And so does the smell!

The Maes Garmon monument commemorates the battle of 420 CE  recorded by the Venerable Bede when faith won out over the Picts and Anglo-Saxons. It was a victory for the Britons (who Bede doesn’t usually back) but this time they were inspired by Germanus of Auxerre who was in Britain from the Continent to repel heresy.

Bede was sanguine when it came to national identity:

BRITAIN, an island in the ocean, formerly called Albion, is situated between the north and west, facing, though at a considerable distance, the coasts of Germany, France, and Spain, which form the greatest part of Europe.

Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (731 CE), chpt 1

Compare Camden:

The MASTER-PIECE of Nature, performed when she was in her best and gayest humour; which she places as a little world by itself, upon the side of the greater, for the diversion of mankind.

William Camden, Britannia (1586), 4

Memory endures / The Last English Catholic Church in the World by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0