Amazing & Extraordinary Facts About Kings & Queens (2 page)

T
he man credited with founding the ancient nation of Britons is by tradition descended from the Trojans. According to popular legend, the great grandson of Aeneas (refugee from Troy and founder of Italy) wandered westwards through western Europe and sailed up the River Dart to Totnes. From here Brutus led his band of cohorts to conquer the island by defeating the native Albion giants led by Gogmagog.

If we look at the ancestral lineage of Brutus, there are interesting parallels to be made. As grandson of Aeneas he would have been descended from Dardanus, the founder of Troy. Now some traditions claim that Dardanus is a linguistic alternative to Dara or Darda, mentioned in the Bible in I Chronicles 2:6 as the grandson of Judah, founder of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Therefore Brutus may have a biblical pedigree and kinship with the Chosen People.

It is thought that the Ten Lost Tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel may have followed in the wake of Brutus and made their way to Britain where they settled. A scriptural clue to this migration is given in the apocryphal II Esdras (chapter 13: 40-47), which says they ‘go forth into a further country … there was a great way to go, namely, of a year and a half: and the same region is called Arzareth.’ British-Israelites say that Arzareth, though literally meaning ‘another land’, actually refers to a land in southern Russia north of the Black Sea, to be identified with Cimmeria. In turn, this name developed into ‘Cymry’, the name for the Welsh people. So Brutus and his tribesmen were the forebears of the Celts of Wales and southern England.

Indeed, British-Israelites claim that all the ancestral natives of Britain are of Israelite origin. The idea, based on the prophecy of Ezekiel, that all the dispersed elements of Israel would one day be reunited in a single nation in the Promised Land took hold in Britain on the grounds of this belief. And to some extent a lobby for its cause forced the momentum towards the formation of the British Mandate for Palestine in 1920.

W
hen Bath became the most fashionable city in Georgian England, the sensation at the heart of its appeal was its miraculous spring water. A vast amount of water gushed out every day and was somehow heated to a temperature of 49°C (120°F). Not only was it a pleasant and sociable recreation to wade about in such an element, these waters had a reputation from ancient times of possessing a curative quality.

Legend has it that a ninth-century BC Celtic pretender to the throne, Bladud, was responsible for discovering these special springs when caring for a herd of pigs. He noticed those that wallowed in the mud there seemed to develop healthier skin. Famously, on having a go himself Bladud discovered that he too lost the leprosy that had bedevilled his skin and hitherto disqualified him from inheriting the throne as descendant of King Brutus. This much is known.

Certain conjecture, however, has it that the fantastic heat and minerality generated from the earth was in fact the product of Bladud’s own scientific experimentation. It is documented that as a bright youth he was sent to Athens to learn at the feet of Greek philosophers. He is said to have acquired advanced scientific knowledge there and returned to Britain with four scholars and founded a university at Stamford in Lincolnshire.

With his new skill Bladud is believed to have created two huge ‘tuns’ (barrels with a capacity of 252 gallons), filled with burning brass, and two more containing salt, brimstone and fire. These four tuns he buried in the ground and they provided the source of the magical effluent of Bath.

Not surprisingly, the waters were regarded as poisonous and certainly not to be drunk. Only a craze such as was likely to happen in the heyday of Georgian society could induce the gullible to ‘take the waters’, as they did in their droves, and then take to their beds!

Liberated from the curse of leprosy, Bladud was able to claim his rightful crown as king. He is said to have ruled for 20 years before dying in a flying accident, hence his depiction sometimes with wings. Bladud was succeeded by King Lear.

T
he premature death of King Bladud from a flying accident left the throne to his young son, Leir. Made famous by William Shakespeare as King Lear, he ruled for near on 60 years according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, who places the British king in parallel time to the prophet Elijah of Ancient Israel.

The story told by Shakespeare is well known but it differs from the legendary account in its ending. As in the play, Leir has no son for an heir. The problem of dividing his kingdom equally among his three daughters and his test of their love, which unjustly excludes his favourite youngest daughter, Cordelia, is common to both accounts.

But the realisation of his misjudgement and reconciliation with Cordelia, who nurses her half-crazed father back to health, leads Leir to form a successful alliance with the king of Gaul, Aganippus. Together, they invade Britain and, unlike Shakespeare’s version, overthrow the dukes of Albany and Cornwall who have married his two other daughters respectively. Leir reclaims the British throne and rules for three more years until his natural death. He is succeeded to the throne by Cordelia. So Monmouth’s version has no tragic ending with a distraught Lear holding the dead body of Cordelia who has committed suicide.

C
enturies before the Romans arrived and imposed their judicial system on Britain, the land seldom had any real sense of political unity. Kingdoms came and went, most claiming descendency from the first British king, Brutus. And when King Lear’s squabbling offspring contrived their own demise, early Celtic society was once again plunged into chaos. The poor and the weak fell to the mercy of their overlords as tribal chieftains warred constantly for supremacy. Now Tudor historians claim there was one monarch among this unruly ancient rabble who broke the mould.

On vanquishing his enemies in the fifth century BC, a great Celtic warrior king, by the name of Dunvallo Molmutius, determined not only to reunite the broken nation but to give his subjects a measure of protection against ruthless power moguls. To signify this new kind of sovereignty the king had a new golden crown made and instituted a canon of rights which in some ways anticipates Magna Carta of medieval times.

This extraordinarily enlightened monarch so impressed William Shakespeare that he figured on the lips of King Cymbeline in his play of the same name:

In his long reign lasting 45 years, Molmutius laid down various principles by which society would be bound together in mutual respect and security. All peasants, for example, had the right to work. Even if they were in debt, their creditors could not come and seize their plough or other working implement and so deprive them of their livelihood.

Laws were established to prevent crime. And temples were to be sanctuaries, inviolable spaces where any individual was entitled to safe refuge.

It is said that the Molmutine Laws were written in a British language, later translated into Latin, and then adapted by King Alfred to form part of his constitution.

T
hough it is our Trojan ancestor Brutus who is credited with founding London, the man who had a passion for the city was King Lud, the last monarch of any significance in the old realm of Britain.

Lud was a pioneering town planner. With great gusto this visionary Celt set his heart on building a city to rival any other in the known world. Recalling his ancestry, he endeavoured to turn what was an unremarkable town into a fabulous citadel worthy of its romantic name, New Troy. Ramparts were thrown up, towers added at strategic points. Within the walls, building regulations were imposed to ensure only the highest of standards in architecture – no monstrous carbuncles allowed. Nightly his love of the city overflowed in grand banquets and celebrations. Indeed, so closely associated with the city did King Lud become that it was renamed after him as Caer Lud, later corrupted to Caer Lundein. In time the ‘Caer’ was dropped and the result ‘London’, which the Romans turned into Londinium.

After his death Lud was buried near a gateway to the city named after him, Ludgate. A statue that used to stand on the gate now graces the porch of the church of St Dunstan-in-the-West in Fleet Street in commemoration of his proud endeavour.

I
t took two invasions by Julius Caesar to subdue the Britons. The first effort, in 55 CE, may have been little more than a reconnaissance trip. At any rate, Caesar’s galleons floundered on the Kent coast in the unfamiliar Atlantic high tides and he made little headway into the interior. Deciding to cut his losses before the winter set in, the Roman leader beat a hasty retreat back to Gaul. The following year Caesar tried again, this time with a massive task force of five legions, amounting to some 30,000 crack soldiers and 2000 cavalry, all aboard a fleet of 800 ships.

What Caesar learned on his first trip was that the Britons, though fierce were a squabbling lot and may well prove to be their own worst enemy. He hoped the mere sight of such a powerful army would induce their surrender. However, what he encountered in this second invasion was a determined resistance on a united front. The tribes of southeast Britain had put aside their differences and thrown in their lot with King Cassivellaunus of the Catuvellauni tribe.

Whilst they had nowhere near the numbers fielded by the enemy, the Celts had become a skilled fighting unit with one weapon unfamiliar to the Romans: the chariot. Cassivellaunus was able to muster 4000 chariots as well as foot soldiers. In his report of the invasion, Caesar described how the Celts used their chariots in battle. The driver would control the two horses and the warrior behind him would hurl javelins at the enemy before leaping off to fight on foot. Ever ready to give honour where it is due, Caesar commended the slickness of the operation:

As well as their accomplished charioteering the Celts employed clever guerrilla tactics to disturb the Roman advance. Cassivellaunus planted sharp stakes - the ancient equivalent of mines – in the bed of the Thames and along the river banks. When enemy ships sailed up the estuary, many were holed and sunk. However, the overwhelming strength of the Roman force proved too great and once they had made headway across the land north of the Thames ruled by Cassivellaunus, his temporary allies began to desert him and side with the Romans. The embattled king had no choice but to negotiate a surrender.

Tribute and hostages were agreed, but Caesar departed without leaving behind a single legionary to enforce the treaty. Did he ever receive the tribute? In the end, the question might be asked whether Caesar’s expedition was really more about pride and completing unfinished business than about greed.

Perhaps the reason why the Romans did not return to these shores for nearly another century was that those Britons were a tricky lot to handle.