authority of the imperial governors, and to this the
newly-arrived Britons refused to submit. The Britons
brought with them their own laws, customs, and
organisation, both civil and ecclesiastical, as well as
their own language.
They were at first few in numbers, and did not desire to emancipate themselves wholly from Britain. Consequently, although establishing themselves in clans, they held themselves to be under the sovereignty of their native princes at home.
This appears from the coincidence of the names of the kings in Armorica and in insular Domnonia.[1]
About the downs may be seen numerous cairns and barrows. Some of these have been explored, and some fine urns of the Bronze Age, that were found near Gunwalloe, are now in the Truro Museum.
Alas! there is one thing for which Lizard is notorious, and that is wrecks. The last great tragedy of that nature was the loss of the Mohegan, in 1898. A mysterious loss, for the two lights of Lizard shone clear to the left, and she was steered straight on the deadly Manacles, where she went to pieces. The churchyards of S. Keverne, Landewednack, and Mullion contain the graves of many and many a drowned man and woman thrown up by the sea. But, be it remembered, formerly those thus cast up, unless known, were not buried in churchyards, but on the cliffs, as there was no guarantee that the
- ↑ Quite the best monograph on the colonisation of Brittany is by Dom Plaine, La Colonisation de l’Armorique par les Bretons insulaires. Paris: Picard, 1899. See also Loth (M. J.), Emigration Bretonne en Armorique. Rennes, 1883.
