upon the bank of the 
C^allic sea, and the barbarians were defeated and 
they themselves returned in flight unto their 
keels, entering into them in a womanish manner. 
But he, after a little interval of time, was dead, 
and, before hill death, he adverted to his family^ 
that they would place his sepulchre in the port, 
from which the Saxons went out upon the bank 
of the sea : '' In which I commend to you, 
although, in another part, the port of Britain 
they hold and inhabit, yet in this land they shaU 
not remain into eternity.*' They, however, cc/n- 



4^ THE LIFE OF 

temned his commandment and interred him in a 
place in which he had not reigned : for he -was 
buried in Lincolnshire : but if they had observed 
his commandment^ without doubts by the prayers 
of saint German^ they would have obtained what- 
soever they had asked. But the ' barbarians, in 
^^reot numbers, returned ; when Vortigem ww 
their friend on lUicouQt of his wife, C^hQ]p(i he 
loved, to that pass, that no man dared,to fight 
against them, because they, courteously, cijoled 
the imprudent king, nevertheless, actinga fmoM' 
fuLpurpose -with a viper's hi^art*] ai|d :xio^mao 
was eble> courageously, to drive lliem qu% ^.be^ 
i»uafii. npt by their own , valour tbey posis^sMed 
Britain but by the divine, .will [and by re^fuotn'of 
the very great si^s (tf tite Briton^, go4 80 ^per^ 
mitting] : who can endeavour to r^ust i^gMnst 
itbe 'WJU c^ god; but a9 the lord wills, 80. he 
ftctftf 9nd he himself governs and reigns.f , 

yprtigem had $hree sons : the first, Yortimer : 
.the second,! Ca^tegim : the third, Fascen^ . . . . 
The fourth, Faust, who was bom to him of his 
daughter, whom saint German baptized, nourished 
and taught, and built a large place upon the bpipk 
of the river; which is called Renis, and consecntted 

* Samiiel*8 inierpolationsy or marginal notes, 
t Ninmut,C,4S. 



KING ARTHUR. 43 

it to himself, and remains until this day,^ and 
he had one daughter, who, as we have said, was 
the mother of saint Fausius the second 

* That is, when Nermiut wrote his history, (of whicli this 
chapter is a genmne, part,) which was in or about the year 
858. There u nowhere to be found any precise date of Vor- 
tigem's death. The last certain event of his fife is the death 
of hu son, Vortimer, who died in 467, and whom he usupposed 
to have survived : but it seems probable that he was dead 
long before 500. Moses WiUiams, who, at the end of his 
edition of Humphrey Llwyd's *' BrUtanniciB detcriptumit com- 
meatariolwn" (London, 1731, 4to.) inserted certain " JEra cam' 
hfobTitanmcti" of no antiquity, in feet, or authority, admits the 
year 392 will not answer for that in which Vortigem died, 
though he conjectures (from these foUadous cr« of whidi 
Geoffirey of Mcomouth's fobulous history is manifestly the 
ground-work) that be was bora in that year. 



44 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. XII. 

OfNazaleod. 

l^HE Britons^ in fact^ seem^ about this period^ 
to have been in no want of valorous and able 
commanders, for, beside Vortimer, Cantigem 
and PiBUBcent, the three legitimate sons of king 
Vortigern, who were valiant leaders along with 
Ambrose Aurelian> we have an account, in the 
histories of Henry of Huntingdon, (archdeacon 
of that bishop from 1110 to 1155) corroborated 
by the authority of the Saxon chronicle and oi 
Fabius Ethelwerd, of a great battle, between the 
Saxons and the Britons, in the year 508. I am 
about to write, says the former, the battle which 
Nazaleod (Natanleod or Nataleod), the chief 
king of the Britons, fought against Certic and 
Cinric, his son, in the sixtieth year of the arrival 
of the Engles. Nazaleod, verily, was a man of 
great name and great pride, from whom that 
region was called NazaleoH (Natanleag, now 
Natley), which is now called Certkhesford,*^ 

* Now Cherford, as Carte thinks, between Corfe-castle and 
the sea, in the isle of Purbcck {History of England, 1, 199^ 



KING ARTHUR. 45 

All the multitude of Britain, therefore, being 
gathered together, Certic and his son requested 
aid, in a£fairs of the highest consequence, from 
Esc, king of the Kentish and from Ella, the great 
king of the South-Saxons, and from Port and his 
sons,^ who had lately arrived, and they appointed 
two wings for the battle, Certic governed the 
right and Cinric, his son, the left. The battle, 
therefore, being begun, king Nazaleod, seeing 
the right wing the more excellent, rushed upon 
it himself and all his forces, that this, which 
was the bravest, he might at first overthrow : 
the banners, therefore, being thrown to the 
ground and the battalion forced through, Certic 
betook himself to flight and a very great slaugh- 
ter was made of his battsdion at the moment. 
The left wing, however, led by the son, seeing 
that the right wing of his father would be de- 
stroyed, rushed on the backs of the pursuers and 
the battle was, vehemently, aggravated and there 
fell king Nazaleod and his army took to flight 
and there were slain of them five thousand 5 to 
the rest, indeed, swiftness was protection. The 
Saxons, therefore enjoyed the prerogative of 
victory, and quiet was given to them for not 

There is, also, another place called Cfuaford, in Hampshirey 
which is not less likely to be the true one. 

* This Port seems to have given his name to P&rtsmouth. 



46 THE LIFE OF 

maay years, and auxiliaries came to them, brave 
and nmnerous.* 

* 312. That Kazaleod^ as Carte and others hare pretended, 
vraM Ambriotiut Aureliama, nndcgr another name, is the grossest 
absordity possible. Tins author has, already, mentioned, 
Jmbrotku, and wonid scarcely .have introduced him by a dif- 
fisrent name, vdthout explaining the reason. Bende, Naialeod 
was slun in this battle |in] 508, and AmbrosinB appears to 
have been living long afterward. 



KING ARTHUR. 47 



CHAP. xm. 

Of Ambrose Aurelian. 

So M E of the miserable remains of the Britons^ 
caught^ unawares^ in the mowitains> were slain 
by heaps : others, exhausted by fEunine, coming 
in, surrendered themselves to perpetual slavery; 
if, by that mean, they could escape immediate 
butchery, which was the highest favour granted : 
others sought transmarine countries, with great 
howling, as it were, for their sea-cheer, in this 
manner, under the folds of the sails,— -singing : 
T%m hast given us Uke sheep for ectHng, and scat" 
tered us among the gentiles :^ others, in moun- 
tainous hiUs, menacing, craggy, walled, and 
very thick woods and marine rocks, constantly, 
reckoning their life to be in the most inmiinent 
peril, although, fearful, continued in the coun- 
try. The time, therefore, intervening a little, 
when the most cruel spoilers had retired home, 
the remains, strengthened by god (to whom the 
most miserable citizens fled for tniccour, on all 

• Psalm xHv. 11. 



48 THE LIFE OF 

sides^ from divers places^ as eagerly as bees from 
a storm approaching their hive), entreating him, 
all at once, with their whole heart and (as it is 
said) loading the skies with their nmnberless 
vows, lest they should be destroyed by universal 
slaughter, the leader being Ambrose-Aurelian, 
a modest man (who, peradventure, of the Roman 
nation> alone survived the collision of such a 
tempest, his relations, who wore the purple, 
being slain in the same, whose progeny, then, 
(in the author's time,) had greatly degenerated 
from the virtue of their ancestors), they took 
up strength, provoking the victors to battle> to 
whom, the lord assenting, the victory fell * 

In the seventh year of the arrival of the Saxons 
in Britain [454], was fought a battle at JEilles- 
treu :\ in the beginning, therefore, Hors smote 
the battalion of Cantigern, with such vigour, 
that, in the manner of dust, being dispersed, it 
was overthrown, and slew the king's son, lying 
prostrate. Vortimer, however, his son, a man, 
truly, very stout, from moving oblique, broke 
the battalion of Hors, and Hors himself, the 
bi^vest of men, being killed, the remains of the 
cohort fled to Hengist, who, when he had en- 

* Gildas (Josaelin's edition), C. 25. 
t ^geUthorp, ^gelesford, Ailsford, in Kent, at the bank 
of the river Medway. This battle has been mentioned already^ 



KING ARTHUR. 49 

countered the wedge of Ambrose, invincibly, 
then, therefore, the weight of the battle was 
turned upon Hengist, and, being straitened by 
the bravery of Vortimer, when he had long per- 
severed, not without great loss of the Britons, 
being overcome, he, who had never before fled, 
fled now : but, in the following year, Vortimer, 
the flower of youths, perished by disease, with 
whom, both at once, the hope and victory of the 
Britons were extinct.* Vortigern reigned in 
Britain, and, while he continued to reign, was 
molested from the fear of Ambrose.t From the 
Teign of Vortigern unto the discord of GuitoUn 
and Ambrose were twelve yeard, which was 
Chwloppum, that is, Catguoloph.X Vortigern had 
three sons : the third, Pascent, who reigned in 
two regions, that is, Guelth and Vortigermanum, 
After the death of hb father, giving his suffrage 
to Ambrose, who had been a great king among 
all the regions of Britaln.§ William of Malmes- 

* Henry of Hantingdon, P. 310, Accorjimg, however, to 
the Saxon Chronicle, the year, in which this battle was fought, 
was 455, the British general, king Vortigern, the place, 'EgeUt' 
fardi unless they have been different engagements. 

t HJemma, C. 28. 

% Idem (Samuel potiiU), C. 1, p. 96, 97, of Bertram's 
edition. 

$ Idem, C. 5, p. 131, 186, 198, of Bertram's edition. 
" Were not," asks Girald Bany, " the [Britons] brave in 



so THE LIFE OF 

btti7> indeed^ saysj thai " Ambrose^ the sole 
surYivdr of the Romansy after Vortigern> was 
monarch of the realm/ '^ 

war ... in the rdgn of AvunlxuA JMbfnvmt whom, even," he 
adds, " Eutrqptus praises" (ilngZta vuxat II, 448). In &ct, 
however, 'Eutrofwu, ends his history in 364, 200 years before 
the SBra of Ambrose ; whose Latin name, moreover, was AaAfru' 
iKmm ilureitanus, not AvtnivM ilm&roiiics, as be was, first* deno« 
'm&rm/kmA bj Gcoffiney of MoQDiovth ; io that the bishop of 
Mnt-David's had swallowed the gross felsehood of the lushop 
of. Saint-Asaph. John Lewis, a Welsh lawyer, whose foUo 
" History of Great Britain" is replete with forgeries and &lse- 
boods, takes this Am^bromiA AwdUmus for S[ain]t Ambrose. 
According to John of Tynemouth, in the life of Babridus, that 
place is Ambrose's-monnt;. which is now vulgarly called Stan« 

heoges (Usher's vlnti^ilMrteitf p- Ml*) 

* B. 1, p. 9 (Frankfort edition, 1601, folio). Howerer, it 
must be acknowledged that this respectable historian, who 
Commences his work with the arriyal of the Saxons, knew very 
little of the Britons, and that the little information he had waa 
l^eaned ftom « peUoted mannseript of Ntimkit, wluch be ap» 
peart to have takea for the weriL of Qildasi tboogh he namei 
neither. 



KING ARTHUR. 51 



CHAP. XIV. 
Of Arthur's birth. 

Arth vb was born at Padstow in Cornwall.* 

It seems impossible to deduce the descent of 
Arthur from any authentic source. At the end 
of David Williams's '* History of Monmouth- 
shire" are two different pedigrees of this great 
monarchy formed partly from the British history 
and partly in the imagination of two Welshmen^ 
who could not distinguish a lie from a fact. 
That such has been the character of a Cambrian 
genealogist is ^manifest from the life of saint 
Cadoc> a Welshman^ extant in a Cotton manu- 
script of the thirteenth century (Vespasian^ A. 
XIV^ of which further notice will be taken) ; 
where his pedigree is thus accurately deduced : 
'' Augustus Cesar genuit Oct<wianum, Octavianus 
genuit Hberium, Tiberius genuit Gaxum, Gaius 

* ** Es charta topogrt^luca AngUt^ (Leland's CoUectaiMa, 
JSl^tf^ It will appear, hereaHter, that he was king of both 
Cornwall and Devonshire; though he might have possesfled 
royal territories in Wales* it is not, however* known where. 



53 THE LIFE OF 

genuit daudkim, Claudius genvU Fespoiianum,'* and 
so forth. This gross absurdity, however, is far 
exceeded, by the pedigree of Lhywarch-h^n, in 
William Owen's edition of his '' Heroic Elegies," 
p. vii. No wonder, therefore, that the phrase of 
^' fole Briton" should have become proverbial 
in the thirteenth century.* Even the BoUandist 
editors of the " Acta Sanctorum/* allude to this 
'' familiar fatuity," as they call it, of the Welsh 
people, in feigning genealogies, and refer to 
Alford, at the year 508, number 8, in what 
manner it is said, that Arthur '' drew his origin, 
by his mother, from that noble leader, Joseph of 
Arimathea, who buried the lord :" for they 
write, according to these learned Jesuits, that 
" Helianis, the nephew of Joseph, begat Joshua, 
Joshua begat Aminidab, Aminidab begat Cas- 
tellors, Castellors begat Mavael, Mavael begat 
Lambord, his son, who begat Igema> of whom 
Uther-Pendragon begat the noble and famous 
Arthur." t Owen, in a later book, of which 
more will be said hereafter, assertcr, without the 
slightest authority, that Arthur, was *^ the son 
of Meirig ab Tewdrig, and the twentieth in 
descent from Bran ab Llyn," and, in 501, '^ was 

* Peter LBogtoff s Chronicle, as translated by Robert Mao* 
lUDg, p. 167. 
t Molt, III, 587. 



KING ARTIJUK. 53 

a chieftain of the Silurian Britons^** and> in 517^ 
'^ was elected^ by the states of Britain^ to sove- 
reign authority." 

Uther-Pendragon (in English^ dragons-head)> 
the reputed Ihther of Arthur^ niay> possibly^ have 
taken that surname from the form of his hehnet 
or his crest. The most ancient author (if one 
may believe him to have actually been the com- 
poser of what has been ascribed to him) who 
appears to have made mention of this Uther^ is 
Taliesin^ sumamed Benbeirdh (the head or chief 
of the hardsj, who flourished (as they say) in 
the sixth century^ and is^ certainly^ mentioned 
by Samuel, the interpolator of Nennius, [not] 
long after 858. He appears to have written the 
Marwnad or elegy> of Uther, which is found 
among manuscripts of some antiquity :* his 
name, however, does not occur in the poem 
itself, though that of Arthur does, which, cer- 
tainly, adds nothing to its credit, and has either 
been composed or interpolated after th6 appear- 
ance in 1139, of Geoffrey of Monmouths British 
history, before the publication whereof Arthur 
is never mentioned by any authority unless 
Samuel or some other interpolator of Nenniiu, if 

• «• Ucaruntd Ythyr, Uthuri epUaptdum'* [Utbera elegy]. 
(Lhiiyd'« Archaologia Brttonntca; p. 964,) 

' H 



M THE LIFE OF 

they deserved to be so called.* The next writer^ 

that seems to have noticed his name> without 

knowing it^ is this Samuel or some other inter- 

polatdr^ who says> '' Artur, Latvnk tramlatum, 

sonat ursum horribilem viel malleum ferreum, quo 

Jrangtmtur * nioku* leonum. Mdbuter, BHttank^, 

filius horribUis, Latin^; quoniam d pueritia ma 

'Cntdelisfuit**^ Mab, however^ is agreed to mean 

son, and, though ythr signify horrible, in one 

sense ; Ytkyr, in another, is a proper name, 

■ synonymous with Vther ; so that Mab^Uther 

seems to be the patronymic oi Arthur, and though 

• this might be his namei of baptism, the other 

(Uthers-son) may have been a common method, 

as in fact it was and is to this day among the 

Welsh people to take the surname of ap Rhees, 

ap Richard, ap Hugh, and the like, in addition 

to the baptismal name, and, hence, the frequent 

corruptions, of Preece, Prichard, Pugh, &c.' Ap, 

or ab, is a contraction of Mdb, a son, ^' and used,'* 

according to the dictionaries, ** to serve, ibr- 

inerly, between th^ sons and the Withers name, 

* Edward Williams, the bard and poot, does not think this 
degy attributed to Taliesin, either genuine or ancient. 

t C. 6i. (" Arthur/' that is, ** translated into Latm, sounds 
horrible hior.ot iron maUet, [by which are broken] the 'jaw- 
bones' of lions. Mab^er, in British/ is, in Latin* horribU ton ; 
becaoje from his birth he was cruel." 



KING ARTHUR. 65 

instead of a surname^ as Mac did> at a still ear- 
lier period 3 thus^ in the interpolations to Nen- 
nius, the pedigree of Pascent, the third son of 
Vortigem, king of Britain^ and who reigned, 
after his father^ for a few years, runs thus : 
'' Theudubr^Ziu^ Pascent, Mac Ap-guocan, Mac 
Moriud, Mac Guortheneu, Mac Guitaul, Mac Ap 
Glovi : * at Arthurs feast, (as described by Geof- 
frey of Monmouth) : *' Beside the consuls came 
heroes of no less dignity, who are thus enume- 
rated : Map-Papo, Map-Coil, Mab-Eridur, Map- 
Hogoit, Map-Claut, Map-Cledauc> Mab-Bagan, 
Map-Goit, Map-Trunat, Map-Catel, Map-Ne- 
ton/*t It must be admitted that Uther-Pen- 
dragon is not mentioned by any historian,! ex- 
cept Geoffrey ap Arthur, who does not, in fact^ 
deserve the name of one : but it is, nevertheless, 
highly probable that Arthurs entire name was 
Arthur Mab-Uther. 

• C. 5«. t B. 9, C. 12. 

X £yen the Welsh " triads," which, fineqoently, mentioa 
Arthur, and are quoted by the Welsh as a very ancient autho- 
rity, though not believed to have been written earlier than 
the twelfth century, and, certauily, not before Geoffrey of 
Monmouth, are silent about such a name altogethei^ (Owens 
Cmkbnxm hiography, p. 17.) 



66 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. XV. 



Of Arthurs name. 



'' 1 HE reader," according to Pinkerton, *' need 
hardly be told that Arthur was merely a name 
given by the Welsh to Aurelius Ambrosius, their 
Koman defender against the Saxons :*' to this 
he adds, '' See Gildas, C. 25, Beda, I, 16 :"• 
where nothing like it can possibly be found. 
Neither Gildas nor Bede mentions Arthur nor 
even Aurelius Amhrouus, a name invented, for 
the first time, by GeofiFrey of Monmouth, whom 
this writer is apt, as he has done upon this oc- 
casion, to consult, and cite some more respect- 
able historian. The name of the British king 
mentioned by Gildas and Bede is, in fact, Ambro- 
sius Aurelianus, If " Arthur was, merely, a 
name given by the Welsh'* to Ambrosms Aurelianus 
(the other being a fictitious name), how then 
comes Geoffrey of Monmouth, so far from bring- 
ing them together, to relate the latter to be dead 

* Enqwry into the hittory cf Scotland, I, 76, Note 9. 



KING ARTHUR. 57 

before the former was bom ? '^ Art'Uir, Mr. Pin- 
kerton* says^ signifies the chief or great man :** 
but no such etymology is to be discovered in the 
vocabulary of Lhuyd nor in the several dictiona- 
ries of Richards and Owen : this^ therefore^ is 
another absurdity^ a greater^ even^ than that of 
Samuel^ the interpolator of Nennius, who calls 
.^fr^/mr horrible bear> and> in ^t^ arth, certainly^ 
means a beavj as ythr does Jiorrible. How hap- 
pened it, at the same time, that so accomplished 
a scholar should be ignorant that Arthurs name> 
as expressed in Latin, actually occurs to the 
Roman satyrist> Juvenal, four centuries^ at leasts 
before Arthur was bom : 

<' Cedanau patria, tmant Arturius igthic. 

