Here we may observe that Leland appears to know of no river Parret; to him it was ‘Ivel.’ It would be curious to learn when and how a minor tributary gave its name of Parret to the lower waters of the Ivel. It may be surmised that Pedrida was never the name of a river, but of a belt of country, and that it may have meant ‘the passage or ford of the Peder,’ Leland’s ‘praty broke.’ The name seems to contain the Welsh _rhyd_, a ford. At first it may have denoted the ford of the Peder, and then by natural extension it may have come to designate the whole fenland of the lower Ivel. 3. Racial differences were still seen and felt. The West Welsh had been conquered, and were now living in peaceful subjection, and forming an outlying part of the kingdom of Wessex; but still they were imperfectly assimilated. The old internecine quarrel between the races had in this western land been hushed and calmed; and on no other border were the British living and mingling with their conquerors on such amicable terms. There was a very great difference between the disposition of the West Welsh towards the Saxon and that of the ‘North Welsh’ on the opposite coast of the Severn Sea. These pacific relations were not of recent date; they appear as a deliberate policy in the reign of Ina before the end of the seventh century, and even earlier indications of this tendency may be gleaned which carry us back two hundred years behind the reign of Alfred. When in 665, Wina[40], bishop of Winchester, consecrated Ceadda (St. Chad), he had with him two British bishops as his assistants. These two bishops must have belonged to the West Welsh. Further, there is reason to believe that Ceadwalla, though descended from Cerdic, and king of Wessex, was half a Briton. Again: the legendary tales about Ina’s legislation which are embodied in the so-called Laws of Edward the Confessor, however unhistorical, have possibly a traditional value as characterizing the attitude of Wessex towards her British subjects in the seventh and eighth centuries. In this apocryphal text it is said that by Ina’s enactment ‘the British were declared politically equal with the English, and that as he himself had set the example of a Welsh marriage, so he would that connubium between the two races should be legally recognized.’ These are distorted reminiscences of the historical fact that Ina maintained a conciliatory policy towards the conquered British, and in this course he was well supported or perhaps guided by Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury, who in 704 was requested by a synod to write a letter to Gerontius (Geraint), king of Damnonia, and exhort him and his people to conformity with Catholic usage in the time of keeping the Easter festival. The letter was sent, and it is still extant. It is addressed, in respectful and courteous language—‘To the most glorious prince, swaying the sceptre of the Western realm, whom I, the searcher of the heart is my witness,