formed the kingdom of West Wales.[67] The long war by which the borders of England were gradually pushed to the west, at the expense of the Brit-Welsh, was one of the most fearful of which we have any record. The English invaders came over, with their wives and children and household stuff, in such force that the country which they left behind was left desolate for several centuries. Worshippers of Thor and Odin, and living a free life, equally divided between farming, hunting, and war, they were mortal foes to Christianity and to Roman civilization. They destroyed the Brit-Welsh cities with fire and sword; and the ashes of the Roman villas, which are to be found in nearly every part of the Roman province of Britain, testify to the keenness of their hate to everything which was at once Christian, Roman, and Celtic. Gildas forcibly describes the destruction which they wrought among his countrymen, by the metaphor that “the flame kindled in the east, raged over nearly all the land, until it flared red over the western ocean.”[68] In the conquered districts the Brit-Welsh were either exterminated or enslaved, and their civilization was wholly replaced by the rude culture of the English. It follows, from the nature of this conquest, that any group of remains, such as those in the caves under consideration, must be assigned to the time before the English had possession of the district, and we must therefore see what historical proof is to be found on the point. At the close of the sixth century the Brit-Welsh kingdom of Elmet (in the basin of the river Aire)--a name which still survives in Barwick-in-Elmet, a little village about seven miles to the north-east of Leeds--extended over the country round Leeds and Bradford, passing westwards towards, if not into, Lancashire, and northwards probably so as to embrace Ribblesdale, and forming a barrier to the westward advance of the English possessors of eastern Yorkshire. Its downfall will give us the latest possible limit which we are seeking for the Brit-Welsh occupation of the Victoria Cave. The two kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia had united to form the powerful state of Northumbria, at the beginning of the seventh century, under Æthelfrith, who carried on the war against the Brit-Welsh with greater vigour than his predecessors. In 607[69] he marched along the line of the Trent, through Staffordshire, avoiding thereby the difficult and easily-defended hilly country of Derbyshire and East Lancashire, to the battle near Chester, famous for the destruction of the power of Strathclyde, and the death of the monks of Bangor, who fought against him with their prayers. By this decisive blow, the English first set foot on the coast of the Irish Channel, and Strathclyde and Elmet, on the one hand, were cut asunder from Wales. On the other Chester was so thoroughly destroyed that it remained in ruins for nearly three centuries, to be rebuilt by Æthelflæd, “the Lady of the Mercians,” in