Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations (12 page)

To begin with, Ida’s Angles formed a small and isolated outpost. Unlike other Anglo-Saxons, they mixed readily with the native British, creating ‘the only recognisably Germano-Celtic cultural and political fusion in Britain’.
²⁸
Their long-term strategy, dictated by their advantageous coastal position, was to link up with their kinsmen in the Kingdom of
Deur
or Deira to the south, forming a united Anglian realm in Northumbria (that is, ‘North of the Humber’). At the same time, they could chip away at the surrounding British kingdoms of Rheged and Gododdin.

The Gaelic Scots on the west coast developed their activities in similar fashion. The theory that they arrived from Ireland in one mass migration is now discredited: there may well have been ‘Scottish’ (meaning Irish) settlements on both sides of the North Channel from much earlier times. Yet the important political fact concerns the extension of a Gaelic Kingdom of Dalriada from Ulster to the British shore of what would henceforth be known as ‘Argyll’ or the ‘Eastern Gaels’, where Aedan macGabrain began his reign in 574. The facts of the reign are known through the presence of St Columba (
c
. 521–97), who had recently planted a Christian community on the island of Iona and whose biographer, Adamnan, provides a well informed and detailed source.
²⁹
The strategic concerns of the Gaels of Argyll are not hard to divine. On the one hand, they would have aimed to consolidate the link between Argyll and Ulster, in particular by developing their sea power. On the other, if they were not to be pushed back into the sea, they would have been tempted to expand their territory at the expense of neighbouring kingdoms – notably of the inland Picts and of the Britons of ‘The Rock’.

Such is the context for one of the many strands in the unending riddle of King Arthur. The riddle is not going to be solved in a couple of pages. The literature on the subject is vast, and its conclusions are totally contradictory. Suffice it to say that there were two distinct King Arthurs, one an elusive but historical figure from the sixth century, the other a legendary medieval hero whose exploits were spun by the bards and myth-makers of a much later age. In all of this, one notes a marked tendency for Arthur-hunters from England to assume that he lived and fought in England, and for Arthur-hunters from the Borders to prove that he came from
Marchidun
, alias Roxburgh. Arthur-hunters from Glasgow place him firmly in Drumchapel, and Arthur-hunters from the Clan MacArthur display a bravado worthy of the late General Douglas MacArthur.
³⁰
Yet Bede and Gildas are both silent on the matter, while the
Historia Brittonum
names thirteen battle sites of a ‘famous
dux bellorum
’ which defy identification. The historical Arthur was certainly British, since he was made famous by resisting the incursions of the Britons’ enemies. After that one is looking for toponymic needles in a semi-historic haystack. Nonetheless, one is bound to be impressed by the recent surge of advocacy in favour of Arthur being a hero of northern as opposed to southern Britain. Everyone can understand the confusion between
Damnonia
and
Dumnonia
, or the misattribution by the twelfth-century Geoffrey of Monmouth of Welsh legends deriving from the ‘Old North’. Beyond that, one can only say that the Rock of Dumbarton is hardly less plausible than the rock of Tintagel. The Rock of the Clyde was known to antiquaries as the
Castrum Arturi
; and both an Arthur’s Stone and a King’s Ridge are still to be found in the vicinity.
³¹

Local historians have few qualms.
³²
In his
Glasgow and Strathclyde,
James Knight waxes particularly eloquent:

Careful research seems to show that when we trace the Arthurian legends back to their origins we arrive at a real historical person… the head of a British federation in Strathclyde in the century after Ninian. His enemies were the heathen Scots on the west, the Picts on the north, and the Angles on the east… As the result of a victory at Bowden Hill (West Lothian) in 516 he divided the conquered territories among three brothers, Urien [of Rheged], Arawn… and Llew or Loth, King of the Picts… Loth was the father of Thenaw… the mother of Kentigern or Mungo, the real founder of Glasgow and its patron saint… In 537, a fresh pagan combination was formed under Modred, Arthur’s nephew, and at Camelon near Falkirk, a great battle was fought in which both leaders fell, and which overwhelmed Christianity in Scotland for a whole generation.
³³

