COMING SOON: The Chronologies of Cerdic of Wessex and Ceredig the son of Cunedda

I've recently been told by a certain party that the respective chronologies for Cerdic of Wessex and Ceredigthe son of Cunedda do not match up.  However, this comes from someone who is not aware of the work I did some years ago on the reversed order of the early Gewessei leaders as found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.  In the next few days I will present this material again here in a new post. Hopefully, this will clear up the matter.

Elesa/Esla and Cerdic of Wessex

Quite a few years ago I was asked why, if Cerdic of Wessex is actually Ceredig son of Cunedda, the former's father is given in the early English genealogies as Elesa.  I had provided the explanation in an essay entitled CUNEDDA AND THE IRISH IN WALES, which I thought lost.  I've now found it posted on an old archived listserv and can provide the relevant selection here:

In the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE, Cerdic's father is named Elesa, his grandfather Esla (a simple metathesis of Elesa) and his great-grandfather Gewis or Giwis, eponymous king of the Gewisse.  But Kenneth Sisam (in his "Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies",PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY, 1953) long ago suggested that 

"...Cerdic's pedigree was copied from this part of Ida's, and that Giwis was substituted afterwards to give it a West Saxon coloring. The substitution exactly at ths point might be made because the association of Bernic with Bernicia was obvious. Bernic, who appears only in the pedigree of Ida, is generally    regarded as an eponymous king derived from the name of the Bernicians, and Giwis, who appears only in the pedigree of Cerdic, seems to be derived in the same way from Gewissei, a name for the West Saxons... the original entry may have had Bernic for Benoc, and Alusa (possibly Ealusa or a form nearer Elesa) not Aloc... Aluca (CHRONICLE Aloc)... may have been substituted for Alusa in Cerdic's pedigree... if the framework of Cerdic's pedigree is somehow borrowed from Ida's, his real pedigree was almost certainly unknown."

I would add that his real pedigree may well have been known, but that it was altered to conform with the needs of Wessex political history.

Another listserv I discovered contains similar information:

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/1996-02