On Some Ancient Battle-Fields in Lancashire. Charles Hardwick
of the Italians," prefixed to his edition of Boiardo and Ariosto, distinctly states that "all the chivalrous fictions since spread through Europe appear to have had their birth in Wales." Mr. Fiske, of Harvard University, in his "Myths and Myth-makers," referring to the Greek tradition concerning the "Return of the Herakleids," says "it is undoubtedly as unworthy of credit as the legend of Hengist and Horsa; yet, like the latter, it doubtless embodies a historical occurrence." Such may likewise be the case with some of the battles known from tradition to the early story-tellers, poets, or romance writers, who crystallized, as it were, all their floating warlike legends around the names of Arthur and his knights. Our mediæval ancestors, with very few isolated exceptions, innocently accepted Geoffrey's wild assertions as sober historical facts, notwithstanding the gross ignorance and falsehood patent in many passages, and the childish superstition and credulity which characterise others. Indeed, only about a century ago, the Rev. Jno. Whitaker, the historian of Manchester, placed so much faith in the statements of Nennius and Geoffrey, that he regarded their Arthur as a really historical personage, and he fixed the sites of several of his presumed exploits in the county of Lancaster. There may undoubtedly have existed, nay, there probably did exist, a British chieftain who fought against Teutonic invaders during some portion of the two or three centuries occupied in the Anglo-Saxon conquest, whose name was Arthur, but his deeds, whatever may have been their extent or character, have been so exaggerated and interwoven with far more ancient mythical stories, and confounded with those of other warriors, that his individuality or personality, in a truly historical sense, is apparently lost.
Indeed, Mr. Haigh expressly says—"There was another Arthur, a son of Mouric, king of Glamorgan, mentioned in the register of Llandaff." In his "History of the Conquest of Britain by the Saxons," by altering the time of the "coming of the Angles" to A.D. 428, "in accordance with a date supplied by the earliest authority," and of the accession of Arthur to A.D. 467, "in accordance with a date given by other authorities," he contends that "all anachronisms—involved in the system which is based upon the dates in the Saxon Chronicle and the Annals of Cambria—have disappeared one after another; every successive event has fallen into its proper place; the Saxon Chronicle and the Brut have been proved accordant; and the result is a perfectly connected and consistent history, such as has never yet been expected, vindicating the truth of our early historians, and showing that authentic materials formed the substance of their Chronicles." In another place he contends that, by adapting his chronology, "a foundation of historic truth" is discovered "in stories which have hitherto been looked upon as mere romances."[2]
Notwithstanding this conviction, Mr. Haigh does not assume that all the legendary lore which has attached itself to the name of Arthur is of this character. Referring to the traditionary tomb of the hero, he thus fearlessly exposes the mediæval imposture which sought to demonstrate the truth of the legend:—"An ancient sepulchre, intended by those who were interested in the search to prove itself the sepulchre of Arthur, was opened in A.D. 1189 (the last year of Henry II. and most probably the first of Abbot Henry de Soilly, under whom the search was made), in the cemetery at Glastonbury. There was on the one hand a superstition that he was not dead, and on the other a tradition that he was buried at Glastonbury; and it was the policy of Henry II. to establish the truth of the latter; and a search was ordered to be made in a spot which was sure to be crowned with success by the discovery of an interment. It was recognized as a sepulchre; indeed, distinctly marked as such by the pyramids (tapering pillar-stones), one at either end—objects of curious interest on account of their venerable antiquity; and William of Malmsbury, thirty years before, (at a time when no suspicion that Arthur was buried there existed at Glastonbury), had recorded his belief that the bodies of those whose names were written on the monuments were contained in stone coffins within. To prove that this was the sepulchre of Arthur, nothing more was necessary than to forge an inscription, which might impose upon the credulity of the twelfth century, but which the archæological science of the nineteenth must condemn. The cross of lead, which served to identify the remains of Arthur and his queen is lost, but a representation of it has been preserved, sufficiently to show that its form and character were precisely such as were usual in the twelfth century, such as those discovered in the coffins of Prior Aylmer (who died A.D. 1137), and of Archbishop Theobald (who died A.D. 1161), and in the cemetery of Bouteilles, near Dieppe, present. The pyramids appear to have resembled the Bewcastle and Ruthwell monuments; their age is determined by the names of King Centwine and Bishop Hedde,[3] inscribed on the smaller one; to have been the close of the seventh, or the beginning of the eighth century; and as the skeleton of a man and a woman were found in coffins hollowed out of the trunks of oak trees, it is probable that they were those of Wulfred and Eanfled, whose names occur in the inscription on the larger one."
Welsh traditions and writers ignore the Glastonbury legend, and regard, in some way or other, Arthur as a being exempt from ordinary mortality. The Rev. R. W. Morgan, in his "Cambrian History," says—"His farewell words to his knights—'I go hence in God's time, and in God's time I shall return,' created an invincible belief that God had removed him, like Enoch and Elijah, to Paradise without passing through the gate of death; and that he would at a certain period return, re-ascend the British throne, and subdue the whole world to Christ. The effects of this persuasion were as extraordinary as the persuasion itself, sustaining his countrymen under all reverses, and ultimately enabling them to realise its spirit by placing their own line of the Tudors on the throne. As late as A.D. 1492, it pervaded both England and Wales. 'Of the death of Arthur, men yet have doubt,' writes Wynkyn de Worde, in his chronicle, 'and shall have for evermore, for as men say none wot whether he be alive or dead.' The aphanismus or disappearance of Arthur is a cardinal event in British history. The pretended discovery of his body and that of his queen Ginevra, at Glastonbury, was justly ridiculed by the Kymri as a Norman invention. Arthur has left his name to above six hundred localities in Britain."
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 passed, 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 Lancashire 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 God 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 mass of the Arthurian stories, seems, however, to have had some confidence that a substratum of historic truth underlying or permeating the mass, might, with skill and diligence, eventually be extracted.