t up in 858, and some time after treated Solomon III. as
king of Brittany. See Morice, Des Fontaines, &c.
2. In this churchyard stands an ancient pyramid, on which are engraved
letters of an unknown alphabet, supposed to be that of the Britons
and Gauls before the Roman alphabet was introduced among them.
Letters of the same alphabet are found upon some other monuments of
Brittany. See Lobineau, Vies des Saints de la Bretagne. in St.
Treuchmeur, p. 8. Dom Morice endeavors to prove that the Welsh, the
old British, and the Celtic, are the same language. (Hist. t. 1, p.
867.) That they are so in part is unquestionable.
3. Mr. Vaughan, in his British Antiquities revived, printed at Oxford
in 1662, shows that there were at this time many princes or
chieftains among the Britons in North Wales, but that they all held
their lands of one sovereign, though each in his own district was
often honored with the title of king. The chief prince at this time
was Maelgun Gwynedth, the lineal heir and eldest descendant of
Cuneda, who flourished in the end of the fourth, or beginning of the
fifth century, and from one or other of whose eight sons all the
princes of North Wales, also those of Cardigan, Dimetia, Glamorgan,
and others in South Wales, derived their descent. The ancient
author, published at the end of Nenbius, says Maelgun began his
reign one hundred and forty-six years after Cuaedha, who was his
Atavus, or great-grandfather's grandfather. Maelgun was prince only
of Venedotia for twenty-five years before he was acknowledged in
564, after the death of Arthur, chief king of the Britons in Wales,
while St. David was primate, Arthur king of the Britons in general,
Gurthmyll king, and St. Kentigern bishop of the Cumbrian Britons.
"He had received a good education under the elegant instructor of
almost all Britain," says Gildas, pointing out probably St. Iltutus.
Yet he fell into enormous vices. Touched with remorse, he retired
into a monastery in 552; but being soon tired of that state,
reassumed his crown, and relapsed into his former impieties. He died
in 565. Gildas, who wrote his epistle De Excidio Britanniae, between
the years 564 and 570, that of his death, hints that Veralam was
then fallen into the hands of the Saxons: which is certain of
London, &c. The other princes reprehended by Gildas were