By N. Story Maskelyne, Esq, M.P. 191 
below the down under Barbury.! In the troubled times of Danish 
struggles, in which Wiltshire furnished more than one battle-ground, 
the. beacon may have often flamed from this little knoll, whether to 
gather Englishmen round the greatest and noblest of English Kings 
or to warn them, in later days, of the approach of the ruthless 
hordes of Sweyne. Dr. Guest, with a tender respect for the au- 
thority of Gildas, assigns to Aurelius Conan the descent as great 
grandson from Ambrosius Aurelianus, and believes that he may have 
been the British ruler who commanded at the battle of Barbury, 
Ceawlin, a less mythical personage, commanded under the old king, 
his father Cynric, the West Saxon host. Of the battle of Barbury 
there are two accounts: the one in the oracular terseness of the 
“Saxon Chronicle,” says, under the year 556 :—“ Her Cynric and 
Ceawling fuhton with Bryttas xt Beran Byrg.” Now Kynric 
and Ceawlin fought with the Brits at Beran Byrig. Henry of 
Huntingdon, however, a writer of the twelfth century, who, amid 
much apocryphal matter, has preserved in his “ Historia Anglorum ” 
many old traditions and ballads and some valuable records of the 
earlier events of our history, gathered by him from sources now 
lost, gives a longer and very interesting account of this important 
battle, which he puts in error at Banbury from the shape of the 
name. Gibbon, who takes the tale from Henry of Huntingdon, 
speaks of the circumstances as probable and characteristic, and 
likely to have been derived from consulting materials no longer 
extant. Professor Freeman, also, accords to the statements of H enry 
of Huntingdon greater credibility in proportion as they refer to the 
earlier portion of our history. Henry of Huntingdon, Book II., 
Anno Domini 552, says :— Kynriec in the 18th year of his reign 
fought against the Britons who advanced with a great army as far 
as Salisbury, but having assembled an auxiliary force from all quarters 
he engaged them triumphantly overthrowing their immense army 
Se Ee ee ee eee 
‘The places in the neighbourhood with names terminating in -thorp, or its 
corruption, -throp and -drop, as Burdrop and Salthrop (probably Sali or Willow- 
thorp), remain to remind us that the foot of the Dane was not entirely that of 
a passing plunderer. Binknoll and Chisledon, even Barbury and Badbury, may 
for a time have been Danish forts guarding Danish settlements. 
