In Somerset, near the ancient British settlement of Brean, is a rocky islet known as Steep Holm, 400 feet high and about a mile and a half in circumference. In this desolate place it is said that Gildas Badonicus took refuge during the time of conflict between Britons and Saxons, and that here he composed the greater part of _De Excidio Britanniæ_. Leland records that the hermit “preached every Sunday in a church by the seashore, which stands in the country of Pebidiane, in the time of King Trifunus; an innumerable multitude hearing him. He always wished to be a faithful subject to King Arthur. His brothers, however, rebelled against that king, unwilling to endure a master. Hueil (Howel), the eldest, was a perpetual warrior and most famous soldier, who obeyed no king, not even Arthur himself.” Steep Holm was invaded by pirates, and Gildas was compelled to seek another asylum. He chose Glastonbury, and there he died. His attitude was pessimistic in the extreme. “The poor remnant of our nation,” he said, “being strengthened that they might not be brought to utter destruction, took arms under Ambrosius, a modest man, who, of all the Roman nation, was then alone in the confusion of this troubled period by chance left alive. His parents, who, for their merit, were adorned with the purple, had been slain in the same broils, and now his progeny, in these our days, although shamefully degenerated from the worthiness of their ancestors, provoked to battle their conquerors, and, by the goodness of God, obtained the victory.” In this dismal strain did he write of triumphs, and the power with which he described defeat may therefore easily be guessed. The answer that has been given to the question, oft repeated: Why is history so silent on King Arthur? is a strange one. It is said that Gildas, on hearing that Arthur had slain his brother Howel, was so deeply offended that he determined that the hero should not be celebrated by him. In revenge, he cast into the sea “many excellent books which he had written concerning the acts of Arthur, and in the praise of his nation, by reason of which thing you can find nothing of so great a prince expressed in authentic writings.” Gildas himself supplies another explanation, for he bewailed the loss of national records “which have been consumed in the fires of the enemy, or have accompanied my exiled countrymen into distant lands.” His own sources of information were those which he found in Armorica and other portions of the Continent.