274 



Inaugural Address of the 



a friendship between the Gloucestershire Saxons, called as we well 

 know the Hwiccas, and the Britons of the Malmesbury regions. 

 So far are ordinary historians from realising the true state of 

 things, that they bring the Britons all the way from the parts we 

 now call "Wales to fight the battle of the Hwiccas in North Wilts, 

 their connection with which was very remote. To our Malmesbury 

 Britons the fight was of vital importance. 



This alliance appears to have led to an undisturbed possession 

 by the Britons here. This is very clearly shown by one historical 

 fact. About 637, that is, nearly fifty years after the battle of 

 Wanborough, an Irish Christian teacher, the well-known Maildubh, 

 desiring a perfectly peaceable place for the exercise of his work as 

 a teacher, found that Malmesbury was the only suitable place 

 accessible to him as an asylum. There was a sufficient population 

 for his teaching purposes. The pagan Saxons were not there. He 

 was free from the quarrels of the Scots. From ravages of marauders, 

 which had driven him out of one abode and another, the nature of 

 the place was a safeguard. Here, then, he settled; gathered 

 companioas of like mind ; and built a small basilica which still 

 existed in the time of William of Malmesbury, 1140, and was 

 called St. Michael's. Maildubh's dwelling-place is understood to 

 have been in Burnvale, nestling under the precipitous side of the 

 narrow neck by which the fortress was approached. If you are 

 approaching the Abbey Church from the west, and look down to 

 the right of the road at the narrowest part, when you are getting 

 near the Church, you will see where Maildubh lived. 



This principal stronghold of the Britons continued undisturbed 

 for some years more, and Maildubh's teaching progressed. It was 

 not the Hwiccas who disturbed them when at last their time came. 

 The Hwiccas had before that time become Mercian. It was the 

 West Saxons proper, the people of East Wiltshire and Hampshire, 

 who broke through the forest wedge. They did not attack 

 Malmesbury itself, but cut the forest lower down, and so isolated 

 it. The battle of Bradford-on-Avon in 652 cut off this northern 

 part of Selwood ; and the battle of Pens on the Parrett in 656 

 opened the way through to the occupation of Somersetshire. 



