POLITICAL HISTORY 



tory they occupied. As a matter of fact he employs the designation as 

 if it were synonymous with the people of Strathclyde. When Halfdene 

 had subdued the valley of the Tyne in 875, we are told by the Anglo- 

 Saxon Chronicle, Asser and Florence, 1 that he often made war on the 

 Picts and Strathclyde Welsh, whereas Ethelwerd * in describing the 

 same exploit calls the native tribes by the names of Picts and Cumbri. 

 In describing later events the chroniclers are still more indefinite. 

 Florence relates that in 901 Edward the Elder received the submission 

 of the kings of the Scots, Cumbrians, Strathclyde Welsh and all the 

 west Britons; 3 and in 921 the same authority states that the king of 

 Scots with his whole nation, Reinald king of the Danes, with all the 

 Angles and Danes that dwell in Northumbria, and also the king of 

 the Strathclyde Welsh, accepted King Edward as their father and 

 lord, and made a firm treaty with him. 4 Symeon of Durham and 

 Geoffrey Gaimar follow in the same strain. In his description of the 

 battle of Brunanburh in 937, Symeon says that Athelstan put to flight 

 Onlaf, the Danish king of Northumbria, Constantine, King of Scots, and 

 the king of the Cumbri, with their whole host ; but Gaimar differ- 

 entiates the people taking part in the battle as Scots, Cumbri, Galwe- 

 gians and Picts. 6 Again and again we meet with ' the king of the 

 Cumbri,' without any hint of the region over which he ruled. It is 

 curious that no English equivalent of the word was admitted into the 

 pages of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle till a late date. In the account of 

 the famous cession by King Eadmund in 945 we get the first glimpse 

 of the tribe in the name of Cumbraland or Cumberland, the territory 

 which he had harried and delivered to Malcolm, King of Scots, on con- 

 dition that he should be his ally on sea and on land. Florence trans- 

 lates the ' Cumbraland ' of the Chronicle into the Latin form of ' the 

 land of the Cumbri,' though the Welsh annalists, referring to the in- 

 cursion, identify the region as Strat Glut or Ystrat Glut, that is Strath- 

 clyde. 6 From these scattered notices of the inhabitants it would be 

 hazardous to suggest that the region south of the Solway was a separate 

 territorial unit belonging to the Cumbri, or to draw any positive con- 

 clusions on its political affinities to the neighbouring states. It is pos- 

 sible that the Cymric race, breaking away from Northumbrian rule, 

 made common cause with their kinsfolk of Strathclyde, and attained 

 some measure of national independence during the declining period of 

 the Northumbrian kingdom. The rise of the racial name of Cumbri 7 



i Mm. Hist. Brit. pp. 355, 478, 558. Ibid. p. 515. Ibid. p. 568. 



Ibid. p. 572. 5 Ibid. pp. 686, 808. Ibid. pp. 388, 574, 837, 847. 



7 There does not appear to be any doubt of the origin of the word Cumbri or Cumbria. It is from 

 the Welsh Cymru, meaning exclusively the Principality, and pronounced as if spelled Kumry or Kumri 

 (Rhys, Celtic Britain, p. 142). Geoffrey of Monmouth had no compunction in deriving the name from 

 Kamber, one of the sons of King Brute, as he accounted for the origin of Alban, the name of Celtic 

 Scotland, from Albanach, and Lloegr, the Welsh name for England, from Locrinus, members of the 

 same family (Hist. Britonum, p. 23, ed. Giles). Jocelyn of Furness, who wrote in the twelfth century, 

 has adopted the forms Cambria, Cambrensis and Cambrinus, in connection with the north-western dis- 

 trict (Life of St. Kentigern, pp. 54, 58, 87, etc. ; Hist, of Scotland, v.) Cambria and Cumbria were at 

 first used indiscriminately for the same region. It is curious that St. Petroc, who was a native of Wales, 

 is called a Cumber or a Cimber in one old life (Celtic Britain, p. 141). Cumbria seems the more correct 



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