THE same conflict is alluded to in other poems; but its disastrous issue and the inebriety, not the Saxon perfidy, is the usual topic. 40 Even Golyddan, who mentions the massacre of Hengist, has no allusion to Cattraeth or Mynnydawg, nor gives any intimation that it relates to the subject of the Gododin. 41 40 It is so mentioned in a poem printed in the Welsh Archaiology, as a part of Taliesin's Dyhuddiant Elphin, though it obviously begins as that ends. Mr. Davies found it to be in one MS. appended to Aneurin's Gododin, Celt. Res. 574. The passage may be thus translated: In the Gorchan Cynvelyn, the incantation of Cynbelyn, it is thus mentioned, as if by Aneurin himself: Three warriors, and three score, and three hundred, Went to the tumult at Cattraeth. Of those that hastened To the bearers of the mead, Cynon and Cattraeth With songs they preserve, And me for my blood they bewailed me The son of the omen fire, They made a ransom, Of pure gold, and steel, and silver. Ibid. p. 61. 41 The golden torques mentioned by Aneurin was then worn in Britain. "In 1692, an ancient golden torques was dug up near the castle of Harlech, in Merionethshire. It is a wreathed bar of gold, or perhaps three or four rods jointly twisted, about four feet long, flexile, but naturally bending only one way in form of a hat-band; it is hooked at both ends; it is of a round form, about an inch in circumference, and weighs eight ounces." Gibson's Additions to Camden, p. 658. ed. 1695.-Bonduca wore one, Xiphilin. Epit. Dionis, p. 169. ed. H. S. 1591.; and the Gauls used them, Livy, lib. xxxvi. c. 40. Gibson quotes a passage of Virgil, Æneid. lib. v. CHAP. IV. 547. BOOK 547. Slow progress of the Angles. Ida's death. 559. THE progress of the Angles in the north was slow and difficult. The Britons appear to have fought more obstinately in these parts than in any other. Three of their kings, besides Urien and his son, are named, Ryderthen, Guallawc, and Morcant 2, as maintaining the struggle against the sons of Ida, and with alternate success. Sometimes the Britons, sometimes the Angles conquered. After one battle, the latter were driven into an adjoining island, and were for three days besieged there 13, till Urien, their pursuer, was assassinated, by an agent of Morcant, one of the British kings that had joined him in the attack on the invaders. The motive to this atrocious action was the military fame which Urien was acquiring." The short reigns of Ida's six immediate successors, induce us to suppose them to have been shortened by the violent deaths of destructive warfare. 45 43 THE death of Ida, in 559, produced a division of his associates. His son Adda succeeded; but one of his allied chieftains, also a descendant of Woden, quitted Bernicia, and sought with those who followed him a new fortune, by attacking the British kingdom of Deifyr, between the Tweed and the Humber. This chieftain was named Ella, and he succeeded in conquering this district, in which he v. 559., which implies that the Trojan youth wore them.— Llywarch, p. 135., says, that his twenty-four sons were eudorchawg, or wearers of the golden torques, which, from the above description, we perceive was not a chain. 42 Nennius Geneal. p. 117. 43 Nennius, p. 117. 44 Nen. p. 117. The Welsh Triads mention this murder in noticing the three foul assassins of Britain. "Llofan Llawddino, who killed Urien, the son of Cynfarch." Trioedd 38. 2 W. A. p. 9. 45 Thus his son Adda, his eldest son, reigned but seven years; Clappa, five; Theodulf, one; Freothulf, seven; Theodoric, seven ; and Ethelric, two. Flor. Wig. 221. IV. 559. raised the Angle kingdom of Deira, and reigned in CHAP. it for thirty years. 46 Yet though able to force an establishment in this country, many years elapsed before it was completely subdued; for Elmet, which is a part of Yorkshire, was not conquered till the reign of his son, who expelled from it Certic, its British king. 47 ment of the ONE Jute, three Saxon, and three Angle king- Establishdoms were thus established in Britain by the year octarchy. 