194 



Barhury Castle. 



Cornwall who, in after time, shrank into a small population in- 

 habiting the latter country. 



I have spoken of fatal Wanborough. It was there — the Wod- 

 nesbeorge of the Saxon Chronicle — that Ceawlin, the victor at 

 Barbury, at Bedford, at Wimbledon, Uriconium, and Deorham, the 

 second of the Bretwaldas, the greatest of the northmen conquerors 

 down to the seventh century, fell from his high estate. In the fight 

 at Faddily, in Cheshire, the Welshmen inflicted heavy loss on him. 

 It was the first great blow ; and a revolt that followed it under 

 his nephew, Ceolric, brought the Saxon settlers from the Severn 

 valley down on Wessex. Again the chalk rampart of the Wiltshire 

 downs, with its roads and hill- forts, presented a barrier to the ad- 

 vancing foe — now coming from the north-west. And Wanborough, 

 at the salient point where the chalk hills end towards the north- 

 west, and just where the two old roads meet, and behind which ran 

 the Ridgeway and its subsidiary Ways, was the scene of the last 

 battle of Ceawlin the Bretwalda in 591. History tells but little of 

 the cause of the revolt and briefly says that Ceawlin was deposed 

 and two years thereafter died. 



Wanborough was the scene of another battle in 717. One 

 hundred and twenty -six years after the first, the Kingdom of Mercia, 

 the consolidation of which had begun about the time of the defeat 

 of Ceawlin, and which now included the northern part of CeawhVs 

 conquests, had its frontier conterminous with that of Wessex along 

 the banks of the Thames, Then, as now, the royal river was the 

 Mercian frontier, represented by the counties of Gloucester, Oxford, 

 and Buckingham, and divided it from that Wessex district that now 

 consists of the shires of Wilts, Berks, and Hants, and again in 

 after times it was the frontier dividing Dane and English rule. Ine 

 was King of Wessex when Ethelred's son Ceolred invaded Wessex 

 and penetrated as far as the junction of the two arms of the ancient 

 Boman road that has been sometimes called the Ermine way at 

 Wanborough. But this time the invader from the north was 

 repelled, and Wessex remained for that time unconquered. 



