Part 1 (2/2)

Mr. Haigh, whilst maintaining the substantial historical veracity of Arthur's invasion of France, nevertheless adds: ”When we consider how miserably the history of the Britons has been corrupted, in the several editions through which it has pa.s.sed, we cannot expect otherwise than that the Brut should have suffered through the blunders of scribes, and the occasional introduction of marginal notes, and even of extraneous matter into the text, in the course of six centuries. Such an interpolation, I believe, is the story of an adventure with a giant, with which Arthur is said to have occupied his leisure, whilst waiting for his allies at Barbefleur; and I think the reference to another giant-story (not in the Brut), with which it concludes, marks it as such. But I am convinced that the story of the Gallic campaign is a part of the original Brut, and is substantially true.”

Dr. James Fergusson, in his learned and elaborate work on the ”Rude Stone Monuments of all Countries,” although stoutly contending for the historical verity of the victories ascribed to Arthur by Nennius, somewhat brusquely rejects the Lancas.h.i.+re sites, because, on his visit to the localities indicated by Whitaker and others, he found no megalithic remains to support his ingenious hypothesis respecting battle-field memorials. He says ”I am much more inclined to believe that Linnuis is only a barbarous Latinization of Linn, which in Gaelic and Irish means sea or lake. In Welsh it is Lyn, and in Anglo-Saxon Lin, and if this is so, 'In regione Linnuis' may mean in the Lake Country.”

However, he confesses he can find no river Duglas in that district, and in another sentence he regards the nearness of the sea to Wigan as an objectionable element on military grounds. I hold a contrary view. A defeated commander near Wigan had the great Roman road for retreat either to the north or south, besides the vicinal ways to Manchester and Ribchester. The objection, moreover, is valueless, from the simple fact that battles _have_ been fought in the localities, as is attested both by historic records and discovered remains.

Henry of Huntingdon, who wrote in the earlier portion of the twelfth century, regarded Arthur as a genuine historical character, and attributed the then ignorance of precise localities of the twelve battles described by Nennius to ”the Providence of G.o.d having so ordered it that popular applause and flattery, and transitory glory, might be of no account.”

William of Malmsbury, in the twelfth century, although evidently aware of the legendary character of the ma.s.s of the Arthurian stories, seems, however, to have had some confidence that a substratum of historic truth underlying or permeating the ma.s.s, might, with skill and diligence, eventually be extracted. Probably a few years before Geoffrey's work appeared, he writes--”That Arthur, about whom the idle tales of the Bretons (_nugae Britonum_) craze to this day, one worthy not to have misleading fables dreamed about him, but to be celebrated in true history, since he sustained for a long time his tottering country, and sharpened for war the broken spirit of his people.”

It is a remarkable circ.u.mstance that Shakspere, who has availed himself so profusely of the old historic and legendary records, as well as of the popular superst.i.tions, with two trivial exceptions, which merely prove his acquaintance with the traditional hero, never refers to Arthur. The exceptions are so slight and even casual that they seem rather to confirm the probability that the great poet, in the main, endorsed the opinion of William of Newbury as to Geoffrey's presumed _historical_ verities. This critical monk, in the latter portion of the twelfth century, indignantly exclaims: ”Moreover, in his book, that he calls the 'History of the Britons,' how saucily and how shamelessly he lies almost throughout, no one, unless ignorant of the old histories, when he falls upon that book can doubt. Therefore in all things we trust Bede, whose wisdom and sincerity are beyond doubt, so that fabler with his fables shall be straightway spat out by us all.” The fact that the story of ”Lear” is given pretty fully in Geoffrey's work in no way affects this conclusion, as Shakspere, in the construction of his plot, has followed an older drama and a ballad rather than the _soi-disant_ Welsh historian. One allusion by Shakspere to Arthur is in the second part of ”Henry IV.” (Act 3, Scene 2), where Justice Shallow says: ”I remember at Mile-end Green (when I lay at Clement's Inn, I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's Show),” &c. The other is in Act 2, Scene 4, of the second part of King Henry IV., when Falstaff enters the tavern in Eastcheap singing a sc.r.a.p of an old ballad, as follows: ”'_When Arthur first in court_'--Empty the jordan--'_And was a worthy king_'--[Exit Drawer.]--How now, Mistress Doll?”

