By N. Story Mas/celyne, Esq., M.P. 191 



below the down under Barbury. 1 In the troubled times of Danish 

 struggles, in which Wiltshire furnished more than one battle-ground, 

 the beacon may have often flamed from this little knoll, whether to 

 gather Englishmen round the greatest and noblest of English Kings 

 or to warn them, in later days, of the approach of the ruthless 

 hordes of Sweyne. Dr. Guest, with a tender respect for the au- 

 thority of Gildas, assigns to Aurelius Conan the descent as great 

 grandson from Ambrosius Aurelianus, and believes that he may have 

 been the British ruler who commanded at the battle of Barbury. 

 Ceawlin, a less mythical personage, commanded under the old king, 

 his father Cynric, the West Saxon host. Of the battle of Barbury 

 there are two accounts : the one in the oracular terseness of the 

 "Saxon Chronicle," says, under the year 556 " Her Cynric and 

 Ceawling fuhton with Bryttas set Beran Byrg." Now Kynric 

 and Ceawlin fought with the Brits at Beran Byrig. Henry of 

 Huntingdon, however, a writer of the twelfth century, who, amid 

 much apocryphal matter, has preserved in his " Historia Anglorum " 

 many old traditions and ballads and some valuable records of the 

 earlier events of our history, gathered by him from sources now 

 lost, gives a longer and very interesting account of this important 

 battle, which he puts in error at Banbury from the shape of the 

 name. Gibbon, who takes the tale from Henry of Huntingdon, 

 speaks of the circumstances as probable and characteristic, and 

 likely to have been derived from consulting materials no longer 

 extant. Professor Freeman, also, accords to the statements of Henry 

 of Huntingdon greater credibility in proportion as they refer to the 

 earlier portion of our history. Henry of Huntingdon, Book II., 

 Anno Domini 552, says " Kynric in the 18th year of his reign 

 fought against the Britons who advanced with a great army as far 

 as Salisbury, but having assembled an auxiliary force from all quarters 

 he engaged them triumphantly overthrowing their immense army 



iThe places in the neighbourhood with names terminating in -thorp, or its 

 corruption, -throp and -drop, as Burdrop and Salthrop (probably Sa h or Willow- 

 thorp), remain to remind us that the foot of the Dane was not entirely that of 

 a passing plunderer. Binknoll and Chisledon, even Barbury and Badbury, may 

 f or a time have been Danish forts guarding Danish settlements. 