He is, repeatedly, too, called Arthurius as well 
by CarddoCi as in the Cotton-manuscript of the 
lives of the Welsh Saints, (Vespasian, A. XIV) 
of the 13th century, and, always Arturius, by 
Leland, throughout his Assertio Arturii.** 

In a book written and published by William 
Owen, intitled "The Cambrian biography or his- 
torical notices of celebrated men among the 
ancient Britons [and modem Welsh] :** London^ 
1803i the author says, under the name of 

• S. 3., V, 29. 



58 THE LIFE OF 

ARTHUR, ''It has be^n, generally, inferred 
that the great achievements of this hero created 
those illusory actions and scenes depicted in the 
Mabinogion or juvenilities, and some authors, with 
this phantoin before their eyes, have denied ex- 
istence to the true Arthur of history." (p. 18.) 
Edward Lhuyd, indeed, in his catalogue of Bri- 
tisji manuscripts,* mentions Mabinogi, as extant 
in the red book of Hergest, which he describes 
as a little book, containing certain fabulous 
petty histories of the very ancient British noUes, 
of which he had seen a copy, in four parts, from 
which he gives a few short extracts in Welsh 
and Latin. In Owens dictionary, he explains 
'' Mabinogi [plural mabinogion, from mabinawg, 
mabin, youthful, boyish, mab, a boy, a son], ju- 
venility >» juvenile instruction; the amusement 
of youth 3 the title of some ancient tales, itfa- 
binogi Jem Gmt, The infancy of Jesus Christ :" 
i^iparently, a childish book or book for children, 
like ''Mother Gpose's tales." So far, so good. 
Jle thus proceeds : " That there was a prince of 
this name, 83 Nennius represents, f who often led 
the Britons to battle against the Saxons, in the 
commencement of the sixth century [as Geoffrey 

• Archaeologia fintonnica, Oxford, 1707, folio, p. 262. 
t It IS mentioned by Samuel, who appears to have inserted 
tchoUa or glottet, but never onoe by Nmnius himself. 



KING ARTHint. 59 

of Monmouth says], there ought not to be any 
doubt } for he is mentioned by Llywarchj^ Merd* 
din,f and TaUesin,t poet9 who were his 'con- 
temporaries' and is, often> recorded in the triads, 

'^ WHICH ABB DOCUMBNTS OF UNDOUBTED CBB« 

dit" {IHJ. As to the historical triads, no an- 
cient manuscript is to be founds, $uid> most pro- 
bably^ they are after GeojQErey of Monmouth and 
the Mabinogi : they are^ manifestly^ too childish 
and ridiculous to be of any ' authority.' '' Suchj," 
however, is '' the outline of Arthurs portrait, as 
exhibited by the bards and the triads. The hero 
of that name> in the dramatic tales, called Mabi- 
nogion, is, totally, of different features an4> in 

* Moses Williams, a Welshman and a scholar, positively, 
asserts, in a note on Hump^y Uwydv Commmtariolum 
(P. 115) that " Yarthur [as in Llywarcbs elegy upon deraint 
ap Erbin] is not Arthvb, bat larddur ; peradventure, Jar^ 
dur ab Diwrig, who, very frequently^ occurs in our manu- 
scripts." 

t Merlin the wild, the author of Afallenau or The apple- 
trees, which appears to have been interpolated, with the names 
of Mtdrawd, Arthur and Wenhyfufar, after tlie publication of 
the British ^istory of Geoffrey of Monmouth, whQ, actually, 
wrote the life of this Merlin in Latin verse, 1147. 

X That Arthur, as victor at the battle of Badon, fought about 
512, is mentioned in a pretended elegiac poem of Taliesin of 
which there is no ' memorial' known to be extant eitlier in 
print or manuscript, except a nngle stanza, inserted and traiis- 
lated into Latin, by Sir John Prise. 



eo THE LIFE OF 

fa)ct^ altogether^ another personage. The last is^' 
then^ a mythological character^ of times so an- 
cient as to be for beyond the scope of history :** 
which, indeed, is no bad character of Welsh 
literature in general. '^His attributes in the 
Mtibinogion point him out as such : memorials of 
this being and of several others connected with 
him are, even, written in the heavens, for cer- 
tain constellations bear their name&. Arthur is 
the Great-bear. Telyn Arthur orThe harp of Arthur 
is, also, the British appellation for the constella- 
tion Lyra." This, to be sure, is a very curious 
anecdote of Welsh history : we read of David, 
king of the Jews, baving a harp, but, this is the 
first time, we have heard of the harp of the 
" mythological" king Arthur, '^ There are some 
very extraordinary things to be found,*' adds this 
perspicacious and far-sighted Welshman, '^ con- 
cerning the mythological Arthur, in the Mahmo- 
gum, and, particularly, in the story of Culkwch 
and Olwen, wherein we recognize adventures, 
which must have had a common origin with 
those of Hercules and the Argonaufick voyage* 
(P. 15, 16) : this is, certainly, a singular instance 
of the modesty of this *^ maganmz* Briton, as, it 
might have been, naturally, expected, that '* the 
mythological Arthur" of the Mabinogion, carried 
up his descent many thousand years beyond Her- 



KING ARTHUR. 61 

cules or the Argonauts. This '' common origin^*' 
however^ has the coequal propensity to forgery 
and falsehood^ which is found no less among the 
ancient Greeks than the coeval Welsh. The 
Arcturus or bear-ward> was never [called] the 
constellation of ''The greater-bear.*' 



62 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. XVI. 

Of the death of Howel. 

CriLDAs> a most holy man, was the contempO' 
rary of Arthur, king of the whole of Greater- 
Britain,* whom loving, he loved, whom he, al- 
ways, desired to obey. His twenty- three brothers, 
nevertheless, resisted the rebellious king afore- 
said, not willing to sufifer his dominion j but 
frequently put him to flight, and expelled him 
from the forest and the battle. Howel, the elder, 
by birth, an assiduous warrior and most fa- 
mous knight, obeyed no king, not even Arthur. 
He afflicted him, he excited between both the 
greatest fury. He, very frequently, came from 
Scotland,t he kindled fires, he carried away 
spoils, with victory and praise : whereupon the 
king of universal Britain, hearing the magnani- 
mous youth to have done such things, and to do 

* This can only mean Wales or part of Wales, and is termed 
Greater Britain in opposition to Less or Little Britain. In the 
middle of the sixth century, the greater part of England was 
in the possession of the Saxons. 

t Cau or Kau, the father of these twenty-four brethren, was 
a petty king of Strath-Clyde. 



KING ARTHUR. es 

others equals pursued the most yictorious and 
best of youths so that the natives said and hoped 
he was about to be their king. In this hostile 
pursuit^ however^ and in a warlike meeting, in 
the Isle of Man,* he slew his enemy the plun- 
derer. After that slaughter, Arthur, the con-' 
queror, came back, rejoicing, very greatly, that 
he had overcome his strongest enemy.t Gildas, 

* Myna, in the manoacript now citing. Mona (Anglesey), 
erroneooslj by Caesar. Hamphiey Llwyd (in his BritannicdB 
descrrptionu commentariolum," re-edited by Moses Williams, 
1731, 4to., p. 132) says *' There yet remains a fragment of the 
ancient writer Gildas the Briton, ... in the library of Henry 
earl of Arundel, in which these words are had : ** Britain hath 
three islands, Wight against Armorica : the second is situate in 
the navel of the sea, between Ireland and Britain : its name 
Eubonia, vulgarly Manaw/* Bede calls it ** The Menanian 
islands ; and Henry of Hontingdon," the Menarian island, and 
vulgarly called Man.'' (16. p. 133). " NecTprocuX hinc est Mon- 
mnthia, mo&is Mynwy h concurm Monse et Vagae dicta," 
(Jbu p. 103.) lUchard of Cirencester says it had been called 
Maenaedti, and was then called Manaoia, 

t " There is yet extant," according to Sir John Prise, *' a 
place in North Wales, which still retains the memory of this 
slaughter^ and has standing a huge stone, bearing the name of 
this Howel, as was the custom with the ancients to perpetuate 
the memory of such kind of things.** {Defence, &c. p. 143.) 
If this be true, the slaughter did not happen in the Isle of Man, 
but in North-Wales, where the stone stands, and wi.ich in the 
nxth century, [may have] been called the Isle of Mynwy. Menay 
is a river in Anglesey. " Of Gildas," says Girald Barry, 



64 THE LITE OF 

the historiographer of the Britons^ ruling and 
preaching in the city of Ardmach [in Ireland], 
heard that his brother had been slain by Arthur. 
He grieved at the hearing, he wept with groans, 
that the dearest brother, for the dearest brother, 
prayed daily for the firatemal spirit. He prayed, 
moreover, for Arthur, the pursuer and slayer of 
his brother, fulfilling the apostolic command, 
which says, " Pray for those who persecute you 
and bless those that hate you.*' In the mean 
time, the most holy Gildas, the most venerable 
historiographer, came to Britain.^ The arrival 

" who so bitterly inveighs against his own nation, the Britons 
say that on account of his brother, prince of Albany, whom king 
Arthor had killed, being ofiended, he wrote these things: whence 
also, many excellent books, which he had written, concemnig 
the acts of Arthur, and in the praises of his nation, the death 
of his brother being heard, as they assert, he cast them all into 
the sea : by reason of which thing, you find nothing of so great 
a prince expressed in authentic writings." 

(De illau, Wal, c. 27.) 

By " the king on the Clyde, with whom Arthur fought," 
Mr. Sharon Turner, who quotes *' Usher, p. €76,** seems to 
mean this Howel, at p. 677. Arthur, however, fought no king 
oh the Clyde. 

*Pinkertou pretends that the saint and the historian were two 
difierent men." Gildas AUxmius/* he says, " or the saint, must 
be carefully distinguished from that Gildas, who wrote the 
book De ex<Hdio Britonum [Britanniai] : and who lived a cen- 
tury after . . . Caradoc of Uancarvon [Llancarvan], the Welch 



KING ARTHUR. 65 

of GUdas the wise being heard by king Arthur, 
and the primates, abbots and bishops, of all Bri- 
tain, numberless ' individuals, out of the clergy 
and people came together, that they[might appease 
Arthur for the abovesaid homicide." But, he, 
as he had at first done, the rumour of his brothers 
death being known, granted a pardon to the 
enemy requesting it : he gave him a kiss, and, 
with the gentlest mind, blessed hint. This done, 
king Arthur, grieving and crying received, from 

[Welsh] historian wrote the life of St Gildas, who was only re- 
. markable for superior pietj, and was no writer*' (Enquiry, II» 
275). Yet this identical Car&doc« in his life of Saint Gil- 
das, here cited, expressly says, that teaching, at Glastonbury, 
lie, there wrote the history of the kings of Britain : ** Jbiterip^ 
sit historias de regibtis Britainnie" (c. 20) ; and, repeatedly 
calls him " Brittonum historiographus" (c. 10) ; and " vene^ 
rabilU historiographus** (c. 11.). A different life of this Saint, 
likewise, by an anonymous Monk of Rays, frequently printed, 
though it disagree in many particulars with this of Car^oc, still 
preserves the identity of the bistorieoi and the saint ; and even, 
gives an extract from his book : that Gildas the saint was a 
different person from the '^ British Jeremiah," as Gibbon calls 
him, and was no writer, are two ignorant assertions. Leland, 
Bale, iPits and Tanner, it is true, ennmerate, among them, no 
less than sev«n .Gildases, all distinguished with an appropriate 
«pithet, as, Grildas Albanius. Gildas Bddonicus, Gildas Baunocho^ 
rensist Gildas Cambrius, GUdas Hibemicus, Gildas Quartus 
And Gildas Sapiens; to which Dempster, adds Gildas Aidanus, 
4ind some one else, by way of joke, Gildas Fictitius, 



66 THE LIFE OF 

the bishops standing by> penance and made 
amends, in as much as he was able, till he ended 
his life."* 

* " Thus one man, in his time, plays many parts, 
His acts being seven ages——.** 

It must be admitted, however, there, really, is aGildas, who 
was none of these, and has no addition, but merely flourished 
in the ninth century and left a work intitled, ** Liber de com' 
jmto (Cotton MSS. Vitellius, A. zii), with a prefatory epistle to 
Bdbanus Mounts (inserted in Usher's '* Veterum epistolarum 
Hibemicarum Sylloge :" Dub. 1632, 4to. p. 55). 

Gildas, beside, as we are informed by Leland, [appears] to 
have written books intitled Cambreidos (a metrical version, it is 
likely, of the British history of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who 
came into the world upward of five centtsries after Gildas had 
gone out of it), *' found 80 years and upward, before that time, 
in the Irish isles, and carried into Italy" (^Collectanea, V, 57), 
" by one Blasius Biragm, in 1460,** as Bale says. Whether 
this be what is contained in the Cotton manuscript, (Julius 
D. xi.) ascribed by Bale, in whose hand it seems to have been, 
to a certain Gildas, who flourished, according to that febulous 
writer, in 860 (** Teste Baleo**) : it is, frequently, quoted by 
archbishop Usher, in his ** AntiquitateSt'^ and begins, 

** Primus ab Ytalia post patrisfata relegat" 

Ponticus Virunnku, who abridged Geoffireys British History, 
has some things which are not to be found, precisely in that. 
This is an extract : ** Kow the name of the damsel [Claudius's 
daughter, see that history, B. 4, c. 15.] was Genmsta, 
(although the poet Gildas calls her Invenissa, [luvenissa] , , i . 
and so a dty was there made [by Claadins] . . . and to be 
composed* histories and verses, and the po«ms Cambres, of 



KING ARTHUR. 67 

which, also, m the fifth book of epigramsj, Gilda8,»the £uboq8 
British Poet, sajrs : 

" Jucundte toties ceemi tibi earmina Cambres" 

and said, Sambuca thou rushest from Venus, now to thee Om- 
nidasituiLs becomes vile. Now sambuca is a triangular musical 
instrument (they vulgarly called it a harp), whereof part b 
broad, and being concave is held to the breast, the fingers 
clatter upon the chords, in French they vulgarly call it JBon- 
dose [Q. Bandore, Mandore, F. Pandore, Drayton's, Works,!!, 
736'] ... so, also, Apollonius detracted Typanon for Tymparum, 
and Basamon for BaUomon, so ScAuea for Sambuca, and more- 
over it seems to insinuate as if he himself were the writer of the 
Cambrean song, and from the sphere of Venus the sweetness of 
melody to descend, or, even, Cambre that is Britain, as above, 
it is the British book, as are Caesars commentaries, or any Bri- 
tish book, which was read at Rome, for, always was Britain 
learned, even in Greek, or the Poem of Gildas is not to be 
doubted." Powells edition, 1585, L. 4, P. 28). Lily Gregory 
Gyrald has these words : ** I remember me to have read Gildas 
a British Poet far more ancient (as I think) than these [I have, 
just mentioned], whose elegiack poem appeared to me to be 
written with wonderful facility nor therefore to be, wholly con- 
temned : which, afterward I, also fomid cited in a very andent 
British history." (Opera, L. B. 1696, folio, II, 306.) By this 
<« very ancient Britbh history" he must either mean Geoffrey of 
Monmouth or Poiiticus Virunnius : he is, certainly, deceived 
in imputing an elegiack poem to Gildas. Bale (amongst pal- 
pable falsehoods and forgeries) imputes to his Gildas AUtanius, 
1, Versus vaticiniorum : ** O rabiem Britonum quos copia di* 
vit :" 2, De Sexto cognoscendo : ** Ter tria luslra tenent quum." 
[MS. Bib. Bod. Digby, 186 : Tanner] : 3, Super eodem Sexto : 
" Cambria Camewan Anglis :" 4. Versus Gilde de Sexto tege 
Hibmiie, MS. Bod. 2086, 2157. 



68 THE LIFE OF 

In one of the Cambridge manuscripts of Gildas, Cormac, 
who, in or about the 12th century, prefixed heads for the first 
twenty chapters, which have great merit and are mistaken by 
many, as being the genuine work of Giidas ; but that is, cer- 
tainly, not the case, as, in the same manuscript, his scholia or 
glosses run through the mar^n, but have not been printed (ex- 
cept a few extracts in Ushers Antiquities, the writer whereof 
thus challenges his right to what he had done, in the following 
epigram at the end : 

" Historiam OUdae Cortnac sic perlege scriptam 
DocUnis digitis sentu, cultuque, redactam. 
Hoc t$nu€S niperat, multos carpitque superbos,** 



KING ARTHUR. 69 



CHAP. xvn. 

Of the rape of Gwennimar^ Arthurs queen. 

Glastonbury was besieged by Arthur^ the 
tyrant^ with a numberless multitude^ on account 
of Guennemar^ his wife^ violated and ravished, 
by the unjust king Melvas, in Somersetshire, and 
there brought, on accoimt of the refuge of the 
inviolate place, on account of the fortifications 
of reeds, and of a river, and of a marsh, for the 
sake of protection. The rebellious king had 
sought the queen for the compass of one year ; 
he heard, at length, that she was remaining in 
that place ^ he moved the army of all ComwaU 
and Devonshire, and made ready for a battle 
against his enemies. This seen, the abbot of 
Glastonbury (Gildas, likewise, bearing him com- 
pany), entering between the armies, advised 
Melvas, his king, that he should, peaceably, 
restore the ravished queen. She, therefore, was 
restored, by whom she had been to be restored, 
through peace and benevolence. These things 
being transacted, the two kings, who came to 
the temple of saint Mary, to visit and to pray, 

I 



70 THE LIFE OF 

gave to the abbot many territories, the abbot 
confirming the beloved fraternity, for the peace 
had and for the benefits which they had made, 
and, more amply, those which they were about 
to make. Thence the two kings returned paci- 
fied, promising, reverently, to obey the most 
reverend abbot of Glastonbury, and never violate 
the most holy place nor, even, things subject to 
I3ie principal placet 

* VUa Mfictt Cildae, mamucriptut regk, IS B. VII. 



KING ARTHUR. 71 



CHAP. xvin. 

Of the battles of Arthur. 

I N or about the year 457, the Saxons prevailed 
and increased^ not a little, in Britain. Now, 
Hengist being dead,* Ochta^ his son, wentx)yef, 
from the left t part of Britain, to the kingdom of 
the Cantuarians, and from him are spnmg the 
kings of that country. Arthur fought against 
them^ in those days, that is to say, the Saxons 
with the kings of the Britons 3 but he himself 
was the general of the wars, and in all the battles 
was conqueror, t The first battle was in the 
mouth of the river Glem.§ The second and third, 
and fourth and fifth [battle] upon another river^ 

* He was the first Saxon king of Kent, and died in 488. 

t The le/i, it is said, means the north, because the priest, in 
saying mass, looks toward the east : though, it is beHeTed to be, 
elsewhese, otherwise accounted for. 
-; i Samuels additions to Nenuius's Hbtoria Britonnm, C. 62. 

f The Cambridge manuscript used by Gale, under the name 
i^Gildat, reads Gldn, and, in the mar|^ is Devonia [Devon* 
jJto] and Glem; but more rightly, he says GUm in JAncoln* 



72 THE LIFE OF 

which is called Duglas, which is in the region 
Imms* The sixth battle [was] upon the river 
which is called Bassas.'f The seventh battle was 
in the wood of Caledon^ that is^ Catcovt CeUdon.X 

thire, where is now Glen^ordf There is, however, a river 
Glen in Northumberland, which gives name to GUndaU. Thus, 
in the old ballad of" The hontyng of the Chtpnat ;'* 

" Glendale gljtteiyde on their armor bright." 