Whatever we might think of this, here enters St Mungo, aka Kentigern, the ‘Chief Lord’. One of the most popular saints of medieval Britain, he lived through most of the sixth century, and died
c.
613, ‘a very old man’. If the
Catholic Encyclopedia
is right in putting his birth in 518, he could have reached the age of ninety-five. Historians would be on stronger ground if his Life, written by a twelfth-century monk, were not a conventional hagiography that jumbles up facts, tall tales and dubious reports of miracle-working.
³⁴

The saint was said to have been born on the beach at Culross in Fife. His mother, Tenew, queen of Lleddiniawn, had been cast adrift in a coracle, punished by her husband for adultery. She was somehow rescued by St Servanus, who, despite living a century later, saw the child and dubbed him in Old Welsh
Mwn gu
, ‘Dear One’. Educated by the monks at Culross, Mungo made his way either to Rheged or to ‘The Rock’. In one account, he is said to have walked to the Clyde, taking the body of an old man on a cart pulled by two untamed bulls and heading for the Christian cemetery at Molendinar beside the Rock, where he acquired the non-existent title of ‘bishop of North Britain’.

The central years of Mungo’s career were passed in Gwynedd, whither he went at the invitation of St Dewi or David, the patron of Wales and pioneer of Welsh monasticism. With David’s assistance, he founded a church at Llanelwy, where the holy Asaph served as deacon; Llanelwy is now St Asaph in Flintshire. Around 580 Mungo was summoned back to Clydeside by Roderick or Rhydderch Hael, a monarch of ‘The Rock’ in the fifth or the sixth generation of Ceredig’s dynasty. At Rhydderch’s request he founded a church at Glas-gau, the ‘Blue-Green Meadow’, died at a ripe old age and was buried in the crypt. His tomb duly became a site of pilgrimage.

Mungo’s miracles, cemented by centuries of later tradition, are best remembered by a jingle: ‘Here’s the bird that never flew, here’s the tree that never grew. Here’s the bell that never rang. Here’s the fish that never swam.’
³⁵
The four symbols of bird, tree, bell and fish appear on modern Glasgow’s coat of arms. The bird stands for the pet sparrow of St Servanus that Mungo restored to life. The tree represents a dead branch which Mungo endowed with the capacity to burst into flame. The bell was supposedly brought back from Mungo’s journey to Rome. And the fish is a salmon, immortalized by the legend of ‘The Salmon and the Ring’:

Once upon a time, King Rhydderch’s queen, Languoreth, took a secret lover, a young soldier. As a token of her love, she foolishly gave the soldier a ring that had earlier been presented to her by her husband. When the king saw the ring on the soldier’s finger, he gave him wine and disarmed him. Seizing the ring he flung it into the waters of the Clyde. He condemned the soldier to death. And he flung the queen into a dungeon.

In her desperation, the queen turned to Saint Mungo for advice. The saint promptly sent his man to catch the fish in the river. The man returned with a salmon which, when cut open, contained the missing ring. The king’s wrath was assuaged. The soldier was reprieved. The queen was forgiven.
³⁶

In some accounts Rhydderch and Languoreth are described as the ‘monarchs of Cadzow’, a locality to the south of Glasgow which later became the site of a royal castle and in modern times the seat of the dukes of Hamilton. Mungo also appears in some of the Arthurian legends, where textual analysts have noted similarities between the legend of ‘The Salmon and the Ring’ and the romance of Lancelot and Guinevere.

It is beyond doubt, however, that the greatest power in Mungo’s time was wielded by Urien, king of Rheged. Urien’s Latin name was
Urbigenus
or ‘city-born’, and it implies a conscious degree of
Romanitas
. He ruled over a domain that stretched from the southern outskirts of Glas-gau to the environs of
Mancunium
, where an outpost called Reged-ham (the present Rochdale) attests his sway. The royal seat lay at Dun Rheged (Dunragit) in Galloway; the chief city was Caer Ligualid (Carlisle); the main corridor of communication the Ituna or Solway, which led to the open sea and to Ireland. Urien earned the Old Welsh epithet of
Y Eochydd
, ‘Lord of the Rip-Tide’, suggesting that Rheged, like ‘The Rock’ and Dalriada, was a significant naval power.

