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nounced the world, and had been living with St. Dubricius at the hermitage, were sent by the Archbishop to convey the Queen's body to the Isle of Avalon. Accordingly, her body was carried on a horse-bier with great pomp, with a hundred torches ever burning about the corpse. Sir Launcelot, who for the last year had been a priest, went on foot with the seven knights about the horse-bier, singing and reading many a holy orison and incensing the corpse with frankincense. It was on the evening of the second day of their journey when they arrived at the hermitage, and the body of the Queen was taken into the chapel, and the vespers for the dead and a solemn dirge were chanted with great devotion.

On the next morning the Archbishop sang a solemn mass of requiem, and Sir Launcelot was the first that offered, and then all his seven fellows. Then the body of the deceased Queen was wrapped in cered cloth of "Raines", from the top to the toe in thirty fold, and after that she was put in a wrapper of lead, and then in a coffin of marble, and laid by the side of the King, her husband, in the chapel of the hermitage, which, receiving successive additions of holy men, gradually grew up into the flourishing and celebrated Monastery of Glastonbury.1

In A.D. 1179 King Henry II, wishing to satisfy himself of the truth of this legend, went to Glastonbury and had the grave opened. On the King's coffin was this inscription:—

"Hic jacet in Insula Avalonia
Inclytus Rex Arthurus

Rex quondam, Rexque futurus."

The bones of a man of large size were found in the king's coffin, and the silken hair of the queen still preserved the beautiful golden hue for which it was so celebrated. The skulls of the king and queen were afterwards taken as relics by Edward Longshanks and Eleanor.

1 Wynkyn de Worde, 1498. Morte d'Arthur. Caxton, 1485.

A great dyke or foss, called Clawdd Wat, or Wat's Dyke, is continued from each side of Caer Ogyrvan. This work is little known; notwithstanding it is equal in depth, though not in extent, to that of Offa, Wat's Dyke can only be discovered on the southern part of Maesbury Mill, in Oswestry parish, where it is lost in morassy ground; from thence it takes a northern direction to Caer Ogyrvan, and by Pentre 'r Clawdd to Gobowen, the site of a small fort, called Bryn y Castell, in the parish of Trewen or Whittington; then crosses Prys Henlle Common, in the parish of St. Martin; goes over the Ceiriog between Bryn Cunallt and Pont y Blew forge, and the Dyvrdwy or Dee river below Nant y Belan; from whence it passes through the park of Wynnstay, formerly Watstay, by another Pentre'r Clawdd to Erddig or Eurddig, where there was another strong fort on its course; from Erddig it goes above Wrexham, near Melin Puleston, by Dolydd, Maes Gwyn, Rhos Ddu, Croes Oneiras, the mansion of Gwersyllt Isav, the ancient seat of the Sutton family, crosses the Alun, and through the township of Llai, to Rhydin, in the county of Flint, above which is Caer Estyn, a British post; from hence it runs by Queen's Hope Church, along the side of Moldsdale, which it quits towards the lower part, and turns towards Mynydd Sychdin, Mynachlog Rhedin, in the parish of Llaneurgain, or Northop (North Hope), in Tegeingl, by Llaneurgain Mills, Bryn Moel, Coed y Llys, Nant y Flint, Cevn y Coed, through the Strand fields, near Treffynnon, or Holywell, to its termination below the Abbey of Dinas Basing, or Basingwerk. Clawdd Wat is often confounded with Clawdd Offa, which attends. the former at unequal distances, from five hundred yards to three miles, till the latter, whose course has been already described, is totally lost.1

The poet Churchyard makes the following allusion to these dykes:

1 Pennant's Tour, vol. i, p. 349.

VOL. VI.

24

"There is a famous thing,

Cal'de Offa's Dyke, that reacheth far in length;
All kind of ware the Danes might hither bring:
It was free ground, and cal'de the Britaine's strength.
Wat's Dyke, likewise about the same was set,
Between which two, both Danes and Britaines met,
And trafficke still, but passing bounds by flight,
The one did take the other prisoner streight." 1

In the parish of Selattyn was formerly a singular entrenchment called Castle Brogyntyn. It was of a circular form (which shows that it was a British camp), surrounded by a vast earthen dyke and a deep foss. It had two entrances pretty close to each other, projecting a little from the sides and diverging, the end of each guarded by a semi-lunar curtain. These are now destroyed. This place formerly belonged to Owain, a natural son of Prince Madog ab Meredydd, and from hence he received his surname of Brogyntyn.