* lAnuis or Ltimu, whicli appears to be Lancashire, in which 
is a river, called the Dowglas, which runs by Wigon and goes 
into the sea toward Latham, and is the only one of that name, 
it is believed, in the south of Britain (See Leland's Itinerary, 
V, 96). The etymon of Duglas, in Welsh, is du (dubh, black) 
and glas (blue or green). 

t jBossos.] Where is now Boston, Gale« This, however, 
only shows his folly, Boston being a contraction of Salnt-Bo- 
tuiphs-town. Q. Basford, in Staffordshire. 

t Cath-coit,'] In the margin of the Cambridge manuscript, 
Comubiae [Cornwall] : but, in the Cotton one, also ascribed to 
Gildas, more rightly, (as Gale thinks,) in lAncohuhire : for this 
reason, as it seems : " On the other part at the Avfona [at this 
day the Nen or Wetland] inhabited, with the CamabH Bri- 
gantes and neighbours to the ocean, the Coitanni, ' is' a tract 
of ground overgrown with woods, which, fike other woods of the 
Britons, was called Caledonia : of this, however, the historian 
Floras makes mention." (Bichard ofCSrencester, p,26.) He 
has, likewise, two other Caledoiuan woods, one of which he 
places in Kent, the other in the most distant northern part of 
Scotland. The words of Floras, being said of Caesar : '* Pur- 
suing the same Britons into the Caledonian woods he put one 
of the Cavelanian kings in chains," (B. 3, C. 10.) Who, how- 



KING ARTHUR. 73 

The eighth battle was in the castle Gunnion, The 
ninth battle was waged in the city Legion [which 
in British, is called Kaerleun] * The tenth battle 
was waged on the shore of the river which is 
called RibraU.f The eleventh battle was in the 
mount which is called Agned Cath-Regonion^X 
The twelfth battle was in the mount Badon, in 
which fell, in one day, eight [r. four] hundred 
and forty men, from one bout of Arthur, and no 
man overthrew them but himself alone." § 

ever, the Cavelmu were, does not appear. Humphrey Llwyd 
imagines they may be " The Cattivellani [KolovaXXftyoi] of 
Dio, or the CattieitchUmi of Ptolemy, now Hertford and Back- 
inham, shire moantaineers." (^Com, p. 31.) 

* Now Caerleon-upon-Usk, or Caer'Legion, upon Dee, now 
West-Chester. 

t TrathtreveroU [Traithenrith or Kkydrkwydf"] Gt2<2a< manu- 
script. Ardent, Cotton manuscript and Prise and a Chroniam 
WaUiae, manuscript, cited by Gale, probably Aerae Bntan" 
niae, adfinem, H. liwyd, Ccmmentariolum, 1731, 4to. p. 142, 
Arderydd, 

% In the margin of the Cotton Oildas : '* in Sumerseteshire, 
quem not Cath-bregion." \Cath or c&d, in Welsh, signifies 
hattlei] "These battles, together enumerated, appear to be 
waged in the space of forty years and more, and although, all 
here seem to be attributed to Arthur, nevertheless, they appear 
to have been waged, under Vortigem, Ambrosius and others,** 
says Gale, but without quoting the slightest authority. 

$ £tftorta Brtfpnunt, C. 63. The battle of Badon, accord* 
ing to the computation of ArchlHshop Usher, was ibught in the 



74 - THE LIFE OF 

year 520, i^hich date, with his usuai weakness, he takes hoa 
Matthew of Westminster. ** The Badouick moant/' upon tlw 
best, because the oldest authority, that of Gildas, " was near 
the mouth of the Severn ; and, therefore, cannot be Bant' 
downe or any hill over Bath, though it may be true that the 
British name of that city was Caer'Badon, yet Bath is, in no 
wise, near the mouth of the Severn : and, consequently, the 
situation of Mount Badon b not now known. The birth of 
Gildas happened in the year of this battle : but he does not 
give a predae date throughout his book. His words are these t 
" Et ex eo tempore [466] nunc civet, nunc hottes vincebant ... 
usque ad annum obsessionis Badonid montis, ^ut propi Sabri' 
num ostium habetur, novissimaequeferme dejtirciferit non mi- 
rumae stragit, quique quadragesimus quartus (ut novi oriter * 
\aUat orditur] annus, mense jam primo emenso, qui jam et 
meae nativitatis est." (Hutorta de excidio BrUannue, C, 36). 
In English thus : "And from this time," that is " now the 
citizens, now the enemies conquered . . . until the year of the 
siege of the Badonick mount, which is near the Severn-mouth, 
and which was, almost of the last, not of the least overthrow of 
the villains, and which, as I know, begun the forty-fourth year 
the first [or, one] month bdng now dapsed, which, also, was 
[that] of my nativity." Bede, nearly in the same words, which 
he, certainly, however, misunderstood, supposes the 44th year, 
intended by Gildas, to be that of the arrival of the Saxons [449]; 
and, in consequence of this erroneous computation, fiies the. 
nege of the Badonick mount to the year 492. Archbishop 
Usher, after a quotation, in' his usual manner, from Geoffrey of 
Monmouth,* proceeds as follows (though ndther his Latin or 

* " If one were desired to mention a work capable of shewing 
that an authour may be vastiy and profoundly learned, witb« 
out possessing common judgment. Ushers Antiquitates Brttan- 
nicarum Eccktiarum might be produced as an instance. Yet . ..« 



KING ARTHUR. 75 

English is worth giiring) : *' As to what belongs to the time of 
the battle, Bede notes this overthrow of the Saxous to have been 
made aboia the jTorCiet^ and fourth year of their cammg into 
Britain; referring that number of years declared by Giidas to 
thhigs before-hand ; whereas the time, in winch those things 
were written by him, seems to have been regarded : forasmuch 
as if he had said, from the Badonick slaughter the fortieth and 
fourth year then to have begun to be numbered ; one month 
of that year, being, at that time elapsed : and himself to have 
known it from his age ; because, he himself had learned, fit>m 
his parents, the year both of his own birth and of that victory 
to have been the same. Therefore, Matthew, the florilej^st, 
[who knew nothing of the matter] delivers this battle to have 
been made in the' year of grace 530 : a British chronologer, 
also, [equally ignorant] giving his vote ; whom we have already 
shewn to have numbered from the Badonick battle [of which 
no man of any capacity has ever attempted the exact era] to 
the fall of Arthur 22 years [Above, C. If] : which bdng 
granted, both Giidas, in that year, to have been brought into 
light, and, in the year 564, by hfan written thu epistle of his 
which we have, the corollary will be alike."* This authentic 
Welsh chronologer, whom the archbishop here refers to, is Sir' 
John Prise, as firm a believer in Geofirey of Monmo^th, or hb' 
followers, as himself. In the pages of the Welsh knights book' 
(121, 122)> quoted, by Usher, m the margin of his Antiquitiet, 
p. 216> are these words : " Item m chronicis Brytannici 9criptit 

had his judgment equalled his learning and diligence, he would 
have been &e most valuaUe antiquary that the British islands • 
ever produced." (Pinkerton's Enquiry into the History of 
Scctlmd, 1, 106.) It is, cortainly, a Just character. Camden 
and Heame, however, and many others, are little better, and 
Stnkdey u below contempt. 

• Briton. EccUMrum Antiquitates, C. 13, P. 254. (1687, 
folio.) 



re THE LIFE OF 

anti^iminis" palpable extracts firom that writer, who fixes tiie 
fiUl ^f Arthur to the year 543, and, published by Moses WU« 
luims, at the end of his edition of Humphrey Uwyds " JBritai»» 
nkae de^cripHonis commentariolum,** (Landon, 1731, 4to.X 
whic^ he calls " AertR CamhrqbritanniaB,** which end in 1254» 
and are nothing but a despicable farrago of no real antiquity^ 
but servilely pla^arised>. from the British history, so far as it 
goes. It }s an unfounded assertion, that the Welsh either haye 
pr ever had an authentic history or chronology b^ore th^ 
twelfth century. 

Doctor Smithy the learned editor of Bede, after giving the 
words of Gildas, " QuifM quadragerimtu, &c.*' adds, " whichy 
being considered the number of years declared by Qildas, ap- 
pears to be rather the time of writing than the airiTal of the 
l^axons : for Gildas; that is, to have written a year from the 
ipardonic fight, 44 the year to ^mself, in the first place was 
memorable* to whom, also, was that of his birth. If this b^ 
the true interpretation,*' he adds, " it will give another chrono- 
logy of this time."* This, no doubt, may be the true construe- 
tion, ye^ as Gildas specifies neither the date of the battie, nor 
fbat of his birth, nor that of writing his querulous epbtle, the 
former cannot be, possibly, ascertuned to be 520, nor the 
latter 564. The year of lus death is known, upon good autho-. 
rity (that of the Ulster annals^, to be 570 ; so that, by coin- 
puting, backward, to Hhfi battle of Badon, it is impossible tf^ 
fix it higher than 526. Still ndther Matthew of Westminster 
nor Sir John Prise or his modem Welsh chronicles, pilfered 
firom that notorious fabrication Geoffrey of Monmouths '' His- 
tory of Britain," will afford any decisive authority that520 was 
the exact year ; as, in 570, Gildas would be only 50 years old 
at his death, which is highly improbable, as the nxmkB and 

* Note on Bedes Eecktmtical JERstary, $. 1^ c« 16.^ . ) 



-KING ARTHUR. 77 

hennits, by their habitaal temperance, generally attained a 
very great age. 

If Taliessin were the contemporary of Arthur (and» certainly 
the name of this bard is mentioned, among others, in the addi- 
tions to Nennius's " History of the Britons/') and the poem 
supposed, to allude to this engagement be genuine, they would 
be decisive evidence in favour of Arthur and his victory at B&- 
don -mount. The same bard mentions him again in the Marwnad 
Uthyr Pendragon ('• Myrvyrian Archaiology of WaUi,** 1, 7%), 
but in no other poem. In the same collection are three dialogues, 
between Arthur, Cai and Glewlwyd(1, 167^ ; between Arthur 
and Gwenhwyvar (1, 175^ ', and betweto Arthur and Eliowlod 
(1, 176.^ Lhuyd mentions a very ancient Welsh poem, in 
Jesus College, Oxford, intitied ** TMghfnion yr eryr, a dialogue 
between Arthur and an eagle." (Archteologia, P. 256^. Arthur 
is, likewise, repeatedly mentioned, m a dialogue " between 
Trystan and Gwalchmai (7, 178^ ; and, with both Gwenhwy- 
iar and Medrawd, in the AfaUenau of Merlin the wild : if, that 
is, these poems can be proved of sufficient antiquity. He is not, 
however, according to Moses Williams, the Y Arthur who oc- 
curs in a poem of Dywarch-h^, as Sir John Prise, Lewis and 
William Owen, doubtless, by a corruption of some of the ma- 
nuscripts, as A/^niaros, though a man of some learning, was yet 
a Welshman, and, certainly, would never have given up Ar- 
thur, if he had not been satisfied of the forgery or sophistica- 
tion of that name [y Arthur or i Arthur, for Yarthur] : his 
words being Yarthur rum Arthurus est, sed lardurus, larddur, 
forti larddur ab Diwrig, qui in nestris codidbtu numusaiptis 
saepiut occurrit.*** Carte says that Uywarch mentions, in his 
poems, that he had been at the court of King Arthur : but 
notiiing of that kind is to be found in Owens edition,' 

* Humfredi Lkoyd, Britannicae denriptionis commentario' 
lum Accurante Mose GuUelmio, Londini, 1731," p. 115. 



78 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. XIX. 
Of Arthurs dominions and royal palaces. 

J/HB dominions of the British kings were, pro- 
bably, not very considerable. The best authority 
for the situation of Arthurs kingdom seems to be 
a passage in Carddocs life of Saint Gildas : when 
he had laid siege to Glastonbury, the castle or 
palace of Melvas, king of Somerset, who there 
detained Guennimar, his queen, '' He thither 
moved the army of whole Cornwall and Devon- 
shire :*'* which seems to denote that he had the 
power of those provinces, and, consequently, 
was king thereof. He might, however, be styled 
king, or a king of Britain, which appears to have 
been a usual custom with the British kings. He 
might, nevertheless, have had territories, in South 
Wales J but, certainly, was not king of Gwent, 
which was possessed by Artkrius or Arihruis, ap- 
parently, a different name and of a distinct race 
or family, which is much better known than that 
of our Arthur, whom one may safely venture to 

♦ C. 2«. 



KING ARTHUR. 79 

call king of Cornwall. The tradition^ preserved 
by Leland^ of his being born in Padstow, ap- 
pears^ likewise^ to afford some countenance to 
his being of that country 3 of which there are 
other circumstances, by no means irrelative : 
more plausible^ at leasts than any thing concern- 
ing his life or actions^ related in Geoffrey of 
Monmouths ^'History of Britain/* or the Welsh 
legends^ which are founded upon it ; as this 
people^ it is certain, have not the life of a single 
saint, containing any anecdote^ or, even, the 
name of Arthur, or any of his ancestors, des- 
cendants or other connections, which is not pos- 
terior to, and polluted by, that false and fabulous 
compilation 3 except that of Saint Gildas, by Ca- 
rddoc of Llancarvan, whom Geoffrey himself, 
along with William of Malmesbury and Henry 
of Huntingdon, orders *' to be silent concerning 
the kings of the Britons [of which he had treated], 
since they had not that book of the British 
speech, which Walter [of Wallingford], arch- 
deacon of Oxford, brought out of Britany." 

With respect to Arthurs palace, '' They report 
that a certain man [named] Dihoc, a prince of 
Less-Britain, by incestuous fornication^ polluted 
bis own daughter and of her begot Saint Kyned : 
who, in a province, by name Gayr,* at one mile 

* Gwyr, Gower, or Gower-iand, a promontory upon the 



80 THE LIFE OF 

from the palace of Arthur^ being brought to 
lights and in the island^ which, in British, was 
called Ynis'Weryn, in Latin, Insula turbae [the 
isle of trouble], not without a miracle, for eigh- 
teen years, educated, in Glamorganshire, with 
Saints David, Theliau and Patern, connected by 
necessity, passed away the time of his remaining 
life : in that peninsula, doubtless, which is called 
Western-Gower, and, at the sea, serves a place, 
noted to this day by the name of Saint-Kenets- 
chapel.*** A passage in the life of Saint Iltut 
expressly speaks of Arthurs palace, though it 
does not name it: "The magnificent knight, 
Bican, in the mean time, hearing the magnifi- 
cence of king Arthur, his cousin, desiring to 
visit the court of so great a conqueror, deserted 
that which we call Further-Britain, and came, 
sailing, where he saw the greatest abundance of 
knights.t There, likewise, being honorably 
received and rewarded to his warlike desire, his 

SeTem-sea, now in Glamorganshire (^formerly Morganwg), 
now called Wormt-head, Within this territory were several 
old castles : as, for instance, Si^esey Cthat is, in Saxon, the 
water of sea-hogs or porpoises ; now Swansea,) Guible, Penrise, 
and " Lochor-castle, 'standing' on the hither side of Lochor- 
river, in the lordship of Gower/' (Lelands ColUctanea, III, 94.> 
* Ushers Antiquities (from John of Tinmoath^, p. 275* 
t Tl^is must be fiUse, as there were no knights in the sixth 
century. 



KING ARTHUR. 81 

desire of taking presents being fulfilled, he de- 
parted most gratefiil, from the royal court."* 

"The public report of those inhabiting the 
roots of the Camaletic mount, affirms, extols, 
sings the name of Arthur^ the inhabitant, for- 
merly, of the castle, which same, in time past, 
being both magnificent and very strongly forti- 
fied, and in a very high prospect, where the 
mount rises up, was situate. Good gods ! how 
many [are] here of the most deep ditches ! How 
many are here of trenches of cast-out land ! Fi- 
nally, what precipices ! and that I may finish in 
few [words], it seems to me, truly, a miracle 
of both art and nature." f 

" At seges est ubi Troiafuit, ttabulantur in urbe, 
I^fostispecuda altis, valloque tumenti 
Taxus et ostuttB poniere cubilia vulpesJ* 



€€ 



At the very south ende of the chirch of South 
Cadburi, standith Camallate, sumtyme a famose 
town or castelle, upon a very tone or hille won- 
derfully enstrengthenid of nature : to the which 

* Fo. 43« h. So that, it would seem, John ofTmmoath was 
mistaken in attributing the journey to Iltut, the son of Bican, 
himself: See Usher, 252. 

t Leiands Collectanea, V. 1^8, 29. The three Latin lines 
are extracted from the Arckitkrenius of John Hanvil, of which 
there were two editions, but no printed copy is now known to 
exist 



84 THE LIFE OF 

have g^ven rise to the following nursery-rhyme : 

" I went to Taffys house^ 
Tafiy was not at home^ 

Tafiy came to my house. 
And stole a marrow-bone/** 

(Letter from Lewis Morris* Cambrian Eegitter, L 550; and 
accoant of the life of Llywarch li6n, prefixed to William Owens 
edition of his Heroick Elegies, Sec p. viii. note). It mentions, 
however, the ecclesiastical historian Bede, who died in 731 » 
and Morgan Mnyn-vaar, king of Glamorgan, whose death 
happened about 973, and savours too much, it must be con- 
fessed, of Geoffrey of Monmouths British history, to be, even, 
coeval with that book, which, as has been, elsewhere, proved^ 
first appeared in the year 1 138. Of whatever age it may be, 
it contains a variety of the adventures of king Arthur, and 
other Welsh heroes, the names of hu knights, courtiers, ofilcers, 
wives, mistresses, and the like ; but, most probably, nothing, 
except fiible and romance. Bx>bert Vaughan, of Hengwrt, who 
was bom in 1592, and died in 1666, had proposed and pre- 
pared an edition of this book, in Welsh and English, with 
notes ; but it never appeared, nor b it certainly known what 
became of it, or where it is. The most andent manuscript of 
these triada is the Lhyvr koch o Hergest, or red book of Her- 
gcst, now in Jesus-college, Oxford, and the most modem, belike, 
in the Harleian library, number 4181, with a partial transla- 
tion by Hugh Thomas, and corrected, in many parts, by W. T. 
[William Thomas ?] with additions of his own, 
* Gammer Gurtoiu garland* 



KING ARTHUR. 85 



CHAP. XX. 
Of the death of Arthur. 

L E L A N D^ speaking of the Alan^ a river in Corn« 
wall, says, "By this ryvere Arture fowght his 
last feld, yn token whereof the people fynd there, 
3m plowyng, bones and hameys.*** John, abbot 
of Burgh [Peterborough, that is, about the year 
1250], according to the same antiquary, had, in 
his annals, committed these [words] to his faith- 
ful papers : " King Arthur, about to die, hid 
himself, lest at such an event, his enemies should 
insult, and his friends, being confused, should be 
molested.* *t There seems, in fact, some truth in 
this anecdote > since it does not appear to have 
been known, for 640 years, to any person in the 
kingdom, where his or his wifes body had been 
interred. William of Malmesbury, a Somerset- 
shire man, and very intimate, no doubt, at Glas- 
tonbury-abbey, who is supposed to have died in 
1143, expressly says that ''the sepulchre of 
Arthur was never seen.'* It would appear a most 

* livMrary, VII, 114. t ColUctmea, Y, 44. 

K 



86 THE LIFE OF 

extfaordinary circumstance that the bodies of 
Arthur and his queen could have been interred 
in the public cemetery of Glastonbury-abbey, 
with all the usual processions, dirges and 
ceremonies of the abbot and monks, without 
which no interment was ever permitted in such 
a place, and that this should be unknown to 
those who actually assisted in and performed 
the ceremony.* 

* Thii may be thus accounted for : the abbot and monks of 
Qlaftonboiy were a very, different set from those of Henry the 
Seconds : being Britons or Welsh, it is probable, they kept no 
registers, or, if they had kept any, they nught be destroyed hy 
the Saxons, who, for some time were Pagans. The precise 
year of Arthurs death has never been, and, roost likely, never 
•will be ascertained. 



KING ARTHUR. 87 



CHAR XXL 

Of Noah, the son, and Walwen, the nephew, 

of Arthur. 

