e, that, in moments
of extreme danger, a Pendragon, or Dictator, was elected by the general
consent of the Britons. These pastoral cares, so worthy of the episcopal
character, were interrupted, however, by zeal and superstition; and the
British clergy incessantly labored to eradicate the Pelagian heresy,
which they abhorred, as the peculiar disgrace of their native country.
[189]

[Footnote 179: I owe it to myself, and to historic truth, to declare,
that some circumstances in this paragraph are founded only on conjecture
and analogy. The stubbornness of our language has sometimes forced me to
deviate from the conditional into the indicative mood.]

[Footnote 180: Zosimus, l. vi. p. 383.]

[Footnote 181: Two cities of Britain were municipia, nine colonies, ten
Latii jure donatoe, twelve stipendiarioe of eminent note. This detail is
taken from Richard of Cirencester, de Situ Britanniae, p. 36; and though
it may not seem probable that he wrote from the Mss. of a Roman general,
he shows a genuine knowledge of antiquity, very extraordinary for a monk
of the fourteenth century.

Note: The names may be found in Whitaker's Hist. of Manchester vol. ii.
330, 379. Turner, Hist. Anglo-Saxons, i. 216.--M.]

[Footnote 182: See Maffei Verona Illustrata, part i. l. v. p. 83-106.]

[Footnote 183: Leges restituit, libertatemque reducit, Et servos famulis
non sinit esse suis. Itinerar. Rutil. l. i. 215.]

[Footnote 184: An inscription (apud Sirmond, Not. ad Sidon. Apollinar.
p. 59) describes a castle, cum muris et portis, tutioni omnium, erected
by Dardanus on his own estate, near Sisteron, in the second Narbonnese,
and named by him Theopolis.]

[Footnote 185: The establishment of their power would have been easy
indeed, if we could adopt the impracticable scheme of a lively and
learned antiquarian; who supposes that the British monarchs of the
several tribes continued to reign, though with subordinate jurisdiction,
from the time of Claudius to that of Honorius. See Whitaker's History of
Manchester, vol. i. p. 247-257.]

[Footnote 186: Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 3, p. 181. Britannia
fertilis provincia tyrannorum, was the expression of Jerom, in the year
415 (tom. ii. p. 255, ad Ctesiphont.) By the pilgrims, who resorted
every year to the Holy Land, the monk of Bethlem received the earliest
and most accurate intelligence.]

[Footnote 187: See Bingham's Eccles. Antiquities, vol. i. l. ix. c. 6,
p. 394.]

[Footnote 18