character which Nennius gives of him, that he was CHAP. cruel from his childhood.18 Ir is stated, by Caradoc of Llancarvan, that Melva, the king of Somersetshire, carried off Arthur's wife, by force, to Glastonbury. Arthur, with his friends, whom he collected from Cornwall and Devonshire, assaulted the ravisher. The ecclesiastics interposed, and persuaded Melva to return her peaceably. Arthur received her, and both the kings re warded the monks for their useful interference.19 ARTHUR also maintained a war against the Britons, in the north of the island; and killed Huel their king. He was greatly rejoiced at this success; because, says Caradoc, he had killed his most powerful enemy. Thus Arthur, by his wars with his own countrymen, as much assisted the progress of the Saxons, as he afterwards endeavoured to check it, by his struggles with Cerdic. 20 He may have fought the twelve battles mentioned by Nennius"; but it is obvious, from the preceding 18 Nenn. c. 62. 19 Carad. Vit. Gild. MSS. King's Lib. Malmsbury mentions, in his History of Glastonbury, p. 307., one circumstance of Arthur sending Ider, the son of king Nuth, on an adventure, after having knighted him; but it is too romantically narrated to be classed among the authentic facts. Giants have no right to admission into ordinary history. 20 Carad. 21 Nenn. c. 62, 63. He thus enumerates them: 1st. at the mouth of the river called Glen; 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th, on another river called Douglas, in the region of Linius; 6th, on the river called Bassas; the 7th, in the wood of Caledon; the 8th, in Castle Gunnion, where he adds that Arthur had the image of the cross and of Mary on his shoulders; the 9th, at Caerleon; the 10th, on the banks of the Rebroit; the 11th, on the mount called Agned Cathregonion; the 12th, on the Badon Hills. III. 530. $30. BOOK paragraphs, that they were not all directed against III. the Anglo-Saxons. He is represented by Nennius, as fighting them in conjunction with the kings of the Britons. It is clear from many authorities, that there were several kings at this time in different parts of Britain." But there appears, as the preceding pages have intimated, to have been a paramount sovereign; a Pen-dragon, or Penteyrn; who, in nominal dignity at least, was superior to every other. Arthur is exhibited in this character 23 ; and his father Uthur had the same appellation.24 FOUR of the battles, ascribed to him by Nennius, have been ably illustrated by Mr. Whitaker.25 Mr. Camden and others had remarked, that the Douglas, on which Nennius had placed them, was a river in Lancashire. The historian of Manchester, whom I am happy to praise for his genius and energy, has commented on the positions of these conflicts with great local knowledge. His fancy, though often too prolific, and even on this portion of our history peculiarly active, yet describes these with so much probability, that we may adopt his sketches as history. THE battle of Badon Hills, or near Bath, has been celebrated as Arthur's greatest and most useful achievement; a long interval of repose to the Britons has been announced as its consequence"; yet it is curious to remark, that this victory only checked the progress of Cerdic; and does not ap 22 The Cott. MSS. Vesp. A. 14., in the Lives of the Welsh Saints, mention several in Wales. 23 Trioedd 7. p. 3. 24 There is an elegy on Uthyr's death among the ancient British bards. See Welsh Arch. vol. i. 25 Hist. Manch. vol. ii. p. 43-45. 4to. ed. 26 This seems to be the battle mentioned by Gildas and Bede, which occurred when Gildas was forty-four years old. We CHAP. pear to have produced any further success. 26 III. 530. tioned in THIS state of moderate greatness suits the cha- How menracter, in which the Welsh bards exhibit Arthur. the Welsh They commemorate him; but it is not with that bards. excelling glory, with which he has been surrounded by subsequent traditions. On the contrary, Urien of Reged seems to have employed the harp more than Arthur. Llywarch the aged, who lived through the whole period of slaughter, and had been one of the guests and counsellors of Arthur", Bede's expressions taken from Gildas express the general truth of these conflicts. "Now the natives; now their enemies conquered, until the siege of the Hills of Bath, when they (the Britons) did not give the least slaughter to their enemies," c. 16. p. 53. 28 Rad. quoted by Polychronica, says, in quibusdam chronicis legitur, quod tandem Arthurus extædiatus, post 26 annum adventus Cerdici fidelitate sibi jurata dedit ei Hamptershiram et Somersetham, p. 224.-The Chronicle of Ricardi Divisionensis, in MSS. at Cambridge, affirms the same. It is quoted by Langhorn, Chron. Rer. Anglorum, p. 70. 29 Trioedd, 116. p. 74. III. 530. BOOK never displays him in transcendant majesty. In the battle of Llongborth, which Arthur directed, it was the valour of Geraint that arrested the bard's notice; and his elegy, though long, scarcely mentions the commander, whose merit, in the frenzy of later fables, clouds every other. As an effusion of real feeling, this poem may be supposed to possess less of flattery and more of truth in its panegyric. It speaks of Arthur with respect, but not with wonder. Arthur is simply mentioned as the commander and the conductor of the toil of war; but Geraint is profusely celebrated with dignified periphrasis. 31 30 IN the same manner Arthur appears in the Afallenau of Myrddin; and in Taliesin he is mentioned as a character well known and reverenced ; but not idolised; yet he was then dead, and all the actions of his patriotism and valour had been performed. Not a single epithet is added, from which we can discern him to have been that whirlwind of war, which swept away in its course all the skill and armies of Europe. That he was a courageous warrior is unquestionable; but that he was the miraculous Mars of the British history, from whom kings and nations sunk in panic, is completely disproved by the temperate encomiums of his contemporary bards. ONE fact is sufficient to refute all the hyperboles of Jeffry, whose work has made him so extravagantly great. Though Arthur lived and fought, yet the Anglo-Saxons were not driven from the 30 As "the glory of Britain-the terrifier of the foe-the molester of the enemy. the great son of Erbin-the strenuous warrior of Dyvnaint." Llywarch, p. 3-7. 31 Myrddin styles him modur tyrfa, king of a multitude. Afall. 1. W. A. 153. III. 530. island, but gradually advanced their conquest, with CHAP. progressive dominion, whether he was alive or whether he was dead. Reflecting on this unquestionable fact, we may hesitate to believe that Arthur was victorious in all his battles 32, because, if he wielded the whole force of Britain, and only fought to conquer, what rescued Cerdic, Ella, the son of Hengist, and the invaders of Essex and East-Anglia from absolute destruction ? THE Welsh triads notice many of Arthur's friends and warriors; and mention one stanza as his composition. But this must be mere tradition. Sef ynt fy nhri chadfarchawg, To me there are three heroes in battle; ARTHUR perished at last ingloriously, in a civil His death. feud with Medrawd his nephew, who is said to have engrossed the affections of Gwenhyfar, his wife. But as the blow of Arthur on Medrawd is mentioned as one of the most mischievous blows in Britain; this may have been the immediate cause of Medrawd's hostility. 32 Nennius, c. 62., says, this," in omnibus bellis victor extitit." But the author quoted by Higden, p. 224., says more probably of Cerdic, who often fought with Arthur, "si semel vinceretur, alia vice acrior surrexit ad pugnam."-Gildas, s. 26., implies an alternation of victory previous to the battle of Bath.The MS. Chron. Divis. cited by Langhorn, 70., affirms it. 33 Trioedd 29. p. 62. 34 Trioedd 51. p. 13. |