The township of Maesbury, in the parish of Oswestry, was anciently called Tre'r Vesen, Llys Vesen, and Llys Vesydd, from mesen, an acorn; mesbren, an oak. The neighbourhood abounds with fine oaks; on which account, from the large quantity of acorns, the Romans called this place "Gland-urbem", from which circumstance the Normans called it Glanville. Over the Porth Newydd, one of the four gates in the walls that surrounded Oswestry, was carved the figure of a horse at full speed, with an oaken bough in his mouth. This may allude to the conquest of Tre'r Vesed by the Saxons, whose arms were a white horse at full speed.

On the 5th of August, in A.D. 642, Oswald, King of Northumberland, son of Ethelfrith, who had massacred the monks of Bangor Is y Coed, attacked Penda, King of Mercia, but was defeated and slain by him at a place called Dyffryn Maes Hir, but now Croes Oswald, Oswald's Tree, or Oswestry, from the mangled body of Oswald, who was a Christian convert, being exposed on three

1

Churchyard's Worthines of Wales, p. 104. Originally printed in 1587; reprinted by Thomas Evans, 1776.

2 Harl. MS. 1981.

wooden crosses by order of the pagan king Penda. Numberless miracles are said to have been worked on the spot where the corpse of Oswald had lain.1

"Three crosses, raised at Penda's dire command,

Bore Oswald's royal head and mangled hands;

To stand a sad example to the rest,

And prove him wretched who is ever blest.

Vain policy for what the victor got,
Proved to the vanquished king the happier lot;
For now the martyred saint in glory views
How Oswy with success the war renews,
And Penda scarcely can support his throne,
Whilst Oswald wears a never-fading crown."

Pennant and other writers call the spot where the battle was fought Maes Hir, the long field, and then say that the Saxons added their own vernacular word field, a field, to it; as Maserfield, and corruptly Masafeld2; but Henry of Huntingdon calls the place where the battle was fought Mesafeld, which seems much more like mesen (pl. mes), an acorn, than maes hir, a long field; and the township of Tre'r Vesen is close to the battlefield.

"Campus Mesafeld sanctorum canduit ossa."

(Bleached were the bones of saints on the field of Mesafeld.)

A church was built on the place of the martyrdom of St. Oswald, which was placed under his invocation. Earl Roger de Montgomerie, on whom William the Conqueror had conferred the palatinate of Shropshire in A.D. 1071, granted by charter "the Church of St. Oswald with the tenths or tithes of the same vill or town to the Abbey of Shrewsbury."

A monastery was founded which bore the name of Blanc-Minister, Candida Ecclesia, Album Monasterium, and White-Minster. Reynerus, who was Bishop of St. Asaph from 1188 to 1224, and who had a house near here, expelled the twelve secular priests from this

1 Bedæ, Hist. Eccles., lib. iii, c. 9 to 13.
2 Henry of Huntingdon, lib. iii, p. 331.
3 Bedæ, Hist. Eccles., lib. iii, c. 9 to 13.

church, and gave the tithes of hay and corn belonging to it to the monks of Shrewsbury Abbey.1 Leland says in his Itinerary that the cloisters, with the tombs of the monks, remained in the memory of man.

The rectorial tithes and Church of St. Oswald now belong to the Earl of Powys.

The walls of Oswestry were begun in A.D. 1277, 6th Edward I, who granted a murage or toll on the inhabitants of the county, which lasted for six years; in which time it may be supposed they were completed. They were about a mile in compass, and had a deep foss on the outside, capable of being filled with water from the neigbouring rivulets.

PONT Y GOV OR NANTCLWYD.

(Add. MS. 9865.)

Thomas Parry Wynn of Trev Rhuddin, ab John ab Harri.=

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William. Jane, ux., 1, John Wynn Jones of Plâs Newydd in Llanvair Dyffryn Clwydd; and 2, William Vaughan of Bron Haulog.

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1 Henry of Huntingdon, lib. iii, p. 331.

2 Pennant's Tour, vol. i, p. 338.

3 The Mull family came into Wales with Edward I. Their pedigree is as follows: Ambrose Mull of Ruthin, Esq., who was aged twenty-five in 1673, married Margaret, daughter of Thomas Ellis of Coed Cra in co. Flint, by whom he had a son and heir, Peter, who died Oct. 25, 1702; and a daughter, Mary, wife of Thomas Parry. Ambrose Mull was the son of Peter or Piers Mull, who died in 1676, ab Geoffrey Mull ab Piers Mull ab Thomas Mull of Ruthin, ab John Mull, Steward of Ruthin, ab John Mull, Steward of Ruthin, ab John Mull or Moyl. Sable, two lions rampant in fess argent.

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