Arthur, King -- Homes and haunts -- England -- Cornwall (County); Cornwall (England : County) -- Antiquities, Celtic
Cameliard is a tract in some respects not so hard to define or
locate as Lyonnesse. The town of Brecknock, three miles from which
is Arthur’s Hill, seems to have marked one of its borders, and its
capital was a now undiscoverable city, Carohaise. Ritson believes
that Arthur’s kingdom could not have been considerable, and he is
disposed to grant him the lordship only over Devon and Cornwall,
with perhaps some territory in South Wales, the land called Gore or
Gower. Be that as it may, his name, by a series of links, extends
from Cornwall to Northumberland, from the Scillies to London, and
from London to Carlisle. The British tribe, the Silures, to which
Arthur belonged, occupied the region now divided into the counties
of Hereford, Monmouth and Glamorgan. Brecknock and Radnor may have
been added, and it is certain that Arthur had supreme dominion over
Cornwall and part of Somerset and Devon. Any “kings” of these places,
such as Erbin, father of Geraint, must have been tributary to him.
Tacitus has left us an account of the valour, the determination, and
the warrior qualities of the Silures, who had Iberian blood in their
veins. It was after the Roman and Saxon invasions that they removed
their seat of Government from London to Siluria, Arthur having his
court at Caerleon. The Britons were a Christian race, for that religion
had been introduced among the Latinised Brythonic tribes before the
end of the second century. This race prevailed over the Goidels and
Ivernians in the territory, and on the recall of the Roman legions
one of the Brythons succeeded the Dux Britanniarum and thus became
the head of the Cymry (or Cambroges, “fellow-countrymen”). Saxon
Cerdic and his son Cymric for twenty years found it impossible to
break through the forest districts west of the Avon, which formed the
outwork of the British forces; and we may almost take it for granted
that at one time the whole of the west country was in Arthur’s power,
a line from Liddlesdale in the north to the southern extremity of
Lyonnesse, taking in Cumberland, Wales (and perhaps Staffordshire and
Shropshire), Devon and Cornwall, roughly marking the boundary. But his
reported excursions north of the Trent and to the east counties would
also lead to the inference that for some time the tribe overran the
major part of the country. Hence we can account for the large number
of scattered memorials of the monarch found in all parts of the land,
though superstition may have attached his name to many places where
he was absolutely unknown. Arthur’s Seats, or Quoits, abound. They
are to be found both in North and South Wales, and the name seems
to have been given to any rock or commanding situation which in the
popular fancy was fit to bear it. In Anglesey, in the wooded grounds of
Llwyliarth a seat of the Lloyd family, a rocking stone, the famous Maen
Chwf, is called Arthur’s Quoit. Cefn Bryn ridge in Glamorganshire, an
imposing elevation, is crowned with a cromlech, together with numerous
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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