" Noah (No^), the son of Arthur, fulfilling the 
commandment of the apostle, saying, " Give and 
it shall be given to you :** and, elsewhere, ' as* is 
said, '' The hand extending [itself] shall not be 
indigent," gave, for the commerce of the celes- 
tial kingdom, in the first time, the land Fenna- 
lun, with his territory, without any assessment 
to [any] earthly man, but only to god and the 
archbishop Dubricius and Landaff, founded in 
honour of Saint Peter 3 and to all succeeding him 
and Llan-Teilo-maur, upon the bank of the 
Tyvi, with his two territories, where Teliau, the 
pupil and disciple of saint Dubricius, frequents 3 * 
and the territories of the North- Welsh,t upon 
the bank of the river Tay : Noah putting his 
hand upon the four gospels, and commending, 
in the hand of the archbishop Dubricius, this 

* Teliau succeeded Dubridus, as archbishop, in 512. It 
is not known how long the latter had continued in the see. 
t AquiUnnum, 



68 THE LIFE OF 

alms for ever, with all his refuge, and with all 
his liberty in field and in woods> in water and in 
pastures, under an everlasting curse, whosoever 
from that day in future,* should separate from 
the church of LandafP, the aforesaid lands, and 
with his dignity : jdmen. Of the laicks, Noah 
is the only witness, with a numberless power of 
men. Of the clerks, truly, the archbishop Du- 
bricius, Arguistil, Ubelbui, Lovann, Lunabui> 
Conbran, Guorvan, Ethearn, Ludnou, Gurdocui, 
Guernabui. Be peace in their days, and abun- 
dance of things to those who shall confirm the 
gift : and to those who shall violate it [let] their 
sons be orphans and their wives widows.*'* 

* In antea, 

t Monasticon Anglicanutn, III, 190, (from the register of 
Landaff). This is the only instance which occurs, apparently in 
that register, with the name of Arthur, so spelled : the king of 
Gwent, son of Mouric, king of Morganwg, and father of Mor- 
cant, is, uniformly called Arthrhis or ArthruU i who appears a 
different personage, and was of a later age, being contempo* 
rary with Coroegem or Comergwyn, bishop of Landaff, about 
600. If, therefore, the battle of Badon were actually fought 
by king Arthur (who, at the same time, is not here called a 
king, nor appears, eren, to be living at the time his son ezecated 
this grant, in the presence (amongst other witnesses) of the 
archbishop Bubricins, who died in 512 : so that he is near ten 
years too soon, as Arthruis is above twenty too late. Sir John 
Prise, who appears to have had the register of Landaff (now in 
liclifield-catbedral, where it is called Saint Chads book), only 
notices this grant from a certain Nde, son of Arthur (p. 1S7). 



KING ARTHUR. 89 



« 



In the province of Wales, which is called 
Ros, was found the grave of Walwen, who was 
the not-degenerate nephew of Arthur out of his 
sister and reigned in that part of Britain, which 
hitherto is called Walwertha : a knight most 
famed in valour, but, from the brother and ne- 
phew of Hengist, being driven out of his king- 
dom, first compensating his exile by their great 
damage. Communicating, deservedly, to the 
praise of his uncle, that the fall of his tottering 
country he put off for many years. But the 
grave of Arthur was never seen, whence the 
antiquity of trivial songs fables him yet to come : 
as to the rest, the grave of the other, as I have 
said before, was found in the time of king Wil* 
liam [1086], upon the shore of the sea, fourteen 
feet long, where, by some, he is asserted to have 
been wounded by his enemies and cast out to sea; 
by some he is said to have been killed by the 
citizens in a public feast. Hie knowledge of 
the truth, therefore, wavers in doubt, although 
neither of them has wanted to the defence of his 
fame."* 

* William of Malmsbuiy, B. 3, p. tin, (cdidon of Frank- 
fort, 1601, folio.) Geofirey calls Walwm, Walganus, by 
otbera be is called Galgantu, Gawam, Gmnn or Waufm, the 
W and G bdng conTertible in Welsh. The d«te, 1086. 
and the 21st year* of the king, is in Lelandi Ck)UectanMa, I, 
417-: but how be rame by it does not appear. ^ 



90 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. XXII. 
Of Arthurs popularity. 

iT ILL I AM Somerset^ monk of Malmesbury, 
who appears to have died in the year 1143, has 
these words : [Vortimer] being extinct, the 
strength of the Britons withered away [and] 
their hopes^ being impaired^ flowed back, and 
now and then had [things] suddenly gone worse 
' if* Ambrose, the sole svrvivor of the Romans 
who, after Vortigern, was monarch of the realm, 
had not weighed down the swelling barbarians, 
with the glorious acts of the warlike Arthur. 
This," he says, " is the Arthur of whom the 
elegiac songs of the Britons, at this very day, 
dote :^ worthy, it is plain, whom not fallacious 
fables should have dreamed, but veracious his- 
tories should have spoken, forasmuch as he long 

• De gexk\& regum Anglorum, L. 1, C. 1, p. 9. " Bnttonum 
huga:" tbete nuga or elegiac songs or poems, usually com^ 
pose<i on the fall of great heroes, ore elsewhere (L. 3, p, 115)> 
called ** antiquitas naeniarum,*' a word of the same meaning, 
hare not come down to us in a single inst^ce. 



*• 



**> 



KING ARTHUR. 91 

sustained his falliug country and whetted the 
broken citizens to war.t 

'' This country,** says Girald Barry, bishop of 
Saint-Davids, speaking of Wales, '' except from 
the north, is shut up, on all sides, by lofty moun- 
tains, having on the west, the mountains of the 
cantred Bachan, on the south, the southern 
mountains, the principal of which is called Cadair 
Arthur, that is, Arthurs chair, on account of the 
twin points of the promontory, looking in the 
manner of a chair ; and forasmuch as the chair 
was situate in a high and arduous place, it was 
by vulgar nuncupation assigned to Arthur, the 
highest and greatest king of the Britons."* 

Sir John Prise gravely remarks, *' Not far from 
this lake ILkyn-Tegyd, near Harlech] is a place 
called Caergay, which was the house of Gay, 
Arthurs foster-brother."t 

* Ibi. It is higlil^ probable, nerertbdess, that this yene- 
rable monk, who commences his history with the Saxon kings« 
knew very little of the hbtory of the Britons, and still less of 
king Arthur, and that all the information he had was derived 
from an a^pparently imperfect and interpolated copy ofNenmui, 
whom, however, he never once names. What he says of " re- 
radons histories" of Arthar, seems to prove that there was no 
such thing dther in England or Wales. 

* Itmerarium Cambria, L. 1, C. 2. 

t Descriptum of Wales, (prefixed to Caradoct Bistorie of 
Cambria, by Lboyd and Powell, 1584, 4to. b. l.)p* 9. 



92 THE LIFE OF 

** Jhrtures hiUe is iii good Walsche miles 
south-west from Brekenok> and in the veri toppe 
of the hille is a faire welle spring. This hille of 
smnme is countid the hiest hille of Wales^ and in 
a veri clere day^ a manne may see from hit a part 
of Malvern-hilles> and Glocestre^ and Bristow^ 
and part of Devenshir and Corn wale."* 

*' In the isle of Anglesey are several cromlechs, 
which they there call Arthurs quoits,** f 

" Withyn a myle of Perith, but in Westmer- 
laud> is a ruine> as sum suppose of a castel> 
withyn a flite-shotte of Loder and as much of 
Emot water, stonding almost as a mediamnis be- 
twixt them. The ruine is of sum caullid the 
round-table, and of summe, Artures castel.*'|: 

'^ On this ry ver," says Froissart, mistaking the 
Tyne for the Esk, " standeth the towne and 
castell of Carlyel, the whiche some tyme was kyng 
Arthurs, and held his courte there often-times.*'§ 

A parish, in Cumberland, is called by '* The 
name oi Arthuret or Arthurs -head :*'t| 

" Etterby [a township, in the parish of Stan- 

• Lelands Itinerary, V. 70. 
t Wrights Louthianot Fart S» Page 11. 
% Ldandi Itinerary, VII, b9, 
i English Traudation, 1525, fol vii, 6. 
1 History of Cumberland, by Nicoltou and Bam, 1777, 4to. 
p. 471. 



KING ARTHUR. 93 

wix^ in Eskdale-ward^ Cutnberlaad]> in old writ- 
ings is called Arthuri burgum [Arthurs-borough], 
which seems to imply that it had been a consi- 
derable village. Some afiirm, its name from 
Arthur, king of the Britons, who was in this 
country, about the year 550, pursuing his victo- 
ries over the Danes and Norwegians, [r. the 
Saxons, the '^ Danes and Norwegians** did not 
arrive in Britain for three centuries after the 
death of Arthur]".* 

Two old ballads, upon the subject of king 
Arthur, printed in bishop Percys Reliques of an' 
dent English poetry, suppose his. residence at Car- 
lisle } and one of them, in particular, says, 

" At Teame-Wadling his castle stands." 

Thus, likewise, in an ancient Scotish metrical 
romance, of great merit, 

" In the tyme of Arthur an aonter bytydde. 
By the Tume-Wathelan, as the boke telles. 
When he to Carlele and conquerour kydde, jv." 

" Teame-Wadling," according to the inge- 
nious editor of the above-mentioned ReUques, and 
which, as he observes, is evidently the Tume 
Wathelan of the Scotish poem), ''is the name 

* History of CumUrland,fi^54h 



94 THE LIFE OF 

of a small lake near Hesketh in Cumberland^ on 
the road from Penrith to Carlisle. There is a 
tradition^*' he adds> ^'that an old castle once 
stood near the lake, the remains of which were 
not long since visible j** Team or Tarn, in the 
dialect of that country, being still in use for a 
lake. The tradition is, that either the castle or 
a great city was swallowed up by the lake (which 
is now called Armanthwaite, from an estate it 
adjoins and belongs to, and may be still seen, 
under favourable circumstances, at its bottom. 

Walter de Percy, by a charter, in the time of 
Richard the first, confirms, amongst other tene- 
ments, to Roger de Bagot, all the land, which he 
had under the way that led to Werverton, which 
was called ''Arthurs buttes/* in the territory of 
Crathome, in Cleveland.* 

To the east of Guisbrough, in Yorkshire, within 
sight from the road to Whitby, stands 

" Freebro'shage mount, immortal Arthurs tomb,f 

The memory of this illustrious monarch, on 
account of his heroick actions and celebrated 

* Original charter in the archiyes of Thomas Crathoroe, of 
Crathome, esquire. 

t Clevelandrprospect, by John Hall Stevenson, esqoire, author 
of "The crazy tales," and several other poems of humour and 
excellence. 



KING ARTHUR. 95 

name> received distinguished honour^ in being 
placed in the heavens^ as a constellation of him- 
self^ and his war-chariot> amongst the stars. 
This appears from an ancient poem of the seventh 
century, composed by Aldhelm^ abbot of Malmes- 
bury, afterward, bishop of Sherborne, v^rho died 
on the 25th of May, in the year 709, and ob- 
tained the dignity of sainthood, being canonised, 
it is presumed, by the bishop of Rome. The 
verses are : 

DE ARTURO. 

Syderm ttipor turmis m vertic€ fmmdi, 
Essedafamoso gesto cognomine vulgi. 
In gyro vdvetu higiter non vergo deoman. 
Cetera ceu properant cxhrum lumina ponto. 
Hoc ' dono ditor qaoniam' sum proximus azi. 
' Rypheis ScytuB qui lati^ montibus errat, 
Vergilias aquam numerii in arce polorum ; 
Cui pars vnf trior stygia letheaque palude 
Fertur ' infemVfundo swxumbere nigro,* 

(Of Arthur, 

With starry troops I am enTironed, in the pole of the world; 
I bear a war-chariot with a famous surname of the mlgar. 
Rolling in a circle, continually, I do not decline downward. 
As the other lununaries of the heavens hasten to the sea. 

* S, Aldhelm Poetica nonnuUa, . . M^g^ntiai, tCOt, Iftao. 
(p. 63.) 



96 THE LIFE OF 

I am enrich*d with this gift, forasmuch as I am next to the pole. 
He who wanders in the R^phaean mountains of Scjthia, 
Equaling, in numbers, the Seven-stars, in the top of the poles ; 
Whose lower part, in the stygian and lethean marsh. 
Is reported to fall down in the black bottom of hell.) 

In Scotland, near Falkirk, hard by the Carron, 
was, anciently, a Roman building, of a round 
form, demolished by the Gothic owner of the 
ground on which it stood, one named Sir 
Michael Bruce,, to repair a mill, which relic of 
antiquity bore the name of Arthurs-hqf, or 
Arthurs-oon (or oven.) As a just judgment 
upon this sacrilegious act, the above mill was, 
soon after, swept away by the river. It is re- 
markable that Grawin Douglas, bishop of Dun- 
keld, a noted poet, has described this erection in 
the milky way : 

" Of every steme the twyiikling notis he. 
That in the stil hevin move cours we se, 
Arthurys-hufe and Hyades, betaiknjng rane. 
Syne Watlmg-strete, the Home and the Charle-wane."* 

It is as little known that Arthurs-Plough 
has likewise obtained immortality, by an ever- 

* The iMrd boohe ofEneados, p. 85, Ralph Thoresby says, 
'* Churl-wel is from ceopl> Agricola, and Charles^ain, the 
ceojilr or countryman's wain, is from the same original." (To- 
pography of Leeds, 1715, folio, p. 268.) 



KING ARTHUR. 97 

lasting situation in the celestial sphere : for this 
interesting piece of information we are indebted 
to dan John Lydgate> monk of Bury> who takes 
occasion to observe : 

" But to shjpmen tbat be discrete and wyse. 
That lyste their course prudently devjse, 
Upon the sea have suffysaunce ynoughe. 
To gye their passage by Abthoubts-plouohe."* 

* Droye-boke, C. 3. If one may believe William Ovren, 
elsewhere alluded to, Arthur8*rarp is "the British appel- 
lation for the constellation Lyra,** 



98 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. xxin. 

Of the discovery, after many centuries, of the 
remains of king Arthur and his queen. 

A PABTicuLAR relation of the discovery of the 
bodies or bones of this monarch and his queen, 
between six and seven hundred years after the 
supposed and probable time of their deaths,* 
hath been, with due elaboration and prolixity, 
brought forth, by his countryman, Girald Barry, 
otherwise Giraldits CambrensiSff who died bishop 
of Menevia or Saint-Davids, in 1229, which, 
however, it will not seem impertinent to give, 
at length, from his own Latm, as follows : 

'' The memory of Arthur, the famous king of 
the Britons, is not to be suppressed, forasmuch, 
as of the excellent monastery of Glastonbury, of 
which he, also, was the patron, he had been, in 

* There is no certainty in the date of this event : nor can 
any credit be given to Geoffrey of Monmouth, or any of his 
followers. 

t Leland gives him the name of Sylvester Gvraldus, in which 
he is followed by Camden and bishop Godwin ; for what rea- 
son or upon what authority cannot be ascertained. 



KING ARTHUR. 99 

his days^ a principal benefactor and magnificent 
benefactor. Histories much extol him : for> be« 
fore all the churches of his realm^ he most loved, 
and^ before the rest^ with fsir greater devotion 
promoted^ the church of the holy mother of God, 
Mary, of Glastonbury : whence, when the war- 
like man was alive, in the fore part of his shield, 
he had caused to be painted the image of the 
blessed virgin ; .that, internally, he might, always 
have her, in the contest, before his eyes ; whose 
feet, also, when he was, in the moment of en- 
gagement, he had accustomed to kiss with the 
greatest devotion.* His body, however, which, 
as fantastic, in the end, and, as it were, by a 
spirit, translated to a great distance, neither to 
death obnoxious, fables have been feigned. In 
these our days, at Glastonbury, between two 
pyramidal stones, formerly erected in the sacred 
burying-ground, hid very deep in the earth, in a 
hollow oak, and marked with wonderful, and, at 



* This puff preliminary, in which there is not a word of 
trath, he had either amplified from some interpolated copy of 
Nennins or Geoffrey of Monmouth, or from some legend in the 
abbey, or been paid for fiibricating. He was no more than as 
occasional visitor, though* l>y his relationship to the king, aai 
Lis connections at court, he might have had an eye upon it 
himself, and this rigmarole stuff been calculated to cajofe the 
monks. 



100 THE LIFE OF 

it were^ miraculous tokens^ was founds* and, 
into the church, with honour, translated, and to 
a marble tomb decently commended : whence, 
also, a leaden cross, a stone being put under it, not 
infixed on the upper part, as it is wont, ought to 
be, rather, in the lower part, which we, also, have 
seen, for we have handled [it], contained these 
letters, and not rising up and standing out, but 
more within, turned to the stone : Hic jacet 

SEPULTUS INCLITUS REX ArtHURUS CUM WeN- 
NEVEREIA UXORE SUA SECUNDA IN INSULA AvAL* 

LONIA.I Here, however, occurred very many 
noble things, for he had had two wives, of whom 
the last had her interment at the same time 

* Matthew Paris says, " In the same year [1191] ,. were 
found, at Glastonbury, the bones of the most famous king of 
Britain, Arthur, hid in a c^lain most ancient stone coffin, 
about which two most ancient pyramids stood erected, in which 
were letters defaced : but on account of too much barbarism 
and deformi^, they could, in no wise be read. Now they 
were found on this occasion : foe while they dug there, that 
they might inter a certain monk, who this place of sepukhre, 
with vehement desire, in )us life, had wished ; they found a 
certain 8tone*coflto, to which a leaden cross had been put over, 
in which was de&ced, Hic jacet inclttus Brxtonum bex 

AbTHURUS, XM insula AVALONIS SEPULTUS (P. lS8.) 

This coffin, Leland observes, he never heard of, and did not 
believe. 

t Guemumar, Guenever, Winifred : (see Lhuyds Ardutth- 
logia, p. 225, Co. 2 :) " Bychedh Guenvreui : Vita Sanctm Wi- 






•* • .kiNQ.' 4RTfiUIV. •. . 101 



• • 



• 



with himself^ and her bones were fourfd; at tkq 
same time^ along with those of her husband^ so 
distinct^ nevertheless^ that two parts of the sepul- 
chre, toward the head, had been deputed to con- 
tain the bones of the man ; the third, also, toward 
the feet, were to contain the bones of the woman 
apart : where, also, a yellow lock of the woman's 
hair was found, with its original entirety and co- 
lour ', which, a certain monk greedily snatched 
with his hand, and being lifted up, the whole im- 
mediately fell into dust.^ When, however, some 
tokens of the body there found, from his writings, 
some, from the letters impressed on the pyra- 

nifiredae." Leland remarks, that Silvester (as he calls him) 
here added something to the inscription of his own head 
(^Collectanea, II, ti); meaning the words **.cum Wen- 
neveria uxore sua secunda /' which will be more fall explained 
hereafter. 

Usher (in his Index chronologicutt at the year Dxlii) says, 
" That she may appear to be called tecond, in respect of another 
Cruenfver, married, by Arthur, in the yery begmning of hia 
f«gR ; whom, by Melyas, king of Somerset, ravished at the 
year 509, from CaHidoc of Liancarvan, we have observed." 
Caiidoc, however, gives no such date, nor had Usher any, the 
slightest, authority for it, but his own fimcy : there not being 
one single'date throughout the Vita GUde, 

* He has something more upon the shameful violence of 
this monk; but the manuscript is too much burned to permit 
one to make out the whole: it is entirely omitted by sir Joha . 
Prise, thou^ it was then entire. 

