Bishop Percy, in his introduction to the ancient ballad of "Chevy-Chase," says--"With regard to its subject, although it has no countenance from history, there is room to think that it had some foundation in fact.... There had long been a rivalship between the two martial families of Percy and Douglas, which, heightened by the national quarrel, must have produced frequent challenges and struggles for superiority, petty invasions of their respective domains, and sharp contests for the point of honour, which would not always be recorded in history. Something of this kind we may suppose gave rise to the ancient ballad of the HUNTING O' THE CHEVIAT." He afterwards adds "the tragical circumstances recorded in the ballad are evidently borrowed from the BATTLE OF OTTERBOURN, a very different event, _but which after times would easily confound with it_.... Our poet has evidently jumbled the two events together." During the seventh century many sanguinary encounters must have taken place in Lancashire, many of which are unrecorded, and the sites of others utterly forgotten. Professor Boyd-Dawkins, in a paper, entitled "On the Date of the Conquest of South Lancashire by the English," read before the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, referring to the subjugation of what he aptly terms the "Brit-Welsh" of Strathclyde, (or the north-western part of the present England and the western portion of the lowlands of Scotland), by Ethelfrith, the powerful Northumbrian monarch, says that Chester was "the principal seat" of their power in that district. The whole of Lancashire, at this period, it would appear, was unconquered by the Angles or English. Under the date 607, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says--"And this year Ethelfrith led his army to Chester, and there slew numberless Welshmen: and so was fulfilled the prophesy of Augustine, wherein he saith, 'If the Welsh will not be at peace with us, they shall perish at the hands of the Saxons.' There were also slain two hundred priests who came to pray for the army of the Welsh." The death of these ecclesiastics, said to be monks of Bangor-Iscoed, was celebrated in song by a native poet. Florence of Worcester, referring to this battle, says Ethelfrith "first slew _twelve hundred_ British priests, who had joined the army to offer prayers on their behalf, and then exterminated the remainder of this impious armament." This is evidently an antagonistic priestly exaggeration, although other authorities state that the monastery at Bangor, at one time, contained 2,400 monks. This powerful body of Brit-Welsh Christians, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, "disdained subjection to Augustine, and despised his preaching." Hence the strong clerical antipathy which characterised the conflict. Chester was utterly ruined, and is said to have remained desolate for about two centuries. Mr. Boyd Dawkins says--"In all probability South Lancashire was occupied