III. 542. some pyramids marked the place. The king com- CHAP. municated this to the abbot and monks of the monastery, with the additional information, that the body had been buried very deep to keep it from the Saxons; and that it would be found not in a stone tomb, but in a hollowed oak. There were two pyramids or pillars at that time standing in the cemetery of the abbey. They dug between these till they came to a leaden cross lying under a stone, which had this inscription, and which Giraldus says he saw and handled — " Hic jacet sepultus inclytus Rex Arthurus in insula Avallonia." 43 Below this, at the depth of sixteen feet from the surface, a coffin of hollowed oak was found containing bones of an unusual size. The leg-bone was three fingers (probably in their breadth) longer than that of the tallest man then present. This man was pointed out to Giraldus. The skull was large, and showed the marks of ten wounds. Nine of these had concreted into the bony mass, but one had a cleft in it, and the opening still remained; apparently the mortal blow.44 GIRALDUS says, in another place, that the bones of one of Arthur's wives were found there with his, but distinct, at the lower end. Her yellow hair lay apparently perfect in substance and co 43 A fac-simile of this inscription is given in Gibson's Camden, p. 66.; and in Whitaker's Manchester, part ii. Dr. Whitaker was told that the cross had then lately been in the possession of Mr. Chancellor Hughes, at Wells. The form of the letters suits the age of Arthur. 44 Matthew Paris notices the discovery of the bones, but says that it was occasioned by their digging the grave of a monk, who had an earnest desire to be buried in that spot. It is not improbable that this may have been a further inducement with the convent to have the spot dug. BOOK lour, but on a monk's eagerly grasping and raising it up, it fell to dust. 45 III. 542. THE bones were removed into the great church at Glastonbury, and deposited in a magnificent shrine, which was afterwards placed, in obedience to the order of Edward I., before the high altar. He visited Glastonbury with his queen, in 1276, and had the shrine of Arthur opened to contemplate his remains. They were both so interested by the sight, that the king folded the bones of Arthur in a rich shroud, and the queen those of his wife; and replaced them reverentially in their tomb. 46 THE circumstances of Arthur's funeral could be known only from Welsh traditions. Giraldus has left us one of these: "Morgan, a noble lady, proprietor of this district, and patroness of the Abbey, and related to Arthur, had the king carried, after the battle of Camlan, to the island called Glastonbury to heal his wounds."" The same facts are alluded to by Jeffry, in his elegant poem, which entitles him to more literary respect than his history, and which contains more of real British traditions. 48 THE pyramids or obelisks that are stated to have marked the place of Arthur's interment, long remained at Glastonbury. They had images and inscriptions, which have not yet been understood, 45 Girald. Institutio Principis. ap. Lel. 47. This work still remains in MSS. in the British Museum. 46 Mon. Glast. Lel. 55. 47 Gir. in Speculo Ecclesiastico, MSS. Brit. Mus.; and ap. Lel. 44. 48 It is still in MSS. in the British Museum. Since it was noticed in this work, Mr. Ellis has given an account of it, with extracts, in his History of the Early English Romances. A but which do not seem to relate to Arthur. 49 sword, fancied to have been his caliburno, was presented by Richard the First, as a valuable gift, to the king of Sicily. 50 These are the only circumstances which we can present to the reader as Arthur's authentic history. The romances about him contain several names of real persons, and seem occasionally to allude to a few real facts. But their great substance and main story are so completely fabulous, that whatever part of them was once true, is overwhelmed and lost in their fictions and manifest falsifications both of manners and history. 49 On one of the sides of the pyramid that was twenty-six feet high, with five sides, was a figure in a pontifical dress: on the second side was a royal personage, with the letters Her, Sexi, Blisyer: on the third, Wemerest, Bantomp, Winewegn: the other sides had also inscriptions. The smaller pyramid was eighteen feet high, and had four sides with inscriptions. W. Malms. de Antiq. Glast. Gale, iii. p. 306., as collated in my copy by Hearne. 50 Usher, p. 121. CHAP. III. 542. BOOK First arri vals in East Anglia. 527. Kingdom of Essex founded. 530. CHAP. IV. Establishment of the ANGLO-SAXONS in EAST ANGLIA, MERCIA, and ESSEX. Arrival of IDA in NORTHUMBERLAND. the BRITONS.- Kingdoms of BERNICIA and Deira. ·Battles with WHILE Cerdic and his son were conflicting with Arthur, and the other British kings and chiefs who opposed them in Hampshire and the adjoining regions, several adventurers from the nation of the Angles in Sleswick, arrived on the eastern coast of the island. The chronology of their invasions cannot be more definitely stated than by the date which an old chronicler has affixed to them, and which accords so well with the other facts on this subject, that it may be considered as entitled to our attention. Another more ancient has mentioned that many petty chiefs arrived in East Anglia and Mercia in the reign of Cerdic, and fought many battles with the natives; but as they formed no kingdom and were numerous, their names had not been preserved.' The year in which these invasions began to occur is placed by the other annalist in 527.2 CONTEMPORARY with these assailants, a body of Saxons planted themselves in Essex, and protected on the south by the kingdom of the Jutes in Kent, and on the north by the adventurers in East Anglia, they succeeded in founding a little kingdom, about 530, which has little else to attract our notice, H. Huntingd. p. 313. 2 Matt. Westm. p. 188. 3 The first king was Erkenwin, who died 587. Matt. Westm. p.200. than that it gradually stretched itself into Middlesex, and obtained the command of London, then but a flourishing town of trade, though destined in a subsequent age to become the metropolis of all the Jute, Saxon, and Angli kingdoms of the island. CHAP. IV. 530. In this state of the contest between the British nation and their Saxon invaders, while the Britons, yet masters of all the island, from the Avon to the Cornish promontory on the west, and to the Firth of Forth on the north, were resisting and arresting the progress of the son of Cerdic on the one hand, and the unrecorded adventurers in Norfolk and Suffolk on the other, the most formidable invasion occurred on the coast above the Humber, which the natives had yet been called upon to oppose. In 547, Ida led to the region between the Tweed Ida arrives and the Firth of Forth, or accompanied, a fleet of forty vessels of warriors, all of the nation of the Angles. Twelve sons were with him." The chieftains associated with him, or who afterwards joined in his enterprise, appointed him their king. Ida, like Hengist, Cerdic, and Ella, traced his pedigree to Woden, the great ancestor of the AngloSaxon chieftains, as well as those of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. THAT part of Britain between the Humber and the Clyde was occupied by Britons; but they 4 Flor. Wig." In provincia Berniciorum," p. 218. So Nennius calls him the first king of Bernicia, p. 114. 5 We may record their names as specimens of their family appellations: Adda, Belric, Theodric, Ethelric, Theodhere, Osmer from his queens, and Occa, Ailric, Ecca, Oswold, Sogor, and Sogether. Most of these are significant words, or combinations of words, in the Saxon language. 6 So Huntingdon states, p. 314. in Bernicia. 547. |