L 



102 ... ,'£Ah'Mtiz0w' 



.. " 



• • 



; / ^ / jmdff, aldiou^h very mudi destroyed by too great 
antiquity^ some^ likewise^ through visions and 
revelations^ made to good and religious men^ 
chiefly, nevertheless, and most evidently, the 
king of En^and, Henry the second, as he had 
heard it from an ancient historical singer, a 
Britcm,^ intimated the whole to t^e monks, that 

* " Henry, no small part of an army being raised> came 
fnto Wales to levy the rest, and thence to sail from Saint- 
Davids into Ireland, widi the hope of obtaining which he 
whoUy bnmed. While he acted these tMngs, being, on ac- 
count of his digni^, entertained by the kinglets of Wales in 
feasts, he heard bards singing in concert to the harp not with- 
out pleasure, using an interpreter. There was one, truly, 
iBftnoDg the rest, the inost learned in the knowIe<lge of antiquity. 
lift, the pndses and fiimous actions of Arthur bdng performed, 
tomparing with him Henry as a future conqueror,* with many 
taames, so sung, that the kings ears were wonderfully bo^ 
tickled and delighted : in which time, also the king chiefly kain- 
€d this fimn the bard,that Arthur had been buried at Avalon, in 
the sacred eemeteiy : whence, the bard being munifioeaatly ^S' 
tnissed, for the indication of so great a monument, required 
J at Henry of Blois or of SoiUi, his nephew, who tiien, ok 
A LITTLE AFTER, firomabbot of Bermondsey, was elected pre- 
fect to the island of Glastonbury, that he with the most ex- 
^ttfitfte diligence, would narrowly search for the sepulchre in 
the inclosure of the sacred cemetery. It was several tiihes 
tried, and, at length, mth great difficulty found." (Lelands 
JAueiHo Arturii, Collectanea, V, 49.) This interview of king 
Hmty 'ttit Second and the bard at a feast in Wales, seems to 
have been worked up by Leiand himself; as<iirald Rifiy 



KING ARTHUR. 108 

very deep, to wit, in the earth, for sixteen feet 
at the leasts they would find the body, and not 
in a monumeiit of stone, but in a hoUowed ode -, 
aBd> therefore, the body had been so deeply 
plaeed, and> as it were hid, thut it mighty in no 
ivise, be found by the Saxons, oocnpyiiig his 
island, after his death, whom, by so great a 
labour, being alire, he had conquered, and, 
almost wh<^y destroyed ; and, for this reason, 
jdso, lett^s, the indesces^f truth, impres&ed widi 
eertain things, were turned inwardly to^e &bon^ 
that, at that time, also, those tiaiings whidi fit 
contained, it might hide, and scManetimes hidew 
and sometimes, t^o, in pilace and time, ^Uvuige« 
That, however, \i^leh is now eid:led Glaaton^ 
bury, was anciently called the Isle of Avalon: 
for, the whole island, a^ it were, is beset wjth 
marshes : wbttiipe> it is call^ ija British, ^i$ 

only says, that " king Henry the second, as he had heaid 
^m a historical singer, an ancient Briton " (IbU II, 10) ; and 
all his authority for it appears to be an anonymous monk of 
Glastonbury : *' William of Malmesbury," he says, " wouM 
liave come -forward, as the third witness, unless death had 
taken him away [47 years, that is,] before the discovery of the 
sepulchre.'' Henry had not been in Wales since 1169, and 
Arthurs bones were not discovered until 1191 or 1192, whereas 
lie died on the 6th of June 1189; and Henry de Sayle was 
not abbot till the 29th of September in that year. 



^ » 



104 THE LIFE OF 

Avallan, that is the apple-bearing* island^ for^ 
with apples^ which^ in the British tongue> are 
called aval, that place formerly abounded : 
whence^ also^ Morganis, a noble matron^ and 
governess^ and patroness of those parts, and, 
algo, near in blood to king Arthur, after the 
battle of Kemelen [Camblan], carried Arthur, 
to be cured of his wounds, into the island which 
is now called Glastonbury.* It had, likewise, 
■been formerly called, in British, enis gutrin, the 
glassy island, from which word, the Saxons, 
afterward coming, called that place Glastonbury : 
for, glas, in their tongue, means glcus, and buri 
is called a castle or city. It is to be known, 
alsou that the discovered bones of Arthur were 



* Geoffiney of Monmouth, in his British history, mentiont 

nothmg of Morgan, (who, in other romances of Arthw, b 

- that monarchs half-suter, and a powerful fairy), and only 

says, " Bat, that famous king Arthur was mortally wounded 

vbo thence, to be cured of his wounds, was carried into the 

Isle of Avallon" (B. 11, c. 21), without explaining that name 

to mean Glastonbury, which never once appears, by that name, 

i?f.. tftronghout his book ; and, in his metrical life of Merlin the 

GatedoniaD, places it in a distant part of the globe, whether, 

also, Arthur is conveyed in a boat or ship, and where Morgan, 

^skiUiil in surgery, is the eldest of the kmgs nine daoghtera. 

He forgot the proverb. 



KING ARTHUR. 106 

80 large that, also, the saying of the poet might 
appear to be fulfilled in these thingis : 

" GrmMfjue effbsHs mvrabiiur o$sa fepuIcArii.*** 

For, his thigh-bone being put by that of the 
tallest man of the place, whom>: also, the abbot 
shewed to us, and fixed to the earth dose by the 
foot of that man, it reached fiill three fingers 
beyond his knee. The bone, also> of his head, 
as if it were capacious and thick, to a prodigy or 
shew ; so that between the hair of the eye-lids, 
and between the eyes, the space would fully 
contain a hand-breadth. There appeared in it, 
however, ten wounds or more^ all which> except 
one greater than the rest, which had made a 
large gap, and which alone seemed to have been 
mortal, had come together into a solid cicatrice. f 

• Virgilii Georgicon, L, i,V, 497. 
. t Book of the instruction of a prince (Julias, B. XIII» Dis< 
tinction, chap. 20); and LeUnd's Collectanea, 11, 11. Sir 
Jobn Prise has giveu a similar extract from a difierent work oC 
Girald, usually called lAber distinctiotmm (no other title oocnr • 
lug), and not the Speculum eccletie, as it is sometimes impro* 
perly called, that being an entirely difierent work, and not hy 
Girald ; both extant m the Cotton MS. llberios, B. XIII. If 
begins, as Prise has it: '* Porro quoniam, &c." but reads, 
"fabule cot^ingi," not fabulose; and (P. ISI) " Morgani," 
not Morgain Ufaye, a puerile interpolation. The title. of that 
chapter is " De sepulcro regis Arthuri ossa fjus continetite apud 



^v 



106 THE LIFE OF 

WUh respect to the circumstance of Arthurs 
second wife> the Welsh antiquaries pretend that 
he had no less than three wives, every one 

Glastoniam in nostrit diebus inoento et plurimb drciter hee 
fMiAUihusoemicti^irtdifuietisf' that of chap. 10 : ''Quod 
r$g JMrnnu pne^us Gkbttoni . •" The tnantiscript has been 
maeh iiyured, by the fire of 1731> and is partly illegible : but 
there does not appear, in Prise, any additional drcomstonoe 
to the narratiye already g^yen: he first states the passage be- 
gteMng, " Regnante mutrit, lee.** (p. 130.) P^rfa, &c. Now, 
it being very eeitaiii that Henty ib AtHooo, ie SayU, orde SoUU, 
likewise, called Heniy SaUy or Swaas^, was not abbot before 
Michaelmas, 1189, being the first year of Richard the first, 
he could not, therefore, possibly, have assuted at the disinter- 
ineht of Arthur, in the presence or, even in the reign of Henry 
the second (see l^lis's MHred abbeys, I, 103). An atraci 
by Leland, fi^tmi a paper he hiet wMi in the library of das- 
tonbwy-Abbey, says^ " The bones of Arthur were raised fipom 
the sacred cemetery, in the year 1189, by Henry Sully, abbot 
of Glastonbury (Collectanea, 111, 154): which, by no means, 
removes the difficulty, in other extracts, this discovery is 
dated 1191 (Ii 264i 280, V« 54t), and 1192 (f44). See, also, 
Adam de Pomerham, p. 841, and John of Glastonbniy, 
. p4 188. Randal Higden says, that the body was found under 
An^year 1180 (CoUectoneo, II, 372) : and David Powd, in bis 
4^ ' SBtefpdated and vitiated edition of Caradocs Annals, (1585, 
"^^ * 4tci. b« 1. p. 238) sayg, '< This yeare [1179] the bones of 
«*ble Arthur, and Gwenhouar his wife, were fi>und in the Isle 
' el AvaloD." At any rate, the dlscoveiy . if made in the pre- 
sence of Henry the second, could not be in the time of Henry 
de Soilly, or if made by Henry de Soilly, could not be in the 
pretence of Henry the second. 






KING ARTHUR. 107 

named CkDenhw^jfar ; '' the iir8t> the daughter of 
Gwryd Gwcnt^ caiiled, hy soni^ Cwyhts -, the 
second, the daughter of Uthyr ap Gredawgol, 
cauled, bf idm, Crediolus > and the thirds the 
daughter of a giant> €auled Gogfiraai Crawr;*' 
and that the Wenever or Guenever^ whote bones 
were dUcoTered along witii hiB own^ and whose 
name ooeurred in his epitiqph ^' was not his last 
wife :*** so that he appears to have had one after 
he was dead. To prove> hoWerer^ the singnlai* 
oonsistency of these infallible Cambrians, it ap- 
pears^ from their favourite '' Triech,*' Triades or 
Triads, that these three Owmnfui^imn wei% not 
the wives of Arthur^ but ^* Three prime diim* 
sels*' residing at his court; Mid that his ** tlu^ee 
wives or mistresses, were Judee^ daughter to 
Arvy the tall, and Grarvy White-hams, daughter 
to old Henin, and Guyl, daughter to Endaut."t 

Lelandi mentioning the two chapters of Gi- 
i«ld, concerning Arthur^ in what he mistakenly 
calls his book De ispecuio evclesie, adds, that he 

• 

had> in another hodd., read ibe same translatioif 
to have been made in the ooginniiig of the reiga 
of Richard [1191]. NeifJier, he observes, does 
Girald there affirm that he was present at the 

* Lewis, p. 185, 196 ; Prise, 134. 
t Harley manuscripts, Niim. 4181. 



* 



« im 









t. 



108 THE LIFE OF 

translation of the remains^ but that Henry, the 
abbot, shewed him the cross, with the bones, 
found a short time before, in the sepiilchre of 
Arthur 5 and reports this inscri|ition of the 
cross : '' Hie jacet sepultus inclyttis rex Arturms in 
insula AoaUonite cum Wenneria uxore sua ss- 
cuNDAj" whereas, says he, in the cross, which 
they now shew (and which he had himself seen), 
THERE IS NO MENTION OF HIS WIFE. They crccted, 
as he elsewhere teUs us, a leaden cross about a 
foot long, which, also, he says, I have contem- 
plated with most curious eyes, containing, in, 
Roman capitals, rudely engraved, the following 
words : *\ Hic jacet sepultus inclytus rex 
Arturius IN insula Avalonia."* 

* Collectanea, V, 45. This is the cross of which Camden 
has ^ven the figure, and fac-siimle inscription, imponng it, 
either by design or ignorance, upon his readers, as the one 
mentioned by Giraldus ; which he could not but have known, 
when he read and transcribed either that original writer, or 
Leland, or ar John Prise, was not the fact : he has, in« 
deed, now and then, the cuUibility of honest Leland, and ex- 
liresses or implies his belief in Joseph of Arimathea, Arthur, 
0uy, Bevis, and so forth, the heroes and creaturea of romance, 
for whose existence he knew he could cite no authority, of 
which, at least, he would not have been ashamed. Matthew 
Paris, in the third place, gives it thus : " Hic jacet xnclttvs 
Brxtonum rex Artubius in insula Avalonia sepul- 
tus:'* so that the epitaph of Arthur has nearly as manj 



KING ARTHUR. 109 

iThere is nothing wonderful in the circum- 
stance of this worthy and industrious antiquary^ 
becoming a complete dupe to this imposture, 
when not less than three of the greatest mo- 
narchs that eyer tyrannised in any part of Britain, 
were, to use a vulgar phrase, completely taken 
in: ''Henry the second, king of England,*' as 
Leland observes, " in the grant of his donation, 
in which he subscribes to the ancient privileges 
of the monastery of Glastonbury, plainly affirms 
himself to have seen the donation of Arthur :'** 
which the no less pious than dexterous monks 
of the blessed mother of god, had, indisputa- 
bly, forged, as they did the legend of Joseph of 
Arimathea, their pretended original founder^ the 
charter of saint Patrick, the life of that saint by 
William of Malmesbury, whom they made to write, 
'' Of the antiquity of the church of Glastonbury," 
not less than fifty years after his death, the history 
of Melkin, and other legendary rhodomontades, 
with which their precious archives abounded. 
King Richard the first, having, upon his visit to 

▼arioiu readings as that of Jesus Christ Leland, at the 
same time, laments that one whose authority he, deservedly, 
very much favoured, should have added some redundant words 
of his own to the epitaph in the mscription : meaning, in fact, 
the aforesaid Matt^iew Paris. 
• Collectanea, V, 6, S«, 55, 54. 



no THE LIFE OF 

Glastonbury^ to behold the resurrection of the 
royal bones> as it is presumed^ been presented 
with the best sword of the noble Arthur^ chris- 
tened by his prelatical historian^ CkMtttn^ trans- 
ferred it^ as the most valuable relick in the 
world, to Tancred^ king of Sicily.* They even 
produced his great seal, in wax, of an age ante** 
rior, by five centuries, to the use of seals in 
Britain, with the following pompous inscription : 
PATittcivs Abtvkivs B&itannia Gai^lijb Ger-» 
MANiiB Dacia imperator:** which, hiring some'* 
how or other found its way to Westminster, 
Leland, if not our best, at least, our most 
ancient, antiquary, who had met with a referen<^ 
to its situation in Caxtons chronicle, and the 
simplicity of whose honest narrative can, scarcely, 
be now, by his most profound admirer, perused 
without a smile, went dovm to the abbey on 
purpose to examine it, and has given a very 
minute, and, doubtless, very accurate, descrip- 
tion of this singular curiosity. ' 

♦ Chro. J. Bromton, Co, 1195. 



KING ARTHUR HI 



CHAP. XXIV. 



Of Gildas. 



O I L D A s (who was probably contemporary with 
Arthur in the former part of his life^ being born 
on the day of the battle of Badon^ and who> appa- 
rently, wrote at an advanced age) represents the 
Britons, of his own time, as '^ a parcel of cowards 
and rascals, who gave their backs for shields, their 
necks to swords (a cold fear running through 
their bones), and held up their hands, to be 
bound, in the manner of a woman : so that it 
was carried out, &r and wide, into a proverb, 
and derision^ that the Britons were neither brave 
in war, nor faithful in peace."* In another 
place, he says, " that, on account of the rapine 
and avarice of the princes, on account of the 
iniquity and ii\jugtice of the judges, on account 
of the idleness and sloth of preaching of the 
bishops, on account of the luxury and evil man* 
ners of the people, they lost their country.* 't 

* (X 4, (Joaielini edition, p. 86.) 

t Lekndi CoiUetanm, I, 399 ; Ushers AntiquiUtm, 389. 
This passage, extracted from an epistle of Alcumut Albhtut 



114 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. XXV. 

Of Nennius and Samuel. 

W E N N I u 8, a Briton^ was the disciple of saint 
Elbod^* and flourished (as the phrase is) in the 
year 858, and in the twenty-fourth year of Mer- 
vin, king of the Britons.t He seeiBs^ at first, to. 
have called his book *' Eulogium BrUm»me/'t a^ 
terward ^^Htstoria [or " Gesta"] Britonum : which 

* See Bertrams edition, p. 93, 95, 143. That Nemuos 
was a iDonk of the monastery of Bangor is a mistake of Gale, 
continued, with equal folly, by Bertram. " Elbodius [bishop of 
Uandaflf], and archbishop of North-Wales [died in the year 
809] ; before whose death, the sun was sore eclipsed.** (Hit' 
tory of Cambria, p. 20.) This monastery was destroyed long 
before 858. 

t Ibu p. 94, 104. Whitaker, in his " History of Man- 
chester/' (II, 40, 4to. edition), asserts, that " Nennius is really, 
piior to Gildas, the former having written about 550, and the 
latter about 564 : the time of Gildas is well enough hit upon ; 
but that of Nenmus, is a blunder, and not the only one in his 
fabulous history. 

X No ancient manuscript has «, but, always, e ; and such 
a circumstance would [be] a certain criterion of forgery. 
The English, umformly, make use of the «, but the eariiest 
Roman manuscripts never have that diphthong; but, univer- 
sally, ae. 



KING ARTHUR US 

earnestly to be destroyed), extolling, as they are 
able, to the stars ; having many ,bound in prisons, 
whom, by their own fraud, rather than demerit, 
they squeeze, loading them with chains : re- 
maining swearing among the altars, and these 
same things, as if vile stones, a little after 
despising.*'* 

• Josaelins edition, p. 24. One would imagine, that Git- 
das, like Merlin, had possessed an incubus of prophecy, and 
was describing, if the same oountiy, at leasts a very different 
people. He died in 570. 



1 1 6 THE LIFE OF 

either^ interpolated and polluted the text, or, 
merely, according to the practice of that period^ 
acted the part of a scholiast, by filling the mar- 
gin, as Eustathius served Homer, and Servius, 
Virgil, &c. with schoUa or glosses; which, falling 
into still worse hands, were inserted, from time 
to time in the text, so that a genuine copy of 
Nennius, as originally written, would be difficult 
to meet with. 

In the year 613 (according to Bede, or 60T> 
upon the authority of the Saxon chronicle), 
the most brave Aedilfrid [^J^elpjii'S], king of the 
Engles [then pagans], a great army being col- 
lected, gave, at the city of Legions (which was 
called, by the Engles, Legacaestir [Lejaceajftjie], 
by the Britons^ however, more rightly Carlegion 
[now Chester], a very great slaughter of that 
perfidious people : and when, the battle being 
about to be done, he saw their priests, who had 
assembled to pray god for the soldier managing 
the battle, to stand apart in a safer place> he 
enquired who these were, aod what they had 
assembled in that place about to do. Now 
a great many of them were from the monastery 
of Bangor,^ in which so great a number of 

* " Twelve miles from Chester*' (Lelands Collectanea, II, 
601). 



KING ARTHUR. 117 

tnonks is reported to have been> that when the 
monastery was divided into seven parts^ with the 
rulers set over them^ no portion of these had less 
than three hundred men^ who all were accus- 
tomed to live by the labour of their own hands. 
Of these> therefore^ a great rnany^ at the re- 
counted battle^ a three-days-fast being accom- 
plished> had assembled^ with others^ for the 
sake of praying, having a defender^ natned 
Brocmail^ who should protect them, intent to 
their prayers, from the swords of the barbarians. 
When king Aedilfrid had imderstood the reAson 
of their coming, he said */^I£y therefore, they cry 
to their god against us, and, certainly, they 
themselves, although they do not bear arms, 
fight against us, who are persecuted by their im- 
precations adverse to us :** he, therefore, or- 
dered, in the first place, the arms to be turned 
upon them, and so destroyed the other forces of 
that abominable militia, not without great loss 
of his own army. Thiey report, about two thou- 
sand men, of those who had. come to pray, to 
have been extinct in that battle, and only fifty to 
be fallen ia flight. Brocmail, turning, with his 
soldiers, their backs, at the first coming of the 
enemy, left those whom he ought to have de- 
fended, unarmed, and exposed to the smiting 

swords.* 

* Bede, B. S, C. 2, 
M 



118 THE LIFE PIF 

Tanner^ from whatever authority, in his note 
on Lelands life of Nennius^ says, ''he gat, away 
from this slaughter, at Ctester^ and travelled 
over Wales, and the neighbouring islands of the 
Scots [Irish}, that he niigl^t propagate apd con- 
firm the chris^An religion.* ' The Nennius, howr 
ever, he is speaking of, wrote in 858 ; the battl^ 
of Chester happened in 607, a di^erence of up- 
wards of 260 years ! 

Leland, who had called this historian '*Bn un- 
certain author,** not knowing the work, atjany 
rate, to be that of Nennius. In a note^ however^ 
he speaks of" Ninnius or Nennius, a Briton, the 
disciple of Elbod, the author of the chronfcle^ 
whereof T^bomas Sulmo made him a copy : for 
he had an exemplar, not mutilated and without a 
preface, [ft sufficient proof, however, that it WfM 
actually mutilated], as,*' he says, ''mine was/'* 
£[e, afterward, "^rom the annotations, which 
were inscribed in the margin of the ancient book 
of Njsnnims^ which," says he, "I borrowed of 
Thomas S^lmo j" s^, a%r a few extracts, adds : 
"So I have found, that to thee, Scunuel, tlpAt is, 
iu&pt of my master Beul^, in this page I hav^ 
written. From these words^ the conjecture is, 
for Samuel to have been author of the annota- 
tions, which were in the margin of Nennius.*' 

* Collectanea, II. 45. 



