Page:The parochial history of Cornwall.djvu/237

Rh time of its erection; but its name at once designates it being a work of the Britons, and sepulchral; the term Trevedi (Trevethi) signifying, in the British language, the place of the Graves."

King Doniert is said to have been the father of St. Ursula, rendered famous by her unfortunate expedition from Cornwall to the coast of Flanders, but still more famous by the beautiful picture of her embarkation, painted by Claude de Lorraine, where the Saint, accompanied by her eleven thousand virgins, are descending to their ships in a port, decorated with buildings the most superb, and surrounded by a distant landscape, imagined and arranged in the highest style of that celebrated master.

Those ladies, although an exaggeration from eleven to eleven thousand is suspected by some writers, were to have married a Roman emperor and his principal officers; but being attacked on their landing by Pagan Saxons, they defended themselves with a courage worthy of Cornwall, until all were slain with arms in their hands. Yet one hardly sees why these heroic females were honoured among the saints. Their deaths as martyrs are referred to the 20th of October 383, and their tomb is still shown at Cologne, where a monastery has been built to their memory.

Not far from King Doniert's stone monument is another perpendicular moor-stone, on which is still apparent the figure of a cross; and on another, not far distant, is a cross shaped like a T.

Without doubt I think this our King Doniert lived and died in his town and castle of Leskeard, where it was not lawful to bury the bodies of dead men till the year 700. It is moreover to be noted, with regard to the inscription on his monument of stone, that about this time it was customary to pray for departed souls.