CORNISH DEDICATIONS. 517 



Q-eofErey is certainly wrong in making the murders, to have 

 taken place in London and Winchester. For Winchester, prob- 

 ably, we should read Caer Went in Monmouthshire. 



Grildas goes on, " Not one worthy act could he boast of, 

 previous to this cruel deed ; for, many years before, he had 

 stained himself with the abomination of many adulteries, 

 having put away his wife." 



Greoffrey says that three years later the vengeance of heaven 

 fell on Constantine, who was killed by his nephew Conan. But 

 we cannot tell whether Geoffrey drew this from traditions or from 

 his own imagination. 



In or about 547, a Constantine, King of Cornwall, was con- 

 verted by S. Petrock ; but the Cambrian Annals give the date 

 589. If the latter be the true date, then Constantine, the Saint, 

 can hardly be the Constantine assailed by Gildas. Nor is it easy 

 to see how he can have been a disciple for a short while of S. 

 David. The simplest explanation is that the date in the Annals 

 is wrong by some thirty years. 



The story of the conversion of S. Constantine is that he was 

 hunting, when the beast he pursued took refuge in the cell of 

 Petrock, who protected it ; and the king was so touched by the 

 sanctity, the reproaches and exhortations of the holy abbot, 

 that he placed himself in his hands, that his penitence might be 

 directed aright. 



Constantine remained near at hand, where is now the ruined 

 church that bears his name, situate in the sands, in the parish of 

 S. Merryn, to whose oversight, perhaps, S. Petrock gave the 

 aged king. After a while, Constantine went to Menevia, to be 

 advised by S. David. 



From Menevia, Constantine went into Ireland and then to 

 Scotland, where he founded a monastery. In the Aberdeen 

 Breviary it is said that the cause of his conversion was grief at 

 the loss of his wife. It is possible to reconcile the discrepancy 

 between this account and that of Gildas. He had a quarrel with 

 his queen on account of his infidelities, but, in time, it was 

 patched up, and he became sincerely attached to her. She is said 

 to have been an Armorican. The story is well known of how, one 

 day, when in the monastery, he was set to grind corn in a hand 



