Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Bristol. 273 
strong place was a residence of the Kings of Damnonia before the 
advent of the Saxons. It was well fitted to be the northern 
fortress of that powerful kingdom, guarding the great forest which 
must have been so useful as the protection of their frontier. 
We need not on this occasion enter upon a discussion of what 
are called Welsh traditions. It is a confusing phrase, for it tends 
to make us suppose that the traditions are Welsh and not British. 
Our thoughts to-day are turned to a time when the Welsh, as we 
now call them, occupied the whole of the south-west of England 
as well as the central west, now called Wales, and occupied also 
the north-west. The Saxons had not penetrated the barrier which 
the great forest, Selwood, presented to their further progress 
westward. The place where we find ourselves to-day was near the 
northern point of that great forest, which ran up to the head- 
waters of the Thames at Cricklade. Roughly speaking, with the 
exception of the southern part of Gloucestershire down to the 
mouth of the Avon, the Britons were still in possession of the land 
from some miles east of Malmesbury right through to St. David’s, 
and from Cricklade to the Land’s End. It was this impenetrable 
wedge of forest territory which forced the Saxons in their progress 
up the Thames to make a detour, leaving us all undisturbed. They 
ned south-west again when they got round the point of the 
forest, and won the battle of Deorham (Dyrham) in 577. That 
battle gave them Cirencester and Bath and Gloucester, and thus 
made more marked than ever the wedge of forest territory in 
which Malmesbury stood. It did not touch the continuance of the 
itish hold here. 
_ Thirteen or fourteen years after that battle a very important 
ulliance was made between the Britons and one branch of the 
West Saxons, those, namely, who had occupied Gloucestershire. 
They made an alliance against the chief king of the West Saxons ; 
arched upon him together down the Ermine Street, a few miles 
east of us, just outside the eastern sad of the Britons; found 
shire idlopenidant of the West Saxon kingdom ; and it cemented 
u 2 
