WELSH WHITE CATTLE. 107 



The Welsh white cattle with red ears were "brought 

 into further notoriety by the present of 400 such cows 

 and one bull which Maude de Brense made to the queen 

 of King John, in order to purchase peace for her offend- 

 ing lord. Speed has been mentioned as the authority for 

 this statement; the real authority is Hollinshed, in whose 

 Chronicles it is said : — "Anno 1211. We read in an old 

 historie of Flanders, written by one whose name was 

 not known, but printed at Lions by Gruillaume Rouille, 

 in the year 1562, that the said ladie, wife to the Lord 

 William de Brense, presented upon a time unto the 

 Queene of England a gift of foure hundred kine and one 

 bull, of coulour all white, the eares excepted, which were 

 red. Although this tale may seem incredible, yet if we 

 shall consider that the said Brense was a Lord Marcher, 

 and had good possessions in Wales and on the marshes, 

 in which countries the most part of the peoples' sub- 

 stance consisteth in cattell, it may carry with it the 

 more likelihood of truth." * I have been fortunate 

 enough to discover the work referred to by Hollinshed 

 as his authority : — " Chronique de Flanders, ancienne- 

 ment composee par Auteur Incertain, et nouvellement 

 mise en lumiere par Denis Sauvage de Fontenailles en 

 Brie, Historiographe due Tres-chrestien Boy Henry, 

 second de ce nom. A Lyon, par Gruillaume Bouille, a 

 l'exen de Venise. — M.D.LXII." The editor says, in 



give this very clear and condensed account, taken from an unpublished 

 paper of Mr. Boyd Dawkins, which he has kindly placed at my disposal. 

 Touatt further states that, " when the Cambrian princes did homage to 

 the King of England, the same number of cattle and of the same de- 

 scription were rendered in acknowledgment of sovereignty ; " but no 

 authority is given for this statement. 



* Raphael Hollinshed : "Chronicles," 1586 (first published 1577), 

 vol. iii., p. 174. 



