11 
speak of Gaul as his “fatherland,” would have all his relatives 
there, and would go there on his escape from captivity. In pre- 
cisely the same way, the child of an English officer born whilst 
his father was stationed with his regiment in India would still call 
England, not India, his fatherland, where his relatives would be found, 
and whither he might go as to his own country. All the evidence 
for St. Patrick’s connection with Gaul, through his family, we can 
readily accept ; but this does not prove that Gaul was actually his 
birthplace. And we cannot evade the evidence of other most 
clear facts, which point to a connection of another kind with some 
part of Great Britain. 
But what part of Britain was it? His father would appear to 
have been engaged in the defence of some military station against 
the Picts, who towards the close of the Fourth century were con- 
stantly invading the northern provinces. It would be during a 
successful attack of this kind that the parents of the child were 
slain, and that he himself, with many thousands of others, was 
made captive. Where was this station? All the probabilities of 
the case—all the historical evidence from other sources, point to 
some part of the northern and western frontiers of Britain as the 
scene of the invasion. But was it somewhere on the Clyde, by 
one of the fortresses of the frontier of Antonine? or was it not 
rather in some part of modern Cumberland, at some station near 
the great Wall of Hadrian? 
2. I must at once admit that the more common opinion has 
hitherto been that it was in Clydesdale, probably near Dumbarton, 
that Calphurnius was stationed, and that his son was made captive. 
The little village of Old Kilpatrick is further indicated as being 
the exact spot. The name indeed would imply nothing more than 
that in ancient times a cell or church had existed there dedicated 
to the Saint. On this ground we might almost as well advance 
claims for Patterdale, or even Aspatria. There is no record of 
even a chapel at Kilpatrick before the Twelfth century. But the 
chief objection to this theory is that it does not square with a most 
important detail, and fails to take account of the following weighty 
fact, 
