A Prince of Cornwall | Page 2

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certainly superseded by his own stronghold at Taunton after the victory.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.
There is growing evidence that very early settlements of Northmen,
either Norse or Danish, or both, contemporary with the well-known
occupation of towns, and even districts, on the opposite shores of South
Wales, existed on the northern coast of Somerset and Devon. Both
races are named by the Welsh and Irish chroniclers in their accounts of
the expulsion of these settlers from Wales in A.D. 795, and the name of
the old west country port of Watchet being claimed as of Norse origin,
I have not hesitated to place the Norsemen there.
Owen and Oswald, Howel and Thorgils, and those others of their
friends and foes beyond the few whose names have already been
mentioned as given in the chronicles, are of course only historic in so
far as they may find their counterparts in the men of the older records
of our forefathers. If I have too early or late introduced Govan the
hermit, whose rock-hewn cell yet remains near the old Danish landing
place on the wild Pembrokeshire coast between Tenby and the mouth
of Milford Haven, perhaps I may be forgiven. I have not been able to
verify his date, but a saint is of all time, and if Govan himself had
passed thence, one would surely have taken his place to welcome a
wanderer in the way and in the name of the man who made the refuge.
CHAS. W. WHISTLER.
STOCKLAND, 1904.

CHAPTER I.
HOW OWEN OF CORNWALL WANDERED TO SUSSEX, AND
WHY HE BIDED THERE.
The title which stands at the head of this story is not my own. It
belongs to one whose name must come very often into that which I
have to tell, for it is through him that I am what I may be, and it is
because of him that there is anything worth telling of my doings at all.

Hereafter it will be seen, as I think, that I could do no less than set his
name in the first place in some way, if indeed the story must be mostly
concerning myself. Maybe it will seem strange that I, a South Saxon of
the line of Ella, had aught at all to do with a West Welshman--a
Cornishman, that is--of the race and line of Arthur,