Sir Edward Strachey, in his introduction to the Globe edition of Sir Thomas Malory's ”Morte D'Arthur,” confesses that it is impossible to harmonise the geography of the work. This, however, is a very ordinary condition in most legendary stories, literary or otherwise. Speaking of the renowned Caerleon on Usk, he says--”It seems through this, as in other romances, to be inter-changeable in the author's mind with Carlisle, or (as written in its Anglo-Norman form) Cardoile, which latter, in the History of Merlin, is said to be in Wales, whilst elsewhere Wales and c.u.mberland are confounded in like manner. So of Camelot, where Arthur chiefly held his court, Caxton in his preface speaks as though it were in Wales, probably meaning Caerleon, where the Roman amphitheatre is still called Arthur's Round Table.” Other geographical elements in the work are even more unsatisfactory. There is, indeed, a Carlion and a Caerwent referred to in the Breton lai d'Ywenec, and the latter is said to be ”on the Doglas,” and was the capital city of Avoez, ”lord of the surrounding country.” Even, if the scene of the Breton romance be presumed to be in the present Monmouths.h.i.+re, where we yet find the names Caerleon and Caerwint, still we have a claimant in the Scottish Douglas, as well as in the Lancas.h.i.+re river of that name.

Mr. J. R. Green, in his recently published work, ”The Making of England,” says, ”Mr. Skene, who has done much to elucidate these early struggles, has identified the sites of” (Arthurian) ”battles with spots in the north (see his 'Celtic Scotland,' i. 153-154, and more at large his 'Four Ancient Books of Wales,' i. 55-58); but as Dr. Guest has equally identified them with districts in the south, the matter must still be looked upon as somewhat doubtful.” The doubt is increased by the fact that Hollingworth, Mr. Haigh, the Rev. John Whitaker, and others, as well as local tradition, with equal confidence have identified some of the struggles with the Lancas.h.i.+re battle-fields now under consideration.

Dr. Sir G. Webbe Dasent, in his review of Dr. Latham's Johnson's Dictionary, referring to the struggles of the ancient Britons with their Anglo-Saxon invaders, has the following very pertinent observations:--

”After the Roman legions left the Britons to themselves, there is darkness over the face of the land from the fifth to the eighth century.

Those are really our dark ages. From 420, when it is supposed that Honorius withdrew his troops, to 730, when Bede wrote his history, we see nothing of British history. Afar off we hear the shock of arms, but all is dim, as it were, when two mighty hosts do battle in the dead of night. When the dawn comes and the black veil is lifted, we find that Britain has pa.s.sed away. The land is now England; the Britons themselves, though still strong in many parts of the country, have been generally worsted by their foes; they have lost that great battle which has lasted through three centuries. Their Arthur has come and gone, never again to turn the heady fight. Henceforth Britain has no hero, and merely consoles herself with the hope that he will one day rise and restore the fortunes of his race. But, though there were many battles in that dreary time, and many Arthurs, it was rather in the every day battle of life, in that long unceasing struggle which race wages with race, not sword in hand alone, but by brain and will and feeling, that the Saxons won the mastery of the land. Little by little, more by stubbornness and energy than by bloodshed, they spread themselves over the country, working towards a common unity, from every sh.o.r.e....

Certain it is that for a long time after the time of Bede, and therefore undoubtedly before his day, the Celtic and Saxon kings in various parts of the island lived together on terms of perfect equality, and gave and took their respective sons and daughters to one another in marriage.”

The Arthur of romance is, in fact, the artistic creation of writers of a later age, or, indeed, of later ages, than the conquest of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons, and not of contemporary historians, bardic or otherwise. The British chieftain who fought against Ida and his Angles in the north of England, and whose territory, including that of subordinate chieftains or allies, is believed at one time to have extended from the Clyde to the Ribble, or even the Dee, with an uncertain boundary on the east, is named Urien of Rheged, the district north of the Solway estuary, including the modern Annandale. He is the great hero of the Welsh bard Taliesin. Amongst his other qualities the poet enumerates the following: ”Protector of the land, usual with thee is headlong activity and the drinking of ale, and ale for drinking, and fair dwelling and beautiful raiment.” Llywarch Hen, or the Old, another Keltic poet, who lived between A.D. 550-640, incidentally mentions Arthur as a chief of the Kymri of the South, thus, as Professor Henry Morley puts it: ”What Urien was in the north Arthur was in the south.”

This may well account for the geographical discrepancies referred to by Sir Edward Strachey. Llywarch Hen was present at the b.l.o.o.d.y battle in which his lord, Geraint (one of the knights introduced into the succeeding romances), and a whole host of British warriors perished. The said bard likewise brought away the head of Urien in his mantle, after his decapitation by the sword of an a.s.sa.s.sin. In the early English metrical romance, ”Merlin,” a Urien, King of Scherham, father of the celebrated Ywain, is mentioned as the husband of Igerna's third daughter by her first husband, Hoel. Urien, of Rheged, is mentioned, however, in the same romance as one of the compet.i.tors with Arthur for the crown of Britain. In Sir Thomas Malory's ”Morte D'Arthur,” a ”King Uriens of Gore” is introduced. ”Gore” is evidently the Peninsula of Gower, in Glamorgans.h.i.+re, South Wales. These, however, are merely some of the geographical discrepancies referred to by Sir Edward Strachey; but such discrepancies, owing to the intermixture of several legends, under the circ.u.mstances, are inevitable, and are in themselves evidences of the lack of unity in the original sources from which the romance writers drew their materials.

