Who first founded Malmesbury ? 



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Llech-Llwyd or Llechlade, were originally built by Malmud or 

 Malmutius the father of Belinus and Brennus. We have seen that 

 his sons were great city builders in Italy. It is not I believe dis- 

 puted that Belin's gate, vulgarly Billingsgate in London, and Caer 

 Belin now Caer-Phili in South Wales, were also so called from 

 Belinus. It follows that there is no improbability in the statement 

 that the powerful father of such builders should have been something 

 of a builder himself, that he should have indulged the commonest 

 of methods by which Kings have in all ages attempted to trans- 

 mit their memory to after times. Nature has in every country her 

 strong positions which a military eye immediately detects. Such 

 sites abound in Greece, Italy, France and Britain. It is impos- 

 sible for Antiquity itself to put its finger on the time when such 

 positions as Edinburgh, Stirling, Durham, Dover, Rome, Corinth, 

 Atherfs — nature's own fortresses opening up or commanding wide 

 districts — have not been occupied. Revolutions in commerce affect 

 the value of some of these cities, revolutions in the art of war the 

 value of others, but we may lay it down as a general rule that there 

 is not a naturally strong fortress in any land which was not 

 seized and in some way fortified very soon after its earliest 

 colonization. The situation of Malmesbury on a peninsulated rock, 

 at the confluence of two streams commanding a fertile district, 

 satisfied all the requirements of peace or war in primitive times. 

 The wisdom of that selection, in a military point of view, has been 

 proved by the numerous sieges it stood in the middle ages, 

 and the succession of castles which have been erected on the ruius 

 which preceded them. And as to the fertility of the soil, the 

 Ecclesiastics, and particularly the Monasteries, seldom made a mis- 

 take on that point. All over the kingdom wherever we meet with an 

 Abbey Farm it is certain to be the best farm in the parish, but we 

 must in justice recollect that the Abbots and Monastic Houses were 

 on the other hand the best and the most enlightened landlords in 

 the kingdom. The same local advantages which challenged the 

 attention of King and Churchman in later ages were, we may be 

 assured, not thrown away on the religion or ambition of preceding 

 eras. Wiltshire is studded with religious remains of the grandest 