KING ARTHUR; 119 

He says of him : " He writes confusedly, and 
without judgement, also with filthy words, not 
doubting him to insert febles, any more than old 
wives.'* In the margin he adds : '' Mention is 
made of a certain Nenmu9, in the life of saint 
Finnan/** This, however, could not, possibly* 
be Nennius, the historian, who wrote, as already 
said, in 858, and was not a monk of Bangor,- 
but one of the same name, who was a monk 
thereof, and would seem, from Tanner, to have 
escaped fnnn the battle of Chester, in 6O7. As 
to the three Irish saints, named Finan, they all 
appear to have died in the sixth century ^ as the 
Scotish ones did in the seventh. Grale inserts 
the marginal annotations of Samuel (which, in 
the best, if not all, the manuscripts, are in the 
margin), between crotchets in the text) Ber- 
tram, who published his edition at Ck>penhagen, 
never saw the manuscripts, but relies upon Gale; 
only he distinguishes the interpolations, some- 
times, as well by crotchets, as italics, and in- 
verted conunas, and sometimes, with inverted 
commas alone : which deforms his book, at 
least, if it shews no want of judgement, as the 
marginal annotations, usually attributed to Sa- 
muel» are, frequently, by others, and should 
either have been inserted in notes, under the 

• CktUedtmea, U. 47. 



120 THE LIFE OF 

text, or, after the text, or by way of appendix. 
From the 60th chapter, (at the end of which are 
these words, "flic explidunt d Nennlo [duo, cor- 
rupts, Gilda sapiente composita] conscripta), he 
marks all the remaining chapters (including Ar- 
thurs battles), with inverted commas, as some 
passages are, likewise, between crotchets, and in 
italics. It appears, from William of Malmes- 
bury, that the nameless copy he had, contained 
the battle of the Badonick mount, ^'fretus 
imagine dominica matris, quam armis suis in" 
suerat, &c." but these words are not in Bertrams 
edition,* nor the story, under the battle of 
Badon. Henry of Huntingdons extracts (from 
'' Gildas the historiographer**) are much more 
considerable and more consonant to the manu- 
scriptSi than those of William of Malmesbury ; 
but neither the monk nor the archdeacon no- 
tices j^hurs fabulous [journey] to Jerusalem 5 
so that, if any new manuscript of Nennvus be 
ever found, that absurd story will not be there 
to pollute it. It is said, by the Welsh editors of 
The Myvyrian archaiology of Wales*' (II, vii) : 
There is a copy of Nennvus, in the Vatican- 
library, the oldest that is known, undoubtedly, 
written in the beginning of the tenth century, 
which contains the story of Brute.* These My- 
vyrian archaiolog^sts seem to suppose, *' the 



€€ 
€€ 



KING ARTHUR. 121 

' unfounded' story of Brute to be the criterion 
of the most ancient and perfect copy of Nennitis: 
although there is not a single copy> ancient or 
modern^ manuscript or printed^ Gale or Ber- 
tram^ wherein *' the story of Brute" does not 
occur ! a manifest proof that they have never 
perused nor* ever seen a copy of Nenmus, as it 
stands staring every one in the face> who can 
either read or sce> in the second and third chap- 
ters, and in the genuine words of the original 
author : '' Britannia insula d, quodam Bbuto vo- 
catur,** (C. 2) : '* Et sic venif ut in ttatioitate U- 
Uus muUer est mortua et nutritus est films vocat" 
umque est nomen ejus Bbuto,** (C. 3). A Welsh- 
man, however, who wanted " the story of Brute," 
would, naturally^ have recourse to the British 
history of Geoffrey of Monmouth : the pink of 
veracity! William Owen, in his ''Cambrian 
Biography,*' asserts that Nennius, an historian, 
flourished toward '' the close of the eighth cen- 
tury,'* but is the year S58, in which Nennius, 
with bis own hand, records himself to have 
finished his book, in ''the close of the eighth 
century ?*' "Like Gildas and Tysilio,'' he adds, 
" he edited a breviary of the history of Britain, 
[which was, certainly, done by neither Gildas 
nor Tysilio] . . . and the same subject was con- 
tinued by Marcus, whose original copy is in the 



182 THE LIFE OF 

Vatican^library. A very valuable edition/' he 
8a,ys, ''with a commentaiy^ is now preparing for 
the press^ by the reverend \Villiam Gunn, [of 
Norwich], which will clear up and rectify the 
obscurities and errors in the editions by Gale 
and Bertram :'* this, indeed, we shaU be ghid to 
see ; but, it is to be hoped, that this reverend 
editor is not a Welshman. 



KING ARTHUR. 1«S 



CHAP. XXVI. 

Of the translation of the bones of king Arthur 
and his queen> by king Edward the first and 
queen Eleanor. 

In the year of the lord^ 1^76, king Edward> son 
of Henry the thirds came with his queen to 
Glastonbury. In the tuesday, truly, next fol- 
lowing, the king, and all his court were enter- 
tained at the expenee of the monastery : in 
which day, in the twilight of the evening, he 
caused the sepulchre of the feimous king Arthur 
to be opened, where, in two chests, their images 
and arms being painted, he found the separate 
bones of the said king of wonderful magnitude. 
The crowned image, truly, of the queen. The 
crown of the kings image was prostrate, with 
the abscision of the left ear, and with the ves- 
tiges of the wound of which he died. A manifest 
writing was found upon each. In the morrow, 
that is to say, on Wednesday, the king the bones 
of the king, the queen the bones of the queen, 
being rolled in [two] several precious palls, shut- 
ting up again in their chests, and putting on 



124 THE LIFE OF 

their seals, commanded the same sepulchre tcr 
be^ qmckly> placed before the high altar> the 
heads of both being retained without, on account 
of the devotion of the people, a writing of this 
kind having been put within : ** These are the 
bones of the most noble king Arthur, which in 
the year of the incarnation of the lord 1278, in 
the 13th kalends of May [19th of April], by the 
lord Edward, the illustrious king of England, 
were here so placed : Eleanor, ' the most serene 
consort of the same king, and daughter of the lord 
Ferrand, king of Spain, master William de Mid- 
dleton, then elect of Norwich, master Thomas de 
Becke, archdeacon of Dorset, and treasurer of 
the aforesaid king, the lord Henry de Lascy, earl 
of Lincoln, the lord Amad^, earl of Savoy, and 
many great men of England, being present.^ 

* Leiands Collectanea, V. 55, from a monk of Giaston- 
bmy. Leiand, on his visit to Glaatonbiuy-abbey, seems to 
have foond two other epitaphs of Arthur and his wife^ which 
being among his papers, haye been inserted in the Collec- 
tanea, HI, 18, and are as follows : 



(I 
<« 



Epitaphkan Arthuri.'* 

Hicjacet Arturut,Jbs regum, gloria regni. 
Quern mores probitae commetidant laude perenmJ* 
" Versus Henrki Swansey» abbatis Glaston" 

" Jnferius ad pedem gusdem,** 

** Arturijaeet fUc conpix tumulata secunda, 
QiMB meruU codes, virtuUtm prole fecunda,** 



KING ARTHUR. 125 

*' KingEdward^ in 1289> being at Caernarvon 
[in Walesj> the crown of Arthur^ with other 
jewels. Was rendered to him."* 

• Lelands CcU, 346, 404. 



136 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. XXVII. 
Of the Abbey of Glastonbury. 

•There wa8> certainly (if one may believe Ca. 
r&doc of Llancarvan^ in his life of saint Gildas)^ 
a monastery at Glastonbury^ of British institu- 
tion and inhabited by an abbot and monks^ in 
the sixth century : but it is> equally^ certain that 
no English historian has given the least account 
of it or been> in any wise> acquainted with it. 
Saint Dunstan and the Saxon abbots and mpnks> 
who came thither in the tenth century^ not 
knowing any thing of the establishment of former 
times nor having any authentic chronicles^ had 
recourse to the forgery and fabrication of lying 
legends^ of James the son of Zebedee^ Simon 
Zelota, Simon Peter and saint Paul : Aristohulus, 
Claudia- Riifina, the twelve disciples of Philip^ 
Joseph of Arimathea> Taurirms, Eutropius, Timo- 
thy, N&oatus, Praxed> Prudentta, Lucius, Pagan, 
Duvian, Aaron, saint Patrick and many more 
such nonentities : all forgery and falsehood, gree- 
dily, swallowed and vomited up by archbishop 
Usher and other pretended antiquaries, to the 



KING ARTHUR. 1S7 

fKdlujtion of tnie hutory and liie everlasting dis- 
grace of English literature. Glasion)mry> ac- 
cording to William of Blalmesbury (who ap- 
pears to have known nothing of its ancient British 
chnrchO " was a town [in Somersetshire] placed 
in a certain marshy recess^ which^ nevertheless^ 
might be approached both by horse and foot.*' 
'* There/* he says, *' in the first place, king Ina,* 
by the advice of the most blessed Mdhdm, built 
a monastery, having bestowed thereon many 
manors and which at ' that ' day [1142] are 

* This Ina, Inas or Ini, as appears JTrosi Bedes ecclesiastical 
history and the Saion chronicle socceeded Ceadwal, king of the 
West StoGOS, in the year 688 and, after a reign of 9f years, 
went to Roma (as Ceadwal had done before), in 725 and \ht$t 
lived till the day of his deatli. According to the latter autho- 
rity, he built that monastery at Glastonbury ; of which, how- 
ever, Bede says nothing nor, even, once notices that place 
thronghoot [hu] history, though Kring at the time and very 
attentive to ecclesiastical matters. Aldhdm, abbot of Malmes- 
bniy and, afterward, bishop of Sherborne, died in 709* l^^lfiam 
of Malmesbury writing his life, in which, he says, that, '* Alfred 
commemorates a triml song, which is hitherto sung by the 
common people, to have been made by Aldhehn." He, like- 
wise, mentions Ardvil, son of the khig of Scothnd [r. Irdand : 
there was no o^r Scotland at that tine] and asysi <* He pro- 
cured whatsoever [he could] of the literary art, but was so far 
hungry, that he committed himself to tiie jvidgement of Ald- 
hehn: that, by the fil6 of perfect wit, his Seotish [r. Irish] 
scabbiness mi|^t be scraped/ Aldhebn wrote a letter, in 680, 
to Gerunt, king of the Cornish-Britons, oenceming the tonsure. 



19S THE LIfK OP 

named and, truij, in tlie Tarioas Yidssitndes 
of the timeSy bnt the snooeMons [and] aasem- 
Uj8 of monks, not fidfing^ the |dace sbone until 
tlie armal of the Danes^ under king Alfred [868]. 
Then, truly, aa the rest, being desolated for 
some years, it wanted its usual inhabitants. 
Moreover, whatsoerer the Inry of wars had de- 
stroyed, Dnnstan [abbots d43],* who had, before, 
being a monk cf that place, led there a solitary 
life, excellently, repaired. Afterward, truly, by 
the liberality of king Edmund [941-946], all 
former appendages and^ with these, having ob- 
tained, many more, he built an abbey: such 
as no where in England was or would be.t 
So much was the extent and convenience of the 
foundations, so much the £sdrness and antiquity 
of the books, abound. Patrick^*' he says, " lies 
there (if the thing were worthy to believe), by 
nation a Briton, a disciple of the blessed Crerman, 
bishop of Auxerre, whom^ beings by pope Coe- 
lestin^ ordained a bishop^ he sent apostle to the 
Irish : who, for many years, doing his labpur in 
the conversion of that nation^ the grace of god 
co-operating was^ somewhat^ advanced 5 at length, 

* Simson DuneUnentit, nib amw, 

t " Olaitonbtuy, which his [Edgars] father [Ednmnd] he 
himself perfected/' (Ethelred^ Cf thegentalogy if the Idngs^ 
DiomiCfipiorei, CO, S59.) 



KING ARTHUR. 1«9 

being admonished by the irksomeness of a pere- 
grination full of years> at once> also, by a near 
old age, thinking to return into his own country, 
he there closed his day/'* This story of saint 
Patrick, (whose history is, suflBiciently, credible 
so far as it relates to Ireland) is, manifestly, false ; 
since, from every Irish life of this saint and, 
even, by his own ** Confession," he neither was, 
ever, abbot of Glastonbury, as the legends of 
that monastery assert, or, even, in any part of 
Britain, from the time of his being carried off, 
when not quite sixteen, from the western part of 
Albany (now Scotland) f into Ireland (then Scot- 
land), amongst other captives to be sold, to the 
day of his death. These worthless monks fiUed 
their monastery with forgery and falsehood. 
The ** charta sancti Patricii/* so ably confuted by 

* Of the acto of the bishops, B. 2, p. 254. 

t His fkther, Calpom, a deacon, the son, formerly, of Potit, 
a priest, who was in a village Bonaoem Tabeniie (or, according 
to Probui, Bannave Tyhumie, a country not far from the western 
sea), ha<) a little (arm Enon hard by, where he gave himself up 
to capture. There is, in archbishop Ushers " Veterum epistif- 
larum HiUfmcarum sjflbge; Duhlnm, 1633, 4to. p. 33, in the 
epistle of Cummian an Irishman (bom 592, died 661, Cave) 
to Segien, abbot of Hy, these words :— ^* Primum ilium quem 
sanctos Patiicius papa noster tulit et facit ; in quo Lund d, 
xiiii. u$que in zxi. regulariter et equinocHum d, xii. kalend, 
April, obiervatur.** 



130 THE Ujm OF 

sk Thomas Ryves^* seems to have beea one* of 
their first attempts : this they foiled in the per- 
son of saint Patrick and made him tell a parcel of 
fables about their pretended antiquities and sup^ 
posititious saints, and this palpable forgery sir 
James Ware waa so weak as to prints as a ge- 
nuine work> in his " Opuioda " of saint Patrick 
{Undini, 1«6, 8vo.) This, however, ^as not 
sufficient, but, the. more firmly to establish the 
felsehood, forged, in the nagae of William of 
Malmeabury, *^ The three; books, whidi of the 
life of saint Patrick, he wrote to the mcmks of 
Glastonbury,'* sometime, no doubt, after the 
death of this honest: and worthy monk: which 
book Leland found in the library of . the priory 
of Twinhani in Hampshire, and givea a pretty 
long extract from it.t Neither was this the only 
work they attributed to him. Little, indeed, 
did he think, when for the sake of devotion, he 
attempted to cut off the finger of saint Car&doc, 
whose body was about to be translated, and who 
saved his finger from pollution, by a galvanick 
grasp, that, having been so laborious a histori- 
ographer, in his lifetime, he was, likewi8e> to be 

* " Bsgminis Asiglkmi in Hibernia drfentio, aivenut Anm^ 
Ucten [David Both]. UOyritrM. Autort Tko. BiifsU J. C. tfgU 
advocato. LondhUplCM, 4to. p. 48. 

t CoUectanea, II. 273. This wai a house of AuaUa cauoos. 



KING ARTHUR. 131 

compelled to liibour for his brethren of Glaston* 
bury> after his death : this^ however^ is an authen- 
ticated fact, for> exclusiye of the forged life of 
saint Patrick, already mentioned, ^* Tho. Gale> Th. 
Pr, (that is to say, in other words, doctor of divi- 
nity),** at Oxford, among his elaborate Histwia. 
Britanmca, SnxonkiB, Angl&'DaniciB, scriptores 
XV. (1691, folio) has the epistle " de exddio 
BritannicB* of Gildas, who, as he says, (in Latin) 
** wrote other things" [none of which, however, 
he, certainly, ever saw, or knew what any of 
them was]. ** Of him,** he adds, ** William of 
Malmesbury, in [his book] *^ De anUqmkUe GUU" 
toniensit ecclesia, p. 296 [thus speaks] : *' Gildas, 
the historian ; to whom the Britons owe [it], if 
any thing of knowledge they have amongst other 
nations." Now, it, unfortunately, happens, that 
thi^ respectable historian never had the satisfac- 
tion of meeting with a copy of Gildas's quemlous 
epistle i nor does he ever quote . it, or, even, 
once mentions his name. It is a still more unfor- 
tunate circumstance for this learned doctor, 
since William of Malmesbury, in his undisputed 
and indisputable work *' Of the acts of the kings 
of the Engles *' (B.3, p. 115), expressly asserts, 
that ''the ^rave of Arthur was never. seen:" 
this he sMd between the years 1135 and 1149, 
in the later of which he is, likewise^ supposed to 



132 THE TAPE OF 

have died : but his supposititious namesake^ who** 
soever he was> no less expressly^ asserts^ ** I 
omit to speak of Arthur^ the famous king of the 
Britons> in the cemetery of the monks [of Glas- 
tonbury]^ between two pyramids^ interred with 
his wife."* Now, it is a notorious feet that the 
grave of Arthur was, utterly, unknown, not only 
to William of Malmesbury, in 1142, but, cer- 
tainly, to any one, not, even, to a single abbot or 
monk of Glastonbury, before the year 1191 or 
1192 (as elsewhere, already, evinced), since, ex- 
clusive of those dates, repeatedly, occurring in 
the extracts of Lelands Collectanea, two monks 
of that church, who appear as its historians, in 
their own names, Adam, of Domerham, that is, 
and John of Glastonbury, both in print : * the 
former of whom attributes the discovery of Ar- 
thurs bones to king Henry the second, who died 
on the 6th of July, 1189, and Henry of Sayle, 
the abbot, who, as we have seen, was not in that 
situation till some monthsa fter the kings death, 
and the latter, in the same year : both of them, 
in their respective accounts, lying, manifestly, 
according to the habit of a Glastonbury monk. 
Now, between the year of the real William of 
Malmesburys death, and the discovery of Arthurs 
grave, for the sake of a round number, without 

• Page 306. 



KING ARTHUR. 



138 



cavilling about a year more or less> is the di£fer-' 
ence of fifty years : so that this learned professor 
of theology^ who had the noianuscript transcribed 
or^ it may be> transcribed it himself^ and both pub- 
lished and quoted it^ must^ inevitably^ pass for 
one who should not have meddled with the pub- 
lication of old manuscripts which he did not un- 
derstand j and this not being the only blunder 
he has committed^ even^ as it will appear in the 
publication of this spurious book : though^ as 
the queen^ in Hamlet, exclaims^ 



«< 



One woe doth tread upon anothen heel 1" 



for Thomas Heame> who has acquired the repu- 
tation of a great antiquary, from the prodigious 
number of volumes, mostly in Latin and, partly, 
in black letter, he edited, generally, if not, 
always, by subscription, and the liberal pa- 
tronage of Robert and Edward, successively, 
earls of Oxford, though his subscribers may, per« 
adventure, have, now and then, had no little 
difficulty to make some of them out or, haply, 
conjecture why they should have been published 
at all : as, according to a certain epigrammatic 
cal wit: 

'' Pox oa% quoth Time» to Thomas Hearne, 
Whatever I forget you learn." 