In the late sixth century, the Britons of the North recognized the growing threat from the Angles, and Urien mounted a grand coalition against them. His allies included Rhydderch Hael of ‘The Rock’, Guallauc from Lennox, Morgant of south Gododdin, Aedan macGabrain of Argyll and King Fiachna of Ulster. In 590 they set out to wipe Bernicia off the map. The Irish somehow stormed the heights of Bamburgh; and the remnants of the garrison took refuge on Medcaut, the ‘Island of Tides’, the Angles’ name for Lindisfarne. Urien laid siege. He was on the point of total victory, when through the jealousy of Morgant, he was assassinated. The unity of the Britons was lost, and the ambitions of Rheged ended.

As in the preceding period, the king-lists of ‘The Rock’ from the sixth century, such as the
Bonedd Gwyr y Gogledd
, ‘The Descent of the Men of the North’, contain one definite name and a clutch of doubtful ones. Just as Ceredig (Coroticus) is given veracity by links with St Patrick, Rhydderch Hael is bolstered by his links to St Columba. Adamnan recalled that St Columba had visited the court of ‘The Rock’ and he makes Rhydderch the subject of one of the saint’s prophecies:

This same king being on friendly terms with the holy man, sent him on one occasion a secret message… as he was anxious to know whether he would be killed by his enemies or not. But when [the messenger] was being closely [questioned] by the saint regarding the king, his kingdom and people… the saint replied, ‘He shall never be delivered into the hands of his enemies; he will die at home on his own pillow.’ And the prophecy of the saint regarding King Roderc was fully accomplished; for, according to his word, he died quietly in his own house.
³⁷

Rhydderch Hael features in the
Bonedd Gwyr y Gogledd
, and in order to coincide with St Columba his regnal dates are conventionally fixed as
c
. 580–618. Adamnan describes him as
filius Tothail
, which puts Rhydderch’s father, Tutagual, in the regnal time bracket of 560–80. But all further identifications are hopelessly problematic. Historians are left struggling once again in the red mist in regard to Rhydderch’s successors. Dumnagual Hen, Clinoch and Cinbellin are names without dates or faces. No less than five princes called Dumnagual are referred to. One of them, who apparently had three sons, could conceivably have been the father of Gildas the chronicler.
³⁸

In the seventh century the Old North was shaken both by religious disputes and by shattering military battles. Interpretations inevitably vary, but all commentators agree that Catraeth, Whitby and Nechtansmere mark milestones of lasting significance.

The Battle of Catraeth occurred in
c
. 600 as a by-product of continued animosity between Britons and Angles. The conflict was exacerbated by the apprehensions of the Celtic Church, which would have heard of the Roman mission recently introduced into southern Britain by St Augustine of Canterbury.
³⁹
It came to a head within ten years of Urien’s assassination, and arose from a similar set of circumstances. This time it was Yrfai, son of Wulfsten, lord of north Gododdin, who assembled the coalition. He invited three hundred warriors to Dun Eidyn, feasted them for months on end, and then set out to do battle. Princes from Pictland and Gwynedd joined him. So, too, did Cynon, son of Clydno Eidyn, Lord of ‘The Rock’, whose name suggests kinship with Yrfai. The coalition deployed an elite cavalry force, and rode far to the south, beyond Bernicia, beyond Hadrian’s Wall, into the eastern lands of Rheged. They called themselves
Y Bedydd –
‘The Baptized’ – and claimed to be defending the old faith against the Anglian
Gynt
or ‘Gentiles’. Their exploits were recorded in the greatest of the early Old Welsh epics. The opening sentence of the only surviving manuscript, known as
The Book of Aneirin
, announces the names of the poem and of its author:

Hwn yw e gododdin, aneirin ae cant.
⁴⁰

(This is the Gododdin, Aneirin sang it.)

There follows a long collection of eulogies for the fallen warriors. One of them was called Madauc or Madawg: