law to put an end to compulsory servitude; for, with that

{ 38} Osred was king of the Northumbrians, and son of Alfred. He commenced to reign in A.D. 791, but was deprived of his crown the following year.

{ 39} St. Kenelm was the only son and heir of Kenulfus, king of the Mercians, who left him under the care of his two sisters, Quendreda and Bragenilda. The former, blinded by ambition, resolved to destroy the innocent child, who stood between her and the throne; and for that purpose prevailed on Ascebert, who attended constantly on the king, to murder him privately, giving him hopes, in case he complied with her wishes, of making him her partner in the kingdom. Under the pretence of diverting his young master, this wicked servant led him into a retired vale at Clent, in Staffordshire, and having murdered him, dug a pit, and cast his body into it, which was discovered by a miracle, and carried in solemn procession to the abbey of Winchelcomb. In the parish of Clent is a small chapel dedicated to this saint.

{ 40} Winchelcumbe, or Winchcomb, in the lower part of the hundred of Kiftsgate, in Gloucestershire, a few miles to the north of Cheltenham.

{ 41} St. Kynauc, who flourished about the year 492, was the reputed son of Brychan, lord of Brecknock, by Benadulved, daughter of Benadyl, a prince of Powis, whom he seduced during the time of his detention as an hostage at the court of her father. He is said to have been murdered upon the mountain called the Van, and buried in the church of Merthyr Cynawg, or Cynawg the Martyr, near Brecknock, which is dedicated to his memory.

{ 42} In Welsh, Illtyd, which has been latinised into Iltutus, as in the instance of St. Iltutus, the celebrated disciple of Germanus, and the master of the learned Gildas, who founded a college for the instruction of youth at Llantwit, on the coast of Glamorganshire; but I do not conceive this to be the same person. The name of Ty- Illtyd, or St. Illtyd's house, is still known as Llanamllech, but it is applied to one of those monuments of Druidical antiquity called a cistvaen, erected upon an eminence named Maenest, at a short distance from the village. A rude, upright stone stood formerly on one side of it, and was called by the country people Maen Illtyd, or Illtyd's stone, but was removed about a century ago. A well, the stream of which divides this parish from the neighbouring one of Llansaintfraid, is called Ffynnon Illtyd, or Illtyd's well. This was evidently the site of the hermitage mentioned by Giraldus.

{ 43} Lhanhamelach, or Llanamllech, is a small village, three miles from Brecknock, on the road to Abergavenny.

{ 44} The name of Newmarche appears in the chartulary of Battel abbey, as a witness to one of the charters granted by William the Conqueror to the monks of Battel in Sussex, upon his foundation of their house. He obtained the territory of Brecknock by conquest, from Bleddyn ap Maenarch, the Welsh regulus thereof, about the year 1092, soon after his countryman, Robert Fitzhamon, had reduced the county of Glamorgan. He built the present town of Brecknock, where he also founded a priory of Benedictine monks. According to Leland, he was buried in the cloister of the cathedral church at Gloucester, though the mutilated remains of an effigy and monument are still ascribed to him in the priory church at Brecknock.

{ 45} Brecheinoc, now Brecknockshire, had three cantreds or hundreds, and eight comots. - 1. Cantref Selef with the comots of Selef and Trahayern. - 2. Cantref Canol, or the middle hundred, with the comots Talgarth, Ystradwy, and Brwynlys, or Eglyws Yail. - 3. Cantref Mawr, or the great hundred, with the comots of Tir Raulff Llywel, and Cerrig Howel. - Powel's description of Wales, p. 20.

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