N 



134 THE LIFE OF 

However this may be> honest Thomas actually 
reprinted^ before the compilations of Adam of, 
Domerham^ the forged book of William of. 
Malmesbury " of the antiquity of the church of 
Glastonbury/ V which must necessarily and ma- 
nifestly have been composed fifty years after his, 
death, the date of which [1)42] he had got 
from John Pits, as Gale had done before him :, 
but, jBA a proof of his candour, though not of his 
judgement, he says in his preface to the reader : 
'^ I do not dissemble, that a long time ago, the 
most illustrious Gale edited William [of Malmes- 
bury]. Yes, truly, the edition of Gale aboimds 
with many errors, gross and foul; as, also, many 
omissions are discovered therein :*' 

" Thus one fool lolls his tongue out at another. 
And shakes his empty noddle at his brother.** 

* After all, it must be acknowledged, that, though Gale and 
Heame, undoubtedly, evinced a considerable want of both 
judgement and knowledge, in the daplicate publication of this 
spurious book : yet Leland is' not Mrithout blame, as such a 
bombastical, fabulous, and absurd book as his *^ Commentarii 
de scriptoribut Britannicis,** certainly, is, in which this identii- 
Cftl forgeiy is by him (as well as Bale) attributed to William of 
Malmesbury, though it was not printed before 1709. How- 
ever, it must be confessed, that Tanner is the most to blame, 
since he impUdtly transcribes not only the prolix falsifications 
of Iceland, but those of Bale and Pits and Thoma^ Dempster. 
Neither Camden, indeed, nor Usher, nor Browne Willis, nor 



KING ARTHUR, 135 

With respect to this fictitious book^ of which 
so much has been said^ it seems a compilation of 
various forgeries of the monks of Glastonbury^ 
who were, particularly, addicted to that crime, 
that is to say, by their legends of pretended 
saints that never existed 3 then forged charters 
and grants, of property they never possessed j 
their &bricated relics of pigs bones ^^ their cru- 
cifixes, which, occasionally, spoke and some- 
times shed blood : all these puppet- shews, how- 
ever, were calculated for pilgrims and bigoted 
fools, who flocked in crowds, with their pecuni- 
ary, and, it may be, in some instances, terri- 
torial o£PeringS5 which brought grist to the 
mill, and satiated the gluttony of a parcel x)f fat 
and lazy monks, who passed their time in eating, 
drinking, and sleeping ; braying like so many 
asses, at stated times, which was, impertinently, 
called singing and serving god. So much for 
the monks of the abbey of Glastonbury : and now 
for a few specimens of the forged and spurious 
book of the pseudo -William of M almesbury : 

** It is read in the gests of the most Illustrious 
king Arthur, that, when in a certain festival of 

Richard Gough, (Sejmlchral monuments, I, zciii), had penpU 
cacity to discoTer that a book which relates a drcumstance 
which did cot happen fill 50 years after the death of ik.% im- 
puted author, cannot, possibly, have been written by him. 
* See Chauoen Pardonen tdkh 



136 THE LIFE OF 

the birth-day of the lord, at Caerleon^ a most 
brave youth, the son, to wit, of kingNuth, called 
Ider, had been decorated with military ensigns, 
and the same, for the sake of being experienced, 
into the mount of frogs, now called Brentknowl, 
where it had been.givea out to be three giants, 
most infamous for their evil deeds, was led to be 
about to fight against them ; the same knight, 
going before Arthur and his attendants and not 
knowing it, having attacked, valiantly, the said 
giants, massacred them with marvellous slaugh- 
ter: who being destroyed, Arthur coming up, 
finding the said Ider fainting by too much la« 
hour, and having fallen into a trance, altogether, 
without power of himself, the same as if dead was 
lamented with his companions. Returning, 
therefore, to their own homes, with inefiable 
sorrow, the body which was thought lifeless, 
until a vehicle had been destined thither to bear 
it away. Reputing himself the cause of his 
death, because he had come to his assistance too 
late, when, at last, he came to Glastonbury, he 
there instituted twenty-four monks for the soul 
of the same knight, possessions and territories, 
for their support, gold and silver, chalices, and 
other ecclesiastical ornaments, abundantly be- 
stowing."* 

• 'Of the antiquity of the church of Glastonbury, p, 307. 



KING ARTHUR. 137 

Among ''the possessions given to Glaston- 
bury, by the Engles converted to the faith," is 
the following donation by the same king : 

*' In the first place, king Arthur, in the time 
of the Britons, gave Brentemaris, Foweldon, 
with many other lands situated in the confine, 
for the soul of Ider, as above is touched, which 
lands by the Engles, then Pagans, coming upon 
them, being taken away, once more, after their 
conversion to the faith, they restored with many 
others/** 

''Of the two pyramids.'* 'fThat which is, 
almost, unknown to all, I shall willingly declare* 
if I should be able to get at the truth, what those 
pyramids will to themselves 3 which placed, by 
some feet, from the old church, surround the 
cemetery of the monks : the higher, truly, and 
nearer to the church hath five storys and the al- 
titude of twenty- six feet^ this, by reason of its 
too great age, although it threatens ruin, hath, 
nevertheless, some spectacles of antiquity, which, 
plainly, may be read, although, they may not be 
fully understood. In the higher story, truly, is 
an image made in the pontifical habit. In the 
second, an image holding forth a royal pomp 
and the letters : Her, Sexi and Blisyer. In the 

* Of the antiquity of the church of Glastonbury, p. 326. 



138 THE LIFE OF 

thirds nothing less than the names : IVemefntw 
Bantomp, Pmepegn. In the fourth: Hais, P«i- 
Jred and Eanjled. In the fifth, which, also, iff 
the lower : an ii^age and this writing : Logpor, 
Peslicas and Bregden, Spelpes, Hyvn Gendes^ Bern, 
The other pyramid, truly, hath eighteen feet and 
(four) storys, in which these are read : Hedde, 
bishop, and Bregored, and Beormald. What these 
may signify, not, rashly, I define, but, from sus- 
|Hcion, I collect, more within, in hollow stone? 
to be contained the bones of those, whose names 
are read more without. Certainly, Logpor is for 
certain asserted to be, of whose name Log pereS" 
heorh was called, which now is called Mount- 
acute. Bregden from whom Brenta-cnolle, which 
now is called Brentamerse. Beorwald, notwith- 
standing, the abbot after Hemgisel, of whom 
and the rest, who may occur/** 

^ Of the antiquity of the church of Glastonbury, p. 306. 
These names are, dearly, those of Saxons interred in this ce- 
metery, and, of coarse, cannot be very ancient and, at any 
rate, they do not concern king Arthur : farther than if it can 
be proved, that his bones were fonnd between these two pyra- 
mids. Beorwald: is Beortwald, archbishop of Canterbary, 
who died 731 (Saxon chronicle) ; Bern: Beom, general, burned 
in Silton, 780, or Beom, earl, killed by Swain and buried at 
Wmchester, 1046. (16.) Eanfted : i^^fled, daughter of kmg 
Edwm, bom 626. (lb,) Hedde bishop : Hedde, bbhop of 
Winchester, died 703. (16.) 



KING ARTHUR. 139 



*r 



There is,** says Leland, '' in the archives of 
Cambridge the table of a charter formerly be- 
stowed by Arthur in &vour of the students/** 
This charter is inserted at length, in John Cays 
first book '' Of the antiquity of the university of 
Cambridge :** printed at London, 1568, by Henry 
Byan^pian, 8vo. p. 68, 69, and republished by 
Heame, along with '' Thomas Cays Assertion of 
the antiquity of the university of Oxford,** (Ox- 
ford, 1730, p. 48). It begins thus: ''Arthur, 
being supported, by god, in the regal dignity, to 
all his [lieges] greeting,'* and thus ends : 
'' Given in the year from the incarnation of the 
lord 531, the seventh day of 'April, in the city of 
London :*' So that it would seem that the doc- 
tors and students of the university of Cambridge 
were no less dexterous in diplomatick forgery 
than the abbot and monks of the convent of 
Glastonbury. 

* Collectanea, V, 27. In the library at Naward-caatle, 
near Brampton, in Cumberland, belonging to the earl of Car- 
lisle, is still preserved, standing on the floor, a huge volome 
of three vellum leaves, being the original legend of Joseph of 
Arimathea, which Leland beheld with admiration, on his visit 
to Glastonbury-abbey. 

THE END. 



APPENDIX. 



143 



APPENDIX. 



No. I. 
Extracts from the lives of Welsh saints. 

A CoTT6N-MANtrscRiPT^ In the British -museiun> 
described by the title of Vespasian^ A. XIV, con- 
tains (amongst other things) the lives of four- 
teen Welsh saints^ archbishops^ bishops, abbots, 
and confessors (to wit) 1st, The life of saint 
Gundlei^ king and confessor : 2d^ The life of 
saint Cadoc, bishop and martyr : Sd, The life of 
saint Iltut, abbot : 4th, The life of saint Teliau, 
archbishop of Llandaf^ 512 : 5th, The life of 
saint DubriciuSj archbishop of the same see> died 
512 (being succeeded by Teliau) : t 6th, The life 
of saint David, archbishop of M ynynw {Menema, 
afterward, from himself, Saint-Davids), who died 
in 546, written by Ricemarch, bishop of Saint- 
Davids> who died in 1096: J 7th, The life of 

. t Another life of saint Dabricius, 7. 

■ 

% Another life of sunt David, by Girald Barry, bishop of 
Saint-Davids, who says " it was reported saint David to have 
been the uncle of king Arthur." {Anglia Sacra, II, 628*) 



144 APPENDIX. 

saint Bernac> confessor : 8th^ The life of saint 
Patern^ bishop : 9th^ The life of saint Clitauc^ 
king and martyr : 10th> The life of saint Keby^ 
bishop :§ 11th, The life of saint Tathei, con- 
fessor: l^th. The life of saint Carantoc, con- 
fessor : 13th, The life of saint Aidui, bishop : 
14th, The life of saint Brendan, abbot, (which 
wants the last leaf). The 1st, 2d, and 8th 
lives, make mention of king Arthur, containing, 
frequently, an anecdote, a tale or a miracle, 
whence it is inferred that they have been writ- 
ten after the publication of Geofirey of Mon- 
mouths ''History of the kings of Britain," 
in 1139 and [are] consequently, a series of 
fables, and forgeries : although the manuscript 
which contains these lives is, apparently, of the 
thirteenth century. The first instance, in the 
life of saint Gundlei, is related as follows: 
''King Gundlei, being now established in his 
kingdom, greatly, desired, with a flagrant affec- 
tion, that there should be imited to him, in law- 
ful marriage, a certain damsel sprung from a 
most noble lineage, of elegant beauty, indeed 
and, likewise, in form, highly, decorous and 
clothed with golden vests, whose name was 
Gladusa, the daughter of a certain kinglet, called 
Brachan, on account of her most odoriferous 

* Another life of saint Keby, 14. 



APPENDIX. 145 

fame. He, from that time sent a great many 
messengers to the father of the virgin, who were, 
very earnestly, to require, that she might be 
betrothed to him as his wife. But the father of 
the damsel, the message being received, indig- 
nant and replete with fury, refused ixy betrothe 
his daughter to him, and despised the messen- 
gers and dismissed them without honour. They, 
bearing this hardly and, informing their lord 
what had been done toward them, returned : 
which being heard, the king, raging, with too 
much fury, armed, as soon as possible, three 
hundred servants, in order that they might 
carry off the premised damsel by force. Then 
straightway, taking the journey, that he might 
come to the court of the prescribed king, 
called Talgard, they found the beforementioned 
virgin, sitting at the door of her chamber with 
her sisters and listening to chaste discourse, 
whom, incontinently, taking by force, they re« 
turned with a speedy course : which [ill-tidings] 
being received, her father Brachan, in grief of 
heart, touched, inwardly, at the loss of his most 
dear daughter^ with tears, called to his assistance 
all his friends and companions, to bring her 
back. All his auxiliaries summoned being now 
assembled, with swift courses, he pursues the 
enemy and his accomplices 5 whom> when Gundlei 



146 APPENDIX. 

had, beheld^ he ordered^ repeatedly^ the said 
daughter to be brought and caused her to ride 
with him. He, however, without flying, but 
step by step, carrying with him the young 
woman on a horse, preceded the army, expect- 
ing his knights, and manfully exhorting them to 
battle. But Brachan, with his forces, boldly, 
attacking the hostile king and, likewise, his at- 
tendants, two hundred being overthrown, pur- 
sued them to a hill, in the confines, as it were, of 
each country, which, in the British tongue is 
called Bochr*uicam, which is interpreted a stony 
way. But, when Gundlei, sound in body, with 
the before-noticed virgin, although lamenting 
the very great slaughter in fighting with his ad- 
versaries, had reached the boimds of his terri- 
tory, behold ! three most brave heros, Arthur, 
with his two knights,^ Kay, that is, and Bedver, 
sitting upon the top of the aforesaid hill, playing 
at dice. They, forsooth, discerning the king, 
with the damsel, approaching them, Arthur, 
therefore, too much inflamed with unlawful de- 
sire toward the love of the young woman, and full 
of iniquitous thought, said to his companions. 
Know, that I am, vehemently, inflamed to the 
earnest desire of this damsel, whom the knight 

* There were no knights in Arthurs time nor (as has been 
before observed) for many centuries after him. 



APPENDIX. 147 

carries on horseback : but they^ prohibiting him> 
said^ Far from thee be it to commit so great a 
crime : for we are used to help the needy and 
the troubled^ who^ hard by this straight^ run- 
lung together from the battle^ shsdl come up the 
sooner : but, he replied, For-as-mueh-as, you 
rather wish to succour him than, violently, to 
take away from him the damsel for me, go meet 
them and, diligently, enquire which of them is 
the heir of this country. They, forthwith, de« 
parting and enquiring, according to the kings 
precept, Gundlei answers. Witness god and all 
the most learned of the Britons ! that I profess 
myself to be the heir of this land. The messen- 
gers being returned to their lord and having re- 
lated to him what they had heard from him, 
Arthur and his associates, being armed, rushed 
upon the enemies of Gundlei and, their backs 
being turned, put them to flight, with great con- 
fusion, to their own country. Then Gundlei, 
triumphing by the support of Arthur, proceeded 
with the prescribed virgin, Gladusa, to his pa- 
lace. Therefore, these things being transacted, 
king Gundlei allied to himself, in lawful mar- 
riage, the prescribed daughter of Brachan, by 
name Gladusa.'* (Folio 17, b.) The second in- 
stance, in the life of saint Cadoc, is related thus : 
'' In the same time a certain leader of the Britons, 



148 APPENDIX. 

most brave, by name Liges-Sauc, son of Eliman, 
by surname, also, Lau-hiir, alike. Long-hand, 
killed three knights of Arthur, the most illus- 
trious king of Britain. As to the rest, Arthur 
pursuing him on every side, he nowhere fbimd a 
safe place and no one durst defend him for fear 
of the aforesaid king, until, at length, fatigued 
by very frequent flight, he came, a fugitive, to 
the man of god : who, having compassion of 
his sufferings confiding in the lord, very gra- 
ciously, received him. Nothing, truly, fearing 
Arthur, he remained, therefore, with him, in the 
region Gunliauc, safe for seven years, Arthur 
being ignorant : which being rolled away, the 
same, again, betrayed to the aforesaid king, at 
last, for the sake of pleading that which by force 
with the man of god, he would, in no-wise, dare 
to contend, he came with a very great force of 
knights to the river Osk. Messengers, therefore, 
being directed to the king, the man of god en- 
quired from him if he would appoint the contro* 
versy ' to' the arbitrament of saga judges. But 
he acquiesced. For saint Cadoc, out of three 
several parts of that same country, David, to wit, 
Teliau, Iltut and Dochou, being sent for, with 
many other clerks and the elder judges of all 
Britain being gathered together, as far as to the 
bank of the very great river Osk, he, himself. 



APPENDIX. 149 

preceding, in like manner, met. Thercj also, in 
the manner of enemies, from each part of the 
river, discussing the cause, with bitter word«, 
they litigated, a very long time^ on both sides. 
After this respite of altercation, however, the 
more learned' men of the judges decreed Artlrar^ 
for the ransom to every one of the men killed^ 
ought to receive three best oxen. Others, truly, 
enacted a hundred cows to be granted to him for 
the price of the prescribed men : for in ancient 
times, among the Britons, this kind of judge- 
ment and that price were established by the mi- 

• 

nisters of kings and dukes. This being accepted, 
Arthur, insulting, refused the cows of one co- 
lour, but it contented him to receive those disco- 
loured (to wit) in the fore part of a red, in the 
hinder part, truly, of a white colour, distinct, 
with very much backwardness of gestures, 
liiose, for-as«much-as, because they should have 
found cattle of this kind of colour, being alto- 
gether, ignorant, hesitated what counsel they 
should take upon these things. Wherefore the 
man of god, in the name of the three persons, 
commanded the young men of the council, so far 
forth as nine or, like as, some confess, a himdred, 
heifers, to drive to himself, of whatsoever colour 
they should be. That, however, the before-noted 
beasts were brought before (he eyes of himself 

O 



150 APPENDIX. 

and of the other servants of god. By the divine 
\WDrk> for the depraved desire of Arthur> in the 
biefore-essii^ed' colours^ for the benevolent prayer 
aiut.ifi8h'of the just, they were, straightway, 
:cfaang!ed [into different colours]. The train of 
':4lMil.'WhoIii ckrgy, howeveri and mittny others the 
.ftdf^bfiiXoCgod assembled together by that blessed 
jplao, braiding this miracle, rejoiced with great 
•Jdy, very much glorifying god. Moreover, the 
inan of the lord consulted, how far, by right, the 
before-lrehearsed oxen [he] ought to drive and, on 
each side, the company of the judges answered : 
Right, truly, those collected together, * thou ' 
[oughtest] to drive to the middle of the ford. 
He, therefore, drove them as far as that' place, 
and Arthur, Chei and Bedguur ran to them, the 
test sitting on the shore. But Chei and Bedguur, 
desiring, earnestly^ drew them, with the hands, to 
the other shore, by the horns, but, immediately, 
between their hands, aU seeing, by the divine 
i¥ill, they were transformed into bundles of fern : 
which proffigy Arthur beholding, that to himself 
the injury was discharged, for the reason it had 
been set upon him." 

/The next instance, is the visitation of saint 
IHut to the court of king Arthur : '' Hearing a 
magnificent knight of king Arthur, his cousin- 
german, his magnificence, he desu'ed to visit 



APPENDIX. ISl 

the court of so great a conqueror^ he deserted 
that which we call the further Britain and came;^ 
sailings where he saw the g;reatest abundance .of 
knights. There> likewise^ being received Witik 
honour^ and enriched to military desire. < His 
desire^ however^ of taking gifts being fulfilled^ 
he departed^ most grateful^ frotti the royiil 
court.*' (Fo. 43.) The next instance appears in 
the life of saint F^tern^ which is thus related t 
''When Patem^ after many labours^ rested iti 
the church of Mauritania/'^ a certain tyrant 
walked up and down these regions^ on all sidei^^ 
by name Arthur ; who^ on a certain day, coming 
to the cell of the holy bishop^ and speaking to 
him> beheld his tunick (ithich^ woven with gold^ 
he had been enriched with> at his ordination, by 
the patriarch of Jerusalem) and, stabbed by the 
zeal of envy, requested it ; to whom the saint 
said. This tunick is not deserved by any great 
man, whomsoever, but^ only, by a clerk conse- 
crated to god. He, however, being displeased,went 
out of the monastery and, again, indignantly, re* 
turned, as if to take it away by force against the 
counsels of his earls. Now, one of the disciples, 
seeing him coming back in a ftiry, ran to saint 
Patern and said. The tyrant, who, hence, before 

* A corroption of" Llan-PademHvaur" or the great church 
of [bishop] Padern, in Cardigaiuhire. 



162 APPENDIX. 

went out, is returned with insulting fury. Patern 
said. Nay, rather, let the earth swallow him up I 
which being said, immediately, the earth opened 
its mouth and swallowed Arthur up to the chin : 
who, therefore, aoknowled^ng his guilt, began 
to praise god and saint Patern ; until, humbly, 
entreating pardon, the earth sent him forth up- 
ward. Then the saint to the king (imploring 
his pardon with ; bended knees) granted a kind 
look.'^ This miracle, likewise^ occurs in the life 
of saint Patern^ inserted in the Acta Sanctorum, 
Aprilis, II, 378. He died about 660. (Folio 79, 
b.) 

The last instance is that in the life of saint 
Carantoc, which, by the compilers of the Acta 
Sanctorum (Maii, III, 585), is '^ suspected of 
much falsehood:" ''In these times Cato and 
Arthur reigned in this country, inhabiting in 
Dindraithou and Arthur going about, that he 
might find a most powerful, huge [and] terrible 
serpent, which had wasted twelve parts of a field 
(to wit) Carrum and Carantoc came and saluted 
Arthur, who, rejoicing, received a blessing from 
him, and Carantoc asked Arthur whether he had 
heard where his altar had arrived, and Arthur 
answered : If I shall have a price, I will tell 
thee ; and he said : What price dost thou require ? 
He answered : That thou leadest the serpent 



APPENDIX. 153 

which is near to thee^ that we may see if thou 
beest the servant of god. Then the blessed Ca- 
rantoe went and prayed to god> and^ forthwith, 
came the serpent^ with a great noise^ as if it were 
a calf running to her mother^ and bowed its head 
before the servant of god: as if it were an 
obedient to his lord> with a humble heart and 
meek eyes^ and put his stole about its neck and 
led it as if it were a lamb> nor raised its quills or 
claws^* and its neck was as if it were the neck of 
a bull of seven years : that the stole could, 
scarcely, go round it. Afterward, they went to- 
gether and saluted Cato and were well received 
by him, and he led the serpent into the middle of 
the hall and fed it before the people, and they en- 
deavoured to kill it. He left him not to be 
killed, because he said it had come from the 
word of god : that it should destroy all the sin- 
ners which were in Carrum, and that he would 
show the virtue of god by it, and, afterward, 
went out at the gate of the tower and Carantoc 
loosed it and commanded it, that, departing, it 
should hurt no man nor return any more, and it 
went and continued as the ordinance of god 
beforesaid and took the altar, which Arthur had 

* These, it b to be presumed, are the peculiar properties of 
a Welsh serpent, composed of a porcupine and an owl : quilU 
and claws. 



