Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/168

 Devon Notes and Queries, 117 view that the English entered Cornwall from the north-east, for *'the Devonshire dialect prevails in Cornwall above a diagonal line drawn from Padstow to Saltash '* (Baring- Gouldy Book of the West, vol. I, p. 10). It has, indeed, been suggested that the places granted by Alfred to his elder son *< follow roughly the shadowy outlines of the great Arthurian kingdom, stretching as a riverine power from Tintagel to Glastonbury. Where tradition says King Arthur was strong, there recorded history would have it King Alfred was undoubted master ** (Rev. W. Greswell in Fortnightly Review^ Sept. 1899, p. 467.) If there is any con- nection between them, it is possible that this ''Arthurian kingdom" was conquered many years before the country to the south of it. All the evidence, therefore, which has been brought forward, is in favour of the suggestions that Alfred's king- dom included the whole of Devon and the part of Cornwall called Triggshire, and that the north of Devon had become entirely English while the south of Devon and Triggshire were still occupied chiefly by Cornish. We know that in Exeter the English and Cornish were living side by side down to the time of Athelstan, and it is not unlikely that, when that King drove the Cornish out of Exeter and fixed the boundary at the Tamar, he also drove them out from the rest of Devon and restored Triggshire to Cornwall. With regard to the other questions raised by your corres- pondent, the King of Cornwall in 875 seems to have been one Dyvnerth or Donierth (Haddan and Stubbs, Councils^ vol. I^ p. 675.) The statement that the Cornish King was subject to Alfred rests solely upon the authority of a disputed passage in Asser, describing the presence of Alfred at St. Neots, but there seems to be no reason to doubt that Kenstec, Bishop of Cornwall, professed obedience to Archbishop Ceolnoth eome years before Alfred became King (Ihid^ p. 674.) R. Pearse Chops. 81. PosTBRN Door at Exeter Castle. — The following transcript of a letter preserved among the Public Records shows that at the commencement of the 17th century there existed towardes ye feilds," and may be deemed of su£Bcient
 * a postern doore through the walles of ye Castle (of Exon)