Angles had subjected, it would appear that the Pictish population south of the Forth still remained subject to them. The Picts of Manann had come under their power as early as the reign of Edwyn, and therefore still remained within the Anglic kingdom, as appears from their subsequently rebelling against its kings; and the Picts of Galloway seem likewise to have remained under their subjection, as Bede tells us that in 731, when he closes his history, four bishops presided in the province of the Northumbrians, one of whom was Pecthelm in the church which is called Candida Casa, or Whitehorn, "which," he says, "from the increased number of believers, has lately become an additional Episcopal sec, and has him for its first prelate." This implies that Whitehorn still remained in the province of the Northumbrians; and in 750, we are told, in the chronicle annexed to Bede, that Ecbert, king of Northumbria, "Campum Cyil cum aliis regionibus suo regno addidit;" that is, Kyle and Carrick, which lay between it and Galloway, and possibly Cuningham, forming modern Ayrshire.

In the same year, however, a great battle is recorded both in the Welsh and the Irish Annals between the Britons and the Picts, in which the Picts were defeated, and Talorgan, brother of Angus, the king of the Picts, slain. The place where this battle was fought is termed in the Chronicle of 977, Mocetauc, in the Brut y Saeson, Magdawc, and in the Brut y Tywysogion, Maesydawc. Maes is the Welsh equivalent for Magh in Gaelic, meaning a plain, and the place meant was no doubt

Mugdock in the parish of Strathblane, Stirlingshire, the ancient seat of the Earls of Lennox. In old charters it is spelt Magadavac. In the same year, according to the Welsh Chronicle, and two years after, according to Tighernac, died Teudwr, son of Bile, king of Alclyde, and in 756 Eadbert, king of Northumbria, and Angus, king of the Picts, appear to have united their forces, and we are told by Simeon of Durham that they led their army " ad urbem Alcwith, ibique Brittones inde conditionem receperunt, prima die mensis Augusti.'

In 760 the Welsh Chronicle records the death of Dungual, son of Teudwr. From this date there is a blank in the kings of Alclyde for an entire century— the first notice we have of them again being in 872, when Arthga "rex Britonum Strathcluaide" is slain, "Consilio Constantini filii Cinadon." This Constantine was king of the Scots, and Arthga or Arthgal appears in the Welsh genealogy as descendant in the fourth degree from Dungual. Alclyde is recorded, however, in the Annals of Ulster as having been burnt in 780 and besieged 870 by the Norwegian pirates, who, after a siege of four months, took and destroyed it. According to the Welsh Chronicle, "Arx Alclut a gentilibus fracta est." Strathclyde was again ravaged by them in 875. Arthgal appears to have been succeeded by his son Run, who is called in the Pictish Chronicle "rex Britonum," and said to be the father of Eocha, who reigned along with Grig, by a daughter of Kenneth MacAlpin. This is the last name given in the Welsh genealogy, and one of the copies of the Brut y

Tywysogion has the following entry in 890, which, if containing a true fact, will explain this.

"The men of Strathclyde who would not unite with the Saxons were obliged to leave their country and go to Gwynned, and Anarawd (king of Wales) gave them leave to inhabit the country taken from him by the Saxons, comprising Maelor, the vale of Clwyd, Rhyvoniog, and Tegeingl, if they could drive the Saxons out, which they did bravely. And the Saxons came on that account a second time against Anarawd, and fought the action of Cymryd, in which the Cymry conquered the Saxons and drove them wholly out of the country; and so Gwynned was freed from the Saxons by the might of the 'Gwyr y Gogledd' or Men of the North."

That the British line of the kings of Strathclyde came to an end very soon is certain, for the Pictish Chronicle tells us that on the death of Donald "rex Britannorum," who must have died between 900 and 918, "Dunenaldus filiis Ede rex eligitur." He was brother to Constantine, the king of the Scots, and thus a Scottish line was established in the kingdom of Strathclyde. It must have been so much weakened by the loss of Kyle and the other regions wrested from it by the Saxons, and the attacks upon it by the Norwegian pirates, that we can well believe that a large portion of the population fled to Wales for refuge, and that the influence of the new and powerful kingdom of the Scots led to a prince of that race being placed upon the throne. In 946 it was overrun and conquered by Edmund, king of Wessex. He bestowed it He bestowed it upon Malcolm, king

of the Scots, and

from this time it became an appanage of the Scottish crown. The Saxon historians name

the region conquered by Edmund as Cumbria, but that

this kingdom of Strathclyde is meant, appears from the Chronicle of 977, now a contemporary record, which has, in 946, "Strat Clut vastata est a Saxonibus."

It is unnecessary for the purpose of this work to follow the history further. Suffice it to say that, in the reign of Malcolm Canmore, Carlisle and that part of Cumbria south of the Solway Firth belonged to the Norman conqueror, and was erected into an earldom for one of his followers; that, on the death of Edgar, that part of it which lay north of the Solway Firth was given to his brother, Prince David, and on his accession to the throne in 1124 became united to the Scottish crown; but that its population remained a distinct element in the population of Scotland for some time after, under the names of Cumbrenses, Brits, and Strathclyde Wealas.

CHAPTER XI.

RECENT CRITICISM OF MYTHOLOGICAL POEMS EXAMINED.

SUCH then being, so far as we can gather it from the scanty materials afforded to us, the real position of the Cymric population, and the leading features of their history prior to the twelfth century, as well as of their literature subsequent to that period, the question before us is this, What place does this very peculiar body of ancient poetry really occupy? Are we to regard them as ancient poems which have come down to us from an early period of Cymric literature, and possessing from their antiquity an historic value independently of their literary merit, if they have any? or are we to set them aside as so beset with suspicion, and as evincing such evidence of fabrication in a later age, as to render them valueless for all historic purposes?

That the bards to whom these poems are in the main attributed, are recorded as having lived in the sixth century, is certain. We have it on the authority of the Genealogia annexed to Nennius, written in the eighth century. That this record of their having lived in that age is true, we have every reason to believe, and we may hold that there were such bards as Taliessin, Aneurin, Llywarch Hen, and Myrddin, at