154 APPENDIX. 

intended to make into a table^ but whatsoever 
was put upon it was thrown at a distance and 
the king requested from him that he might re- 
ceive Carrum, by a public instrument^ for ever- 
lasting and> afterward^ built a church there. 
Afterward^ came a voice from heaven^ that the 
altar should be thrown into the sea. Next after 
that Cato sent Arthur that he should ask about 
the altar and it was told to them> that it had 
been driven into the mouth of the 6uellit> and 
the king said : In like manner^ give to him the 
twelve parts of the fields where the altar was 
found." (P. 90.) 



APPENDIX 155 



No. II. 

The Answer of [Dionothus] the Abbot of Bangor, 
to Augustino the monk, requiring ^ subjection to 
the Roman church, about the year 603 ; in We&h 
and English j (word for word) : out of Spelman's 
Concilia.* 

Bid yspys a diogel i chwi, yn bod ni holl un ac arall 
3m uvydd ac ynn ostyngedyg i Eglwys Duw ac ir 
paab o Ruvain, ac i bool kyur grissdion dwyvol, i 
garu pawb yn i radd mewn kariad perffaith, ac i helpio 
pawb, o honaimt a gair a gweithred i vod ynn blant 
i dduw : ac amgenach uvydddod no hwn nid adwen 
i vod ir neb ir yddych chwi yn henwi yn baab ne yn 
daad o daade yw gleimio ac yw ovunn. Ar uvydddod 
hwn ir yddym ni yn barod yw roddi ac yw dalu iddo 
ef, ac i pop krisdion yn dragwyddol. Hevyd in ydym 
in dan ly wodraeth esgob Kaerllion ar Wysc yr hwn 
ysydd yn olygwr dan dduw amobm ni y wneuthud i 
ni gadwyr ffordd ys brydol. 

Be it knovm and certain to you, that we are all 
and singular obedient and subject to the church of 
god and to the pope of Rome, and to every pious 

* This is, in all probability, the oldest and best authenti- 
cated specimen of the British or Welsh language now extant. 
Sir Heniy had it from an old MS. of Peter Mostin, a WeUh 
genUemani copied, no doubt, from pne still older. 



156 APPENDIX. 

christian^ to love every one in his degree with' perfect 
charity, and to help every one of those, and by word 
and deed> to be the sons of god : and other obedience 
than this I know not due to him whom you name the 
pope, or the father 6f fathers to challenge and to 
require. But this obedience we are ready to give and 
pay to him, and to every christian for ever. More- 
over we are imder the government of the bishop of 
Caerleon upon Usk^ who is superintendent under 
god over us to make us keep the spiritual way. 



APPENDIX. 157 



No. III. 

British and Welsh Saints. 

Aaron and Julius^ martyrs ; 1st of July, about 304. 

Aidui. 

Alban, martyr. 

Almedha, virgin and martyr ; 1st August, in the sixth 
century. 

Amphibalus, a nonentity ; being only a name given 
by Gildas to St. Albans cloak. 

Asaph, bishop ; 1st May, toward the beginning of the 
seventh century. , 

Augul, bishop and mart3rr ; 7th of February. 

Barcian, confessor. 

Barruc, confessor, disciple of St. Cadoc ; 27th of Sep- 
tember. 

Benedict, abbot 

Bemach, confessor ; 9th of March. 

Brendan, abbot ; 17th of May. Irish, 

Cadoc or Sophias, bishop and martyr ; 24th of Ja- 
nuary, in the sixth century. 

Cadroe, abbot ; 6th of March, 988. 

Carantoc, confessor ; 16th of January, in the sixth 
century. 

Cinvarch, the disciple of St. Dubricius. 

Clytauc, king and martyr ; 3d of November. 

Constantine, king, monk, and martyr ; 1 1th of March. 

Cradoc, confessor ; 14th of April. 



158 APPENDIX. 

Crisant and Dario, martyrs ; 1st of December or Fe- 
bruary. 

Cuthman, confessor ; 8th of July. 

Daniel, bishop of Bangor; died about 545. 

David, archbishop of Menevia ; 1st of March, 544. 

Decuman, confessor. 

Dochelm, confessor ; 8th of July. 

Dochow, priest and confessor ; 15th of February. 

Dubricius, archbishop and confessor; 14th of No- 
vember, 512. 

Elvan, bishop, and M eduin ; 1 st of January, about 198. 

Faustinian and Juventia, martyrs; 16th of February. 

Gildas, the wise, abbot ; 29th of January, in the sixth 
century. 

Gistlian, bishop and confessor. 

Gundlei, confessor; 29th of March. 

Iltut. 

Ismael, bishop and confessor; 16th of June. 

Julius. See Aaron. 

Justinian, contemporary with Sts. Daniel and David. 

Keby, bishop and confessor ; 7th of November. 

Keyne, virgin; 8th of October, in the fifth or sixth 
century. 

Kieran> bishop and confessor. 

Kigwe, virgin ; 8th of February. 

Kyned, contetoporary with Sts. David, Theliau, Pa- 
tem, &c.» 

» 

* This saint was the son of Dihoc, prince of Little Britain 
by his own daughter ; and was bora in a province, by name 
Goyr, about a mile from the palace of king Arthur. See 
Usher, 375. 



APPENDIX. 169 

Luidger, bishop and confessor ; 26tli of March. 

Maidoc> bishop and confessor. 

Ninian> bishop and confessor ; 16th of September. 

Nonnita> mother of St. David. 

Oudoceus, bishop of Landaf ; llth of July, 663. 

Patem, bishop and confessor $ 15th of April, about 

660. 
Patrick, bishop and confessor ; 17th of March. Irish, 
Tavanauc, confessor ; 26th of November. 
Teliau, or Theliau, bishop ; 9th of February, 544. 
Teuderi, confessor ; 29th of October. 
Tisoi {Monasticm Anglicanum), III., 202. 
Winifred, virgin and martyr 



160 APPENDIX. 



No. IV. 

Welsh Saints. 

These names are extracted from the " Achey yr 
Santy,^* a MS. in the Harleian library, number 4181, 
containing the pedigrees of several British saints, 
(taken out of an old Welsh MS. written upon vellum, 
about 1250), then late in the custody of Edward 
Lhuyd of the Ashmolean museum. Those within 
crotchets are from " The pedigrees of severall 
British saints, taken out of an old Welsh manuscript 
of Mr. John Lewis of Lhuynweney, in Radnorshire, 
wrote about the time of Queen Elizabeth ;" (also in 
Harl. MS. 4181.) 

[Arianwen.] 

Assa. 

Avan Buellt [Ascun Buelld ] 

Beuno. 

[Brychan.] 

Buan. 

Cannen. 

Carannauc 

Gollen. 

[DeinioL] 

Deinyoel. 

Deimauc. 

Dewi. 

Doevael. 



APPENDIX. 161 



[Dwynwen y mon.] 

[Dyfnawg.] 

[£da elyn vawr.] 

Edernl 

[Eiluwy.] 

Einyaun Vrenhin. 

Elaeth Vrenhin. 

[Elerw.] 

Elhaem: 

[Elnog.] 

Emgen Merch Vaelgun Ghiyned. 

[Esdyn.] 

[Garmon.] 

[Gawr.] 

Gildas mab kadu [yab Kaw o Bridain.] 

[Glydav.] 

Gorust. 

Guenan. 

Gurhel. 

[Gumerth.] 

Guydvarch. 

Guynlleu. 

[Gwaurdhydh verch Vrychan.] 

[Gwen verch Vrychan.] 

[Gwenvrewi.] 

[Gwrie.] 

Henwyn. 

[Henwau.] 

[Idaw.] 

Idloes. 

[Jestin ap Geraint ap Erbyn.] 



162 APPENDIX, 

KadeU. 

[Kattuc] 

Katvan sant yn Henlli. 

Katvarth sant 3m Aberych. 

Katwalaudjrr Vendigeit. 

[Kededr.] 

f Kederig verch Vrychan.] 

Keiday. 

[Keidraw.] 

[Kenedlon.] 

Kowy. 

[Krifidoffis.] 

Kybi. 

[Kwywen vab * Kaffi of Llyn.*] 

[Kynant.] 

Kyngar. 

[Kynvran.] 

Kynvelyn. 

[Lhydhelyn or Trallwng.] 

Llendat. 

Llenyan Llauyur. 

[Lleydhad ag Eithras.] 

Llywelyn or Trallyng. 

Madrun. 

Maelrys. 

Melangell. 

[Melyd Esgob Lhyndain.] 

Merchyll. 

Nidam. 

[Noydaw or Predyr gwynog meibion Gildas ap Kaw o 

Brydain.] 
[Oswalt] 



APPENDIX. 168 



Qvyhael. 

Padarn. 

Patric. 

[Pawl vab Pawlpolins.] 

[Peblig.] 

Pedrauc. 

[Pedwg.] 

Pedyr. 

Peris sant kardinal o Revem 

Podo a Guynnin. 

[Rydegawg.] 

[Saeran.] 

[Sant Fred verch duthach Wyddel.] 

[Silwen verch Geraint vab Erbyn.] 

[31iav> or Eliaw Keimad.] 

[Tadwystl.] 

[Tair GweUy.] 

[Tair Gwragedh.] 

Tecvan. 

Tedetho. 

Tegei. 

Teilyau. 

Tninyav. 

Tussiliau map Broclimael. 

Tutclut a Gvennoedyl. 

[Tydew verch Vrychan.] 

[TydwaU.] 

[Tydwen.] . 

[Tyfrydawg.] 

Tyssul. 

Tyvredauc. 

Ystyphan. 



154 APPENDIX. 



No. V. 
Cornish Saints. 

Adrene, Advent, Athawyn, or Adwen; one of the 
twenty-four children of Brochan, prince of Wales, 
all of whom were ssdnts, martyrs, or confessors, 
in Devonshire and Cornwall, leading the life of a 
hermit. (See Lelands Collectanea, . III. 153 ; 
and Camden.) 

Allan or Allen. 

Alwys. 

Austell, hermit, (Lelands Collectanea) ; Trinity Sunday, 
Q, 31st of May. 

Beryan. 

Blazey {Blasius) ; two bishops and a martyr; all 
three on the 3d of February, (j^cta SS.y 

Breage or Breock, a native of Ireland, bishop of Ar- 
morica, obliged to fly to Guernsey^ for his oppo- 
sition to Arianism, and died there : others say 
that he outlived the persecution, returned to his 
bishoprick, and there died, in 556, S. Breacca : 
See Lelands Itinerary, III. 16. 

Brewer, William, son of sir William Brewer, knight, 
bishop of Exeter, 1223-44. This, at the same 
time, is a singular instance of a saint by a surname. 

Bruard or Buard. 

Budoc or Budoke, an Irishman. See Lelands Itine-^ 
rary, HI. 25. 

Burien. 



APPENDIX 166 

Carac, Carock or Carrock. 

Carantoc or Karantoc, son of Keretic, king of Britain. 
See Lelands Itinerary, III. 195. 

Cleer, {Clara, virgo, or C/arw*, presbyter and martyr.) 

Cleather, Clether or Cleder^ one of the twenty-four 
children of Brochan. 

Columb^ virgin and martyr; 16th of March. (See 
Camdeni Epistolw, p. 91. 

Constantine^ \smg, movk, and martyr ; 1 1th of March, 
556. (Domesday-book.) 

Credan. See Lelands Collectanea, I. 10. 

Creed. 

CuUan. 

Dachuna, a man in Botraeme (Bodmin). See Le< 
lands Collectanea, I. 10. 

Daye> Dey, or Dye, of Gaul. 

Diep. 

Dilic, one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 

Dominick. 

Eamey. 

Earth, Erth or Erne. 

Endelion, Endelyan or Endelient, one ofthe twenty- 
four children of Brochan. (See Lelands Col- 
lectanea, III. 153) ; of Menevia or Saint Davids* 
563. 

Enedor. 

Erme or Ermets, (Norden, /^(prm^^,) confessor; 28th 

of August. 
Eman or Ervan, (Q. Hemon, bishop of St. Davids ?) 
Erne, (Norden.) 

Erth. See Lelands Itinerary, III. 20. 

P 



165 APPENDIX. 

Eual> Eval, Uval or Vuel (Norden). 

Ewe, Eva, or Tew, (Iwy, John of Tinmouth). 

Ewste or Just, bishop and martyr. 

Gennis, (fienemu) ; 25th of August. 

Germtdn, bishop and confessor. 

Gemioc or Germoke. See Lelands Itinerary, IIL 

16. 
Germore. 
Geron. 

Gillet. See Juliet. 

Ginoc or Ginoke, (Lelands Itinerary, IIL 36.) 
Gluvias. 
Gomonda. 
Goran or Gurran ; Uved solitarily, in a vale, in a small 

cottage ; which, leaving, he delivered up to saint 

Petroc. iMonasticon Anglicanum, I. 213.) 
Grade, (Norden). 
Guendem, Wendem or Wendron. 
Guenor, (Lelands Collectanea^ I 213.) 
Guerrir, (Domesday-book.) 
Guinow. See Winnow. 
Gulwal. 

Gwenap or Wenap. 

Helie, one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 
Hydrock. 
Illogan. 
Issey, Issoye, or Yse, one of the twenty-four children 

of Brochan. 
Ive, Ithe or les, (Lelands Itinerary , III. 21.) 
Jona, one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 
Jue. 



APPENDIX. l«r 

Julian, one of the same children. 

Juliet. See Gillet. 

Just. See Ewste. 

Kananc, one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 

Kebf> Cuby or Key, son of Solomon, kiug> duke, or 
earl of Cornwall, about 350. 

Kenven. 

Kenwel, (Norden.) 

Kerender, one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 

Keri, one of the same children. 

Kevem, {Kewen or Coefngen, an Irish saint.) 

Keyne, virgin, a Welsh saint. 

Kew, (Norden.) 

Kilberd or Kibberd, (Norden.) 

Levan, (saint Livin), an Irish bishop, martyred in 656* 

Maben or Mabyn, one of the twenty-four sons of 
Brochan. 

Macra. 

Madem. 

Mamarch. 

Marvenne. 

Maw or Mawe. At Saint Mawes, in Lelands time, 
was ** a chapelle of hym, and his chure of stone, 
and his welle.^' Wnerafy, III. 30.) 

Maudit or Mawes. (See Lelands Itinerary, III. 
29.) 

Mawnan, Mawnon or Mawnoun. (See ibi, 24.) 

Medan. (See Lelands Collectanea, I. 10.) 

Melme, Hellion or Mullian. 

Melor, son of Melian, king of Cornwall. See Le- 
lands Itinerary, III. 194. 



168 APPENDIX. 

Menfre, one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 
Meren> Menyn or Merewen, another of the same 

children. 
Merther, (Norden.) 
Metherion. 

Meva and Gissey^ or Issey. (Norden.) 
Mewan, abbot of Ghe, in Britany. 
Mewbred. 
Minvcr. 
Mogun. 
Moran, Moren or Morwen, one of the twenty-four 

children of Brochan. 
Nectan or Nighton^ another of the same children. 
Nedye. 
Neoth or Niot^ of Hunstock^ buried at Hartland. 

His monastery is mentioned in Domesday-book. 
Newlin. (SeeLelands Collectanea, I. 116.) 
Nunn. 
Olave. 

Pfttem^ a Welsh saint, of the sixth century. 
Penan, (Keran or Kiaran, an Irish saint. See Usher> 

413.) 
Petherwick, Petherick or Petroc, abbot; 4th of June, 

in the sixth century. (See Monasticon AngUcanum, 

1. 213, CO. 1.) He had a monastery in Cornwall* 

wluch was ruined by the Danes. See Roger of 

Howden, 4270* 

* '* In this same year [1177] Martin, a canon regular of the 
choich of Bodmin, carried off by stealth, the body of saint 
Petroc, and, flying with him, brought him into Britany^ to the 



APPENDIX, 169 

Petherwyn. 

Pratt. 

Pynneck. 

Roch, a native of Lang^edoc^ died the 16th of August^ 

1327. 
Rumon. 

Sampson^ archbishop of Caerleon. 
Stedians. 

Tallan (Q. Allan). 

Tamalanc^ one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 
Teath, {Tatheus, coitfessor,') 
Tedda, one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 
Tissey (Q. Issep), 
Tudy iDeus-dedit, or A^eo-datus, archbishop of Cao- 

terbury, 654. Q. 

abbey of Saint Meven : which being found oat, Roger, prior 
of the Church of Bodmin, with the sounder part of his chapter, 
went to the King of England the father, [Henry II. that is, 
his eldest son, being, at the same time, Henry m.] and 
effected so much toward the king, that commanding, he sent to 
the abbot and convent of saint Neveu, that without delay they 
should render the blessed Petroc to Roger, prior of Bodmin, 
and, unless they did, the king commanded Rowland of Dinant, 
justiciary of Britany, that he should take up that holy body 
hy force, and deliver it to the aforesaid prior of Bodmin : 
which being heard, the abbot and convent of saint Meven, 
taking care before-hand to the indemni^ of their church, and 
not daring to resist the kings will, rendered that body, with- 
out any diminution, to Roger, prior of Bodmin, swearing upon 
the holy gospels, and upon the relicks of the saints, that the 
very same body, and not another, with all integrity, they 
rendered." (Jdem. S6T,) 



iro APPENDIX. 

Tue. (Norden.) 

Veep or Wymp, one of the twenty-four children of 
Brochan. 

Verion, Verryan or \^on. 

Wencu, one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 

Wenher, one of the same children. 

Wenn, another of them. 

Wensent, another. 

Winnow, iCruenau, a Breton saint) ; 31st of Novem- 
ber. 

*^* All these names are, or a couple of centuries ago, were 
preserved in those of parishes, chapelries, towns, villages, ham- 
Jets or single houses ; the anniversary of each saint being 
known upon the spot It would seem, however, that many 
such places, which bore the appellation or prefixture of faint, in 
Nordens time, have now lost it. 



APPENDIX. in 

No. VI. 
Breton Ssunts. 

Aaron, monk ; 22d of June, in the sixth century. 
Armagil, confessor ; 16th of August, 553. 
Brioc, bishop ; 1st of May, in the fith or sixth cen- 
tury. 
Eoham, hermit and martyr; 11th of February, about 

1020. 
Genev^ bishop of Dol ; 29th of July, 639. 
Gild^, abbot ; 29th of January, 570. 
Gohard, bishop and martyr ; 25th of June, 843. 
Guenau ; 3d of November. 
Guinol^. See Winwaloe. 
Gurloes, abbot ; 25th of August, 1057. 
Gurval, bishop of Alethen ; 6th of June, in the seventh 

century. 
Joava or Jovin, of Leond ; 2d of March, in the sixth 

century. 
Leonorius, bishop ; 1st of July, in the sixth century. 
Mein, 21st of June. 
Meriadoc, bishop of Veneti; 7th of June, in the 

seventh century. 
Ninnoc, virgin ; 4th of June, in the eighth century. 
Patem, bishop ; 15th of April, about 560. 
Rioc, monk of Landevenec; 12th of February, in 

the fifth century. 
Ronan, bishop and hermit ; 1st of June, in the sixth 

century. 
Samson, bishop of Dol ; 28th of July, about 565, 



17^ APPENDIX. 

Solomon, king and martyr ; 25th of June, 874. 
Tudwal, Tugdual or Tugwal, bishop of Trecord j 30th 

of November. 
Tuian, abbot ; Ist of February. 
Turian or Turiav, bishop of Dol ; 13th of July in the 

eighth century. 
WiUiam, bishop of Brioc ; 29th of July, 1237. 
Winwalog, abbot of Landevenec ; 3d of March, in the 

sixth century. 



London : Printed by W. Nibol, 
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