Note 11b — SPECIMENS OF ANCIENT WELSH POETRY.

This was the famous battle of Bangor-is-y-coed in Flintshire, after the murder of the monks, at the instigation of Austin, the first converter of the Saxons to Christianity. This is the account Humphrey Lloyd gives of that affair: “Ille vero [Augustinus S.] ob hanc contumeliam, & quod archiepiscopo Cantuariæ a se constituto, & quod cum Romans ecclesia in quibusdam non convenirent, Anglorum odium ita in eos concivit, ut paulo post (ut dixi) ab Ethelfredo, Ethelberti, Cantiæ regis, ob Augustino incitati, opera & auxiliis, monachi pacem petentes, crudeliter occisi; & postea Britanni duce Brochwelo Powisiæ Rege, victi sunt, donec tandem Bletrusii Cornaviæ ducis, Cadvanni Northwalliæ, Mereduci Suthwalliæ regum copiis adjuti, & Dunoti abbatis viri doctissimi concione animati, quique jussit (ut nostri annales referunt) ut unusquisque terram oscularetur, in memoriam communionis corporis Dominici, aquamque ex Deva fluvio manu haustam biberet, in memoriam sacratissim isanguinis Christi pro eis effusis, & ita communicati, memorabili prœlio Saxones, occisis (ut Huntingtonensis refert) ex eis MLXVI. Cadvanumque in civitate Legionis regem creavere.” Britan. Descript. Commentariolum, p. 90, & 91, Moses Williams’s Edition. This battle is called in our annals sometimes Gwaith Caerlleon, that is, the battle of Chester, and is said to have been fought, a.d. 633.