560 in Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, East Anglia, Bernicia, and Deira. Another Angle kingdom was about twenty-six years afterwards added in Mercia, which became in time more powerful and celebrated than any other, except that of the West Saxons, who at last conquered it. This kingdom of Mercia made the eighth which these bold adventurers succeeded in founding. It was formed the latest of all. The first enterprises of the Angles against the district in which it was raised, were those of inferior chieftains, whose names have not survived their day; and it seems to have been at first considered as a part of Deira, or an appendage to it. Its foundation is dated in 586.48 But although Crida is named as its first sovereign, yet it was his grandson, Penda, who is represented as having first separated it from the dominion of the northern Angles. 45 49 WHEN We contemplate the slow progress of the Saxon conquests, and the insulated settlements of 47 Nenn. Geneal. p. 117. 46 Flor. Wig. 221. Sax. ch. 20. 48 Crida was the first Mercian sovereign, and grandfather to Penda; he began to reign, 586. 3 Gale Scriptores, 229. H. Hunt. 315. 2 Leland's Collectanea, 56., 1 ib. 258. — Leland, ib. i. 211., from an old chronicle, observes, that the Trent divided Mercia into two kingdoms, the north and south. 49 Nenn. Geneal. 117. III. 560. BOOK the first adventurers, we can hardly repress our surprise, that any invader should have effected a permanent residence. Hengist was engaged in hostility for almost all his life; the safety of Ella, in Sussex, was little less precarious. The forces of either were so incommensurable with the numbers and bravery of the people they attacked, that nothing seems to have saved them from expulsion or annihilation, but the civil dissensions of the natives. Fallen into a number of petty states 50, in actual warfare with each other, or separated by jealousy, Britain met the successive invaders with a local, not with a national force, and rarely with any combination. The selfish policy of its chiefs, often viewing with satisfaction the misfortunes of each other, facilitated the successes of the Saxon aggressions. Frisians in ALTHOUGH the people, who invaded Britain, were principally Saxons, Angles, and Jutes, yet as the Saxon confederation extended from the Baltic to the Rhine, if not to the Scheldt, we can easily accredit the intimations, which we occasionally meet with, that Frisians", and their neighbours were mixed with the Saxons. The Britons maintained a long, though a disorderly and ill-conducted struggle, and many fleets of victims must have been sacrificed, by their patriotic vengeance, before the several kingdoms were established. In such a succession of conflicts, the invading chiefs would gladly enlist every band of rovers who offered; and, as in a future day, every coast of Scan 50 Tota insula, diversis regibus divisa, subjacuit. Joannes Tinmuth, ap. Usher, 662. 51 Bede, lib. v. c. 10. Procop. lib. iv. p.467. Collinus, ap. Canneg. de Britten, p. 68.; and Ubb. Emm. p. 41.; and Spener, 361. dinavia and the Baltic poured their warriors on England, so is it likely that, in the present period, adventurers crowded from every neighbouring district.52 In this part of our subject we are walking over the country of the departed, whose memory has not been perpetuated by the commemorating heralds of their day. A barbarous age is unfriendly to human fame. When the clods of his hillock are scattered, or his funeral stones are thrown down, the glory of a savage perishes for ever. after-ages, fancy labours to supply the loss, but her incongruities are visible; and gain no lasting belief. In CHAP. IV. 560. OPPOSITE to the island of Northstrand, on the Strandwestern shore of Sleswick, a small tract of land, frisii. dangerous from its vicinity to a turbulent sea, was in ancient times occupied by a colony of Frisians. They extended north from Husum for several miles along the sea-coast. In the middle of the district was the town Brested, surrounded by a rich soil, though sands extended beyond. It terminated about Langhorn. The people who dwelt on it were called Strandfrisii, and the tract was denominated Frisia Minor. The marshy soil was colonised by the natives of Friesland, in an age which has not been ascertained. Saxo speaks of Canute the Fifth's journey to it, and then describes it as rich in corn and cattle, and protected from the ocean by artificial mounds. It was a complete 52 So Mascou also thinks, p. 527. Some of the Icelandic writings mention northern kings, who had dominions in Britain, in the sixth and seventh centuries. If they be not entirely fabulous, they may relate to some of these expeditions. On this period we may also recollect the life of the first Offa. See Matt. Paris, Vit. Offæ. |