Vortigern is found in the country east of the river Usk and north of it along a line drawn from about the town of Monmouth to that of Llanidloes;[1] and Ambrosius, as we have already seen, in Glywysing, roughly equivalent to modern Glamorganshire. Things reached a long-remembered crisis when Vortigern in the fourth year of his reign, being the year marked by the consulship of Felix and Taurus, that is, A.D. 428, invited the Saxons[2]
- ↑ Vortigern was the founder of the royal stem of the little kingdom of Gwrtheyrnion (in modern Radnorshire), which is called after his name (Gwrtheyrn). He therefore stands to Gwrtheyrnion as Brychan to Brycheiniog, Glywys to Glywysing, Ceredig to Ceredigion, and so forth. In other words, he is clearly one of the founders of the numerous little patrias or kingdoms into which we find post-Roman Wales divided. His father and grandfather bear the Roman names of Vitalis (Guitaul) and Vitalinus (Guitolin) respectively, being traditionally connected with the city of Gloucester. Hist. Britt. cc. 48, 49 (Chr. Min. I II. 192-3). Geoffrey of Monmouth describes him as consul Gewisseorum, represented in the Welsh version by iarll oed hwnnw ar Went ac Ergig ac Ettas (earl was he over Gwent and Erging and Ewyas). Hist. Regum Brit. VI. 6; Oxford Brut, 127. We find elsewhere a dux Wisseorum given in the Welsh as iarll Ergig ac Euas ; and Cadwaladr's mother, who is in the Latin described as sprung ex nobili genere Gewisseorum, is in the Welsh wreic wonhedic o Euas ac Ergig (a noble lady of Ewyas and Erging). Hist. Reg. Britt. V. 8, XII. 14 ; Oxford Brut, 109, 252.
Erging, in English Archenfield, is the district now in Herefordshire west of the river Wye. In early times it must have included the whole of the territory from Monmouth to Moccas, east of the river Munnow and the river Dore. Ewyas lay to the west of Erging, having the river Dore as its eastern boundary as far, perhaps, as the river Grwyne Fawr. Gwent was the district south of Erging and Ewyas (which were known as ' the two true sleeves of Gwent uch Coed '), between the river Usk and the river Wye in modern Monmouthshire. Owen's Pembrokeshire I. 199, n. 5, 208, n. I ; III. 264, note E. As Glywysing, in which the boy Ambrosius Aurelianus was discovered, includes the territory west of the river Usk as far as the western confines of Gower, we may roughly locate Vortigern east and north of the river Usk, and Ambrosius west and south of it. - ↑ ' Guorthigirnus autem tenuit imperium in Brittannia Theodosio et Valentiniano consulibus et in quarto anno regni sui Saxones ad Brittanniam venerunt Felice et Tauro consulibus quadringentesimo primo anno [a passione] domini nostri lesu Christi.' Hist. Britt. c. 66 (Chr. Min. III. 209 cum apparatu critico). ' Vortigern, moreover, was ruling in Britannia when Theodosius and Valentinianus were consuls [i.e. 425], and the Saxons came to Britannia in the fourth year of his reign, when Felix and Taurus were consuls, and in the 401st year from the [Passion] of our Lord Jesus Christ [calculating according to Victorius of Aquitaine, that is, 28 + 400 = A. D. 428].' See the article entitled ' The Exordium of the "Annales Cambriae" ' by Mr. Alfred Anscombe in Eriu (January, 1908), where Mommsen's text of the Hist. Britt. c. 66, is subjected to severe criticism.
