Chap. XIX.—The two Britons, Ivor and Ini, in vain attack the nation of the Angles. Athelstan the first king of the Angles.
As soon as Ivor and Ini had got together their ships, they with all the forces they could raise, arrived in the island, and for forty-nine years together fiercely attacked the nation of the Angles, but to little purpose. For the above-mentioned mortality and famine, together with the inveterate spirit of faction that was among them, had made this proud people so much degenerate, that they were not able to gain any advantage of the enemy. And being now also overrun with barbarism, they were no longer called Britons, but Gualenses, Welshmen; a word derived either from Gualo their leader, or Guales their queen, or from their barbarism. But the Saxons managed affairs with more prudence, maintained peace and concord among themselves, tilled their grounds, rebuilt their cities and towns, and so throwing off the dominion of the Britons, bore sway over all Loegria, under their leader Athelstan, who first wore a crown amongst them. But the Welshmen, being very much degenerated from the nobility of the Britons, never after recovered the monarchy of the island; on the contrary, by quarrels among themselves, and wars with the Saxons, their country was a perpetual scene of misery and slaughter.
Chap. XX.—Geoffrey of Monmouth's conclusion.
But as for the kings that have succeeded among them in Wales, since that time, I leave the history of them to Caradoc of Lancarvan, my contemporary; as I do also the kings of the Saxons to William of Malmesbury, and Henry of Huntingdon. But I advise them to be silent concerning the kings of the Britons,[1] since they have not that book written
- ↑ This advice might be thought judicious, if we could be persuaded of the authenticity of Geoffrey's cherished discovery, but there are lamentable defects, of a grave character, attending upon this British volume. 1. It was first made known six hundred years after the events which it relates. 2. No MS. copy is now in existence, nor any record of its ever having been multiplied by transcription. 3. It relates stories utterly at variance with acknowledged history. 4. It abounds in miraculous stories, which, like leaven, ferment and corrupt the whole mass.
