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II. — Chronicles of Cornish Saints. 



III. — S. CONSTANTINE. 



By the Reverend John Adams, M.A., Ficar of Stockcross, Berks. 



Read at the Spring Meeting, May 22, 1868. 



ALTHOUGrH no ancient memoir of this Saint has been handed 

 down to us, we are enabled, from the many scattered notices 

 of him found in Irish, Welsh, and Scottish hagiologies, to con- 

 struct the following brief outline of Iris life. 



He was the son of Cador, Duke of Cornwall, and a nephew 

 of the renowned King Arthur. During his early life he was a 

 soldier, and one of 



" The goodliest fellowsliip of famous Kniglits 

 Whereof the world holds record." 



In Harding's Metrical Chronicle we are told that 



" Duke Cador's sone of Cornwall bounteous 

 Afore had been one of the table rounde 

 In Arthures time." 



Nevertheless, if we may credit the fierce invective agamst him 

 which Grildas wrote, his early life was stained with gross iniquity. 

 When his uncle had received his death wound on the field of 

 Camlan, A.D. 542, he is said to have nominated Constantine his 

 successor; and the British forces continued for several years 

 afterwards to fight under his banner against the Saxon invaders. 

 Some writers tell us that, to secure his supremacy, he cruelly 

 murdered the two sons of Mordred, who, from their father's 

 position and their relationship to King Arthur, might, he feared, 

 lay claim to the throne. Other ^viiters, however, intimate that 

 those young men stirred up rebellion against him, making common 

 cause Avith the Saxon foe, and thus bringing down just retribution 

 upon themselves. " He was," says Fabyan, " by the two sonnes 