Nennius's ”History of Britain” was written, according to some authorities, at the end of the eighth century. Others ascribe it, in the condition at least in which we have it at present, with more probability, to the end of the tenth. Geoffrey of Monmouth's work was published in the twelfth. He professes, indeed, to have, to some extent, translated from an ancient ma.n.u.script, brought by ”Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford,” out of Brittany. This, however, notwithstanding Geoffrey's deliberate a.s.sertion, is doubted and even flatly denied by many competent judges. Be this as it may, no such doc.u.ment is otherwise known or indeed referred to by any reliable authority. If it ever existed, from its inherent defects, it can to us possess little strictly historical value, whatever amount of truthful legendary or traditional matter it may have furnished to the author of the so-called ”Historia Britonum.” Referring to the too common habit of regarding mere tradition as reliable history, Mr. Fiske, in his review of Mr. Gladstone's ”Juventus Mundi,” justly exclaims: ”One begins to wonder how many more times it will be necessary to prove that dates and events are of no _historical_ value unless attested by nearly contemporary evidence.”

Now, one of the most significant facts in connection with this investigation is that neither Bede nor Gildas makes any mention of Arthur. Mr. Stevenson, in the preface to his edition of Gildas's work, in the original Latin, says, ”We are unable to speak with certainty as to his parentage, his country, or even his name, or of the works of which he was the author.” The t.i.tle of the old English translation, however, is as follows: ”The Epistle of Gildas, the most ancient British author: who flourished in the yeere of our Lord, 546. And who, by his great erudition, sanct.i.tie, and wisdome, acquired the name of _Sapiens_.” Bede was born in the year 673, and died in 735. The Rev. R.

W. Morgan (Cambrian History) says, ”The genuine works of Aneurin--his 'British History,' and 'Life of Arthur,'--are lost; the work of Gildas, which at one time pa.s.sed for the former is a forgery by Aldhelm, the Roman Catholic monk of Malmesbury.” If ever Arthur lived in the flesh it must have been in the fifth or sixth centuries, and yet, as I have previously observed, these writers make no reference whatever to the renowned king and warrior. So that, even if we grant the earlier a.s.sumed date to the work of Nennius, about three centuries must have elapsed between the performance of his deeds and their earliest known record! In Geoffrey of Monmouth's case the interval is no less than seven hundred years! Mr. John R. Green (”The Making of England”) says: ”The genuineness of Gildas, which has been doubted, may now be looked upon as established (see Stubbs and Haddan, 'Councils of Britain,' i. p. 44).

Skene ('Celtic Scotland,' i. 116, note) gives a critical account of the various biographies of Gildas. He seems to have been born in 516, probably in the north Welsh valley of the Clwyd; to have left Britain for Armorica when thirty years old, or in 546; to have written his history there about 556 or 560; to have crossed to Ireland between 566-569; and to have died there in 570.... Little, however, is to be gleaned from the confused rhetoric of Gildas; and it is only here and there that we can use the earlier facts which seem to be embedded among the later legends of Nennius.” Mr. Haigh, however, contends that an ”earlier S. Gildas” was a relative of Arthur, and was born about A.D.

425. He says--”He had written, so a British tradition preserved by Giraldus Cambrensis” [twelfth century] ”informs us, n.o.ble books about the acts of Arthur and his race, but threw them into the sea when he heard of his brother's death;” [at the hands of Arthur] ”and this tradition he says satisfactorily explains--what has been made the ground of an argument against the genuineness of the works ascribed to him--his studied silence with regard to Arthur.” Mr. Haigh likewise conjectures that ”Nennius's History of the Britons” was written by St. Albinus, from contemporary records which had been carried to Armorica (Brittany), and subsequently lost. However, neither traditions first recorded seven centuries after the events transpired, nor ”lives” of early British saints, are considered very trustworthy historical authorities. It requires very little knowledge of the state of literature, either in England or elsewhere, during these long periods of time, to remove any lingering doubt as to the purely legendary character of much of the contents of these books, even if we grant, as in the case of the Venerable Bede, that the authors themselves honestly related that which they honestly, however foolishly, believed to be true. Singularly enough, according to Spurrell's dictionary, the modern Welsh word _aruthr_ signifies ”marvellous, wonderful, prodigious, strange, dire,”

which is not without significance.

Nennius says:--”A.D. 452. Then it was that the magnanimous Arthur, with all the kings and military force of Britain, fought against the Saxons.

And though there were _many more n.o.ble than himself_, yet he was twelve times chosen their commander, and was as often conqueror.” He then informs us that the second, third, fourth, and fifth of these battles were fought on the banks of a ”river by the Britons called Duglas, in the region Linuis.” Some copies give ”Dubglas,” which has been identified with the little stream Dunglas, which formed the southern boundary of Lothian. The Rev. John Whitaker, however, contends that the Douglas, in Lancas.h.i.+re, is the stream referred to. He advances, amongst much conjectural matter, the following archaeological and traditional details, in support of his position:--

”The name of the river concurs with the tradition, and three battles prove the notice true.[4] On the traditionary scene of this engagement remained till the year 1770 a considerable British barrow, popularly denominated Hasty Knoll. It was originally a vast collection of small stones taken from the bed of the Douglas, and great quant.i.ties had been successively carried away by the neighbouring inhabitants. Many fragments of iron had been also occasionally discovered in it, together with the remains of those military weapons which the Britons interred with their heroes at death. On finally levelling the barrow, there was found a cavity in the hungry gravel, immediately under the stones, about seven feet in length, the evident grave of the British officer, and all filled with the loose and blackish earth of his perished remains. At another place, near Wigan, was discovered about the year 1741 a large collection of horse and human bones, and an amazing quant.i.ty of horse-shoes, scattered over a large extent of ground--an evidence of some important battle upon the spot. The very appellation of Wigan is a standing memorial of more than one battle at that place.[5] According to tradition, the first battle fought near Blackrode was uncommonly b.l.o.o.d.y, and the Douglas was crimsoned with blood to Wigan. Tradition and remains concur to evince the fact that a second battle was fought near Wigan Lane, many years before the rencontre in the civil wars.... The defeated Saxons appear to have crossed the hill of Wigan, where another engagement or engagements ensued; and in forming the ca.n.a.l there about the year 1735, the workmen discovered evident indications of a considerable battle on the ground. All along the course of the channel, from the termination of the dock to the point at Poolbridge, from forty to fifty roods in length, and seven or eight yards in breadth, they found the ground everywhere containing the remains of men and horses. In making the excavations, a large old spur, carrying a stem four or five inches in length, and a rowel as large as a half-crown, was dug up; and five or six hundred weight of horse-shoes were collected. The point of land on the south side of the Douglas, which lies immediately fronting the scene of the last engagement, is now denominated the Parson's Meadow; and tradition very loudly reports a battle to have been fought in it.”

The rev. historian of Manchester, referring to the statements in Nennius, thus sums up his argument:--

”These four battles were fought upon the river Douglas, and in the region Linuis. In this district was the whole course of the current from its source to the conclusion, and the words, '_Super flumen quod vocatur Duglas, quod est in Linuis_,' shows the stream to have been less known than the region. This was therefore considerable; one of the cantreds or great divisions of the Sistuntian kingdom, and comprised, perhaps, the western half of South Lancas.h.i.+re. From its appellation of Linuis or the Lake, it seems to have a.s.sumed the denomination from the Mere of Marton,” [Martin] ”which was once the most considerable object in it.”

The Rev. R. W. Morgan, in his ”Cambrian History,” locates the Arthurian victories as follows:--”1st, at Gloster; 2nd, at Wigan (The Combats), 10 miles from the Mersey. The battle lasted through the night. In A.D.

1780, on cutting through the tunnel, three cart loads of horse-shoes were found and removed; 3rd, at Blackrode; 4th, at Penrith, between the Loder and Elmot, on the spot still called King Arthur's Castle; 5th, on the Douglas, in Douglas Vale; 6th, at Lincoln; 7th, on the edge of the Forest of Celidon (Ettrick Forest) at Melrose; 8th, at Caer Gwynion; 9th, between Edinburgh and Leith; 10th, at Dumbarton; 11th, at Brixham, Torbay; 12th, at Mont Baden, above Bath.”

Geoffrey of Monmouth refers but to one battle on the banks of the ”Duglas.” This he fixes at about the year 500. He tells us that ”the Saxons had invited over their countrymen from Germany, and, under the command of Colgrin, were attempting to exterminate the whole British race.... Hereupon, a.s.sembling the youth under his command, he marched to” [towards] ”York, of which when Colgrin had intelligence, he met him with a very great army, composed of Saxons, Scots, and Picts, by the river Duglas, where a battle happened, with the loss of the greater part of both armies. Notwithstanding, the victory fell to Arthur, who pursued Colgrin to York, and there besieged him.”

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