of North Wales, Cumberland, and Strath Clyde.[18] Henceforth the ancient confederacy of the Britons seems to have been broken up into the separate divisions of Wales, and English and Scottish Cumbria--or Cumberland and Strath Clyde--never again destined to be reunited under the authority of one supreme _Unben_. During the reign of the Northumbrian Alfred, the Angles began to extend their encroachments from the neighbourhood of Carlisle along the whole of the south-western coast, known in a later age as Galloway, their possessions in this quarter having increased, shortly before the death of Beda, to such an extent as to justify their usual policy of establishing a bishopric; and accordingly, Whithern, or Candida Casa, the traditional see of Ninian, was revived, and placed under the superintendence of a line of Anglian bishops, which was abruptly brought to a close about a century later. The successes of Eadbert reduced the fortunes of the Britons in this quarter to the lowest ebb. Kyle was rendered tributary to Northumbria, which already included Cunningham; [Sidenote: A. D. 756.] and shortly after the middle of the century, Alclyde or Dumbarton, the strongest bulwark of the Northern Britons, surrendered to the united forces of the Northumbrians and the Picts. The capture of Alclyde must have thrown the whole of the ancient British territories in the Lennox, which were subsequently included in the diocese of Glasgow, into the power of Angus, together with a great portion of the “debateable land” between Forth and Clyde, similarly included in the “Cumbrian” diocese; and the little principality of Strath Clyde was now completely hemmed in and surrounded by hostile territories, though the gradual decline of the Northumbrian power towards the close of the eighth century, enabled the petty state to struggle on for another hundred years in a precarious species of nominal independence.[19]