“But as the sunne hath his shadow, and the highest tide her ebbe, so _Oswald_, how holy soeuer, or gouernment how good, had emulators that sought his life, and his Countries mine: for wicked _Penda_ the Pagan Mercian, enuying the greatnesse that King _Oswald_ bare, raised warres against him, and at a place then called _Maserfeild_, in _Shrop-shire_, in a bloudie and sore fought battle slew him; and not therewith satisfied, in barbarous and brutish immanitie, did teare him in peeces, the first day of August, and yeere of Christ Iesus six hundred forty two, being the ninth of his raigne, and the thirty eighth of his age: whereupon the said place of his death is called to this day _Oswaldstree_, a faire Market Towne in the same Countie. The dismembred limmes of his body were first buried in the Monastery of _Bradney_, in _Lincolnshire_, shrined with his standard of Gold and Purple erected ouer his Tombe, at the industry and cost of his neece _Offryd_, Queene of _Mercia_, wife vnto king _Ethelred_, and daughter to _Oswyn_ that succeeded him. From hence his bones were afterwards remooued to _Glocester_, and there in the north side of the vpper end of the Quire in the Cathedrall Church, continueth a faire Monument of him, with a Chapell set betwixt two pillers in the same Church.” From the death of Oswald to 777, Oswestry is reported, as already mentioned, to have been in undisputed possession of the Britons. What its faithful history was during that long period we are unable to state. If the Britons did really occupy it, no event worthy of record seems to have occurred. If the Britons were preserved in peace, no chronicle is handed down to us of their social or industrial habits within the halcyon time. Whether they improved their land, instructed their minds in arts useful to their tribe, or were sunk in ignorance, sloth, and selfishness, there is no voice or pen to inform us. Three centuries later than this period the domestic architecture of the Cymry was in the lowest state of rudeness. One of the regal mansions of Hywel Dda, their great law-giver, was made of peeled rods; the people lived in wattled huts; and a gentleman’s hall was valued according to the number of posts it contained. These were filled up with wattled twigs and clay. The only notice we have of the period is in the Welsh Chronicles, and from them we learn that Cadwaladr (son of the Cadwallawn who was defeated and slain in a battle with King Oswald, near Denisbourne, in Northumberland,) the last of the Welsh Princes who assumed the title of Chief Sovereign of Britain, reigned over the Britons from A.D. 634 to 703, and was succeeded by Idwal Iwrch, or the Roe. In one of the Welsh Triads, Cadwaladr is called “one of the three canonized kings of Britain,” for the protection which he gave to the primitive Christians when dispossessed by the pagan Saxons;