A Prince of Cornwall

A few words of preface may save footnotes to a story which deals with the half-forgotten days when the power of a British prince had yet to be reckoned with by the Wessex kings as they slowly and steadily pushed their frontier westward.

The authority for the historical basis of the story is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which gives A.D. 710 as the year of the defeat of Gerent, king of the West Welsh, by Ina of Wessex and his kinsman Nunna. This date is therefore approximately that of the events of the tale.

With regard to the topography of the Wessex frontier involved, although it practically explains itself in the course of the story, it may be as well to remind a reader that West Wales was the last British kingdom south of the Severn Sea, the name being, of course, given by Wessex men to distinguish it from the Welsh principalities in what we now call Wales, to their north. In the days of Ina it comprised Cornwall and the present Devon and also the half of Somerset westward of the north and south line of the river Parrett and Quantock Hills. Practically this old British "Dyvnaint" represented the ancient Roman province of Damnonia, shrinking as it was under successive advances of the Saxons from the boundary which it once had along the Mendips and Selwood Forest. Ina's victory over Gerent set the Dyvnaint frontier yet westward, to the line of the present county of Somerset, which represents the limit of his conquest, the new addition to the territory of the clan of the Sumorsaetas long being named as "Devon in Wessex" by the chroniclers rather than as Somerset.

The terms "Devon" or "Dyvnaint," as they are respectively used by Saxon or Briton in the course of the story, will therefore be understood to imply the ancient territory before its limitation by the boundaries of the modern counties, which practically took their rise from the wars of Ina.

With regard to names, I have not thought it worth while to use the archaic, if more correct, forms for those of well-known places. It seems unnecessary to write, for instance, "Glaestingabyrig" for Glastonbury, or "Penbroch" for Pembroke. I have treated proper names in the same way, keeping, for example, the more familiar latinised "Ina" rather than the Saxon "Ine," as being more nearly the correct pronunciation than might otherwise be used without the hint given by a footnote.

The exact spot where Wessex and West Wales met in the battle between Ina and Gerent is not certain, though it is known to have been on the line of the hills to the west of the Parrett, and possibly, according to an identification deduced from the Welsh "Llywarch Hen," in the neighbourhood of Langport. Local tradition and legend place a battle also at the ancient Roman fortress of Norton Fitzwarren, which Ina certainly superseded by his own stronghold at Taunton after the victory. As Nunna is named as leader of the Saxons, together with the king himself, it seems most likely that there were two columns acting against the Welsh advance on the north and south of the Tone River, and that therefore there were battles at each place. On the Blackdown Hills beyond Langport a barrow was known until quite lately as "Noon's barrow," and it would mark at least the line of flight of the Welsh; and if not the burial place of the Saxon leader, who is supposed to have fallen, must have been raised by him over his comrades.

The line taken by the story will not be far wrong, therefore, as in any case the Blackdown and Quantock strongholds must have been taken by the Saxons to guard against flank attacks, from whichever side of the Tone the British advance was made.

The course of the story hangs to some extent on the influence of the old feud between the British and Saxon Churches, which dated from the days of Augustine and his attempt to compel the adoption of Western customs by the followers of the Church which had its rise from the East. There is no doubt that the death of the wise and peacemaking Aldhelm of Sherborne let the smouldering enmity loose afresh, with the result of setting Gerent in motion against his powerful neighbour. Ina's victory was decisive, Gerent being the last king of the West Welsh named in the chronicles, and we hear of little further trouble from the West until A.D. 835, when the Cornish joined with a new-come fleet of Danes in an unsuccessful raid on Wessex.

Ina's new policy with the conquered Welsh is historic and well known. Even in the will of King Alfred, two hundred years later, some of the best towns in west Somerset and Dorset are spoken of as "Among the Welsh kin," and there is yet full evidence, in both dialect and physique, of strongly marked British descent among the population west of the Parrett.