boulders, evidently ice-borne, and no doubt from the south coast, as the sandstone appears to be from the Hastings beds. The Etruscan galets still adhere to

the rude sides of the blocks of Etruscan mason-work (Plate IV).

The evidences, then, of Graeco-Italian colonists having been resident in Britain, and prominently in this locality, not only from times hefore Roman occupation, but probably from periods before Rome itself became a community, are-Literary records by historians naming the colonists and their relations with Rome, which have been identified and worked out by modern writers; statements by Julius Caesar of magnificent edifices seen by him in the cities of Britain; the ancient roads he found here, which he calls "well-known roads"; his statements of the great commerce carried on with British ports; of the articles of import and export; of the international compacts carried out in Greek literature; the use of Greek money; Greek luxuries and articles of civilization; Homeric accounts of jewelled work, of which the only examples are in pre-historic remains in the Greek islands and in Britain; the Graeco-Roman account that such works were made here; the actual jewellery found here of the earliest Greek types; the furnaces for melting the material; the raw material for enamelling, and the fine bronze work; the discovery of enamel in pre-Roman graves; of rich enamels in caves and graves; of crucibles for analysis of gold, and of rich gold work; the great source of their gold; ancient Greek words and customs all along the seaboard from Italy to Britain; their sacred trees still bearing the names described by Herodotus along the same seaboard; the names of places and of people who have always held themselves distinct from others, and still exist in places bearing such names in proud seclusion. These, and

many more examples, and finally an Etruscan temple found near the chief city (now London), of people in Britain described by Caesar as the most dominant of the tribes he encountered. Greater evidence could hardly be obtained on any subject.

RHUDDLAN.

BY C. H. COMPTON, ESQ., V.P.

(Read 3rd November, 1897).

HUDDLAN is the name given to a Hundred which includes a parish of the same name in the county of Flint, in North Wales, and was, prior to the annexation of Wales to England, part of the Cantrev1 of Tegengl, which, Camden says, signifies fair England (Teg-eingh), and so called from its pleasant prospect and being long since reduced by the English. This Cantrev comprised three Cymwds: Cormsylht, Prestatyn, and Ruthlan. Its name is derived, according to Camden, from the reddish bank of the river Clywd, where it is seated, or Rhŷddlan, from Rhŷd, a ford opposite to the villages, there being one above and another below it; but, adds Willis, in his St. Asaph, "adhuc sub judice est". The parish of Rhuddlan includes the town and borough of the same name (formerly a market town), and the bathing-place of Rhyl. The town is situate on the right bank of the river Clwyd, about two miles from the sea, three miles north-west of St. Asaph, and eight mlles from Denbigh. It comprised a hospital, a priory, a preceptory of Knights Templars, and a castle, to which attention will be drawn seriatim.

The first historical notice of this place occurs in the year A.D. 795, as a spot where a signal battle was fought

The Welsh equivalent for a Hundred, from the British Cantre, hundred. It formerly consisted of a hundred villages.-Ash's Dict. 2 Hist. of Cambria, by Lhoyd.

between the Saxons and Welsh, in which Carodoc, King of North Wales, Meredyth, King of Dyved, and Offa, King of Mercia, were slain. The site of this battle is Rhuddlan Marsh, on the left bank of the river Clwyd, opposite the town of Rhuddlan. On this occasion, says Giraldus Cambrensis1:

"A celebrated plaintive air was composed called 'Mowa Rhuddlann, or the Red Marsh', and is still played with enthusiasm by the national harpers, but the original poem commemorating the battle no longer exists."1

There is very little to be found respecting the hospital, abbey, and preceptory of the Knights Templars, and what there is is somewhat confused. Bishop Tanner, in his Monasticon, says :

"There was an hospital near Rhuddlan as old as A.D. 1281, or 10 Edw. I (Qy. 11 Edw. I), and there was a house of Blackfriars before A.D. 1268, when Adrian de Schonau, prior of this house, was made Bishop of St. Asaph. It suffered very much in the wars of King Edward I with Llewellyn, last Prince of Wales, but recovered and subsisted till the Dissolution, when it was granted to Henry ap Harry, 32 Hen. VIII.”

And in a note Tanner says:

"The editions to Camden (ed. 1695) speak of an abbey and an hospital at Rhuddlan, and of a gate half a mile from the village ; this last is the remains of the hospital, which was not in, but near, Rhuddlan."

Mr. Willis, in his Survey of Bangor, p. 357,2 saith :— "Here is reported to have stood an abbey the religious of which are said to have been of a military order! But nothing more of this hath occurred to me".

This would appear to refer to the preceptory of the Knights Templars, as to which it is said that:

"After the peace concluded between Henry II and Owain, Prince of Gwynedd (A.D. 1157), the King leaving the castles of Ruthlan and Basingwerk well fortified and manned, after he had built a house thereby for the Templars, returned to England."3

1 Hoare's Translation, vol. ii, p. 141.

2 See also Willis's St. Asaph, vol. i, p. 413; ed. by Edwards, 1801. 3 Hist. of Cambria, by H. Lhoyd, and see post.

Dugdale, in the Monasticon, adopts almost verbatim Tanner's account of the abbey,' but under the heading of Rutland he says:—

"In the Harlean MS. 433, fol. 105, there is an entry of a grant to the Pryour and the Convent of the Freer Preachours in the towne of Rutlande for fishing with oon nette in the water of Clowde from Rutlande to the sea, 1 Rich. III, evidently belonging to the Friars Preachers of Rhuddlan, in Flintshire."

Bishop Tanner, in the Preface to his Monasticon, says:

"By Hospitals he means such houses for the relief of poor and impotent people as were incorporated by Royal Patents and made capable of gifts and grants in succession; and besides the poor and impotent there were in those hospitals two or three Religious, one to be master or prior and one or two to be chaplains and confessors; and these observed the rule of St. Austin, and probably subjected the poor and impotent to some religious restraints."

From this we may gather that this hospital was under the rule of the secular canons of St. Austin, which St. Dunstan did so much to suppress, so that they were mainly converted into regular canons or drafted into other houses of the monastic orders, between his time and that of Thomas A'Becket in the reign of Henry II; and it is very probable that under this influence the hospital at Rhuddlan may have been merged in the priory of Blackfriars, which may be the reason that so little is known of its history.

The Castle is said to have been built by Llewelyn ap Sitsyllt in the year 1015. Camden says one of the towers in the castle was called Tŵr-y-Brenin, i.e., King's Tower; and below the hill upon the bank of the river we find another, apart from the Castle, called Tŵr Silod. In 1063 we learn from the Saxon Chronicle that :

"After midwinter, Harold the Earl went from Gloucester to Ryddlan, which was Griffin's, and burned the Vill and his ships and all the stores which thereto belonged, and put him to flight. And then at Rogation tides, Harold went with his ships from Bristol about Wales; and the people made a truce and delivered

1 The term "abbey" must be taken in its general signification. This house was a priory.