526 Rude Stone Antiquities of Brittany. By Miss Russell. 



three feathers the arms of the Principality, but it is now known 

 that the plume was the badge of the Prince of Wales before the 

 battle of Crecy. The motto I have little doubt is really that of 

 the blind king of Bohemia: " Ich dien " — "I serve" — in the 

 first place is German, and secondly it has a special reference to 

 a king fighting in the army of another king. 



But I find it had occurred independently to Professor Rhys 

 and myself — though not quite simultaneously, for it was only 

 suggested to me by an engraving in the little book called 

 " Flags " that Edwin of Deira probably adopted the Roman tufa, 

 or feather-standard, because it was the badge of the Romanized 

 British princes. (It may also be the real origin of the disputed 

 fleur-de-lis of France.) And as none of the other aggressive 

 Saxon kings used it, it further appears likely that the practice 

 referred not so much to Edwin's conquests in North Wales, as 

 to the kind of treaty I discern in his acquisition of Lothian ; 

 while Edwin's Welsh education, as an exile, makes both 

 probable. 



His becoming a Christian, and being baptized by the nephew 

 of Llew of Lothian, seems to me to have been a political arrange- 

 ment ; Bede does not say so, but then he is very explicit about 

 the suppressions he made in his history by the desire of others. 

 Rum, or Romeo —the name originally meant a pilgrim — may have 

 been the last male representative of his immediate family, if not 

 of the race of Coel. One of the crimes attributed to Constantine 

 king of Cornwall, is, that he put to death the two children of 

 Modred king of the Britons, the grandchildren of Llew. 



That Edwin's predecessor Ethelfrid had acquired Lothian, that 

 is, the south-east of Scotland, after the battle of Degsastan, I do 

 not now think. The Cumbrians, who then held Lothian, are not 

 mentioned as being in the battle at all, and the Northumbrians 

 suffered severely themselves ; while the Saxon Chronicle states 

 that the invaders, from Ireland and Argyleshire (who would land 

 on the coast of Galloway) were guided by the son of Hussa ; 

 Hussa being one of the, presumably elder, sons of Ida, who had 

 reigned before Ethelric the father of Ethelfrid. So in fact it was 

 a case of a "pretender," and one having properly a better 

 claim than the reigning king. The Northumbrian laws in 

 this respect seem to have been quite the same as those of the 

 Scottish Celts ; they had, practically at least, alternate royal 

 families, and the succession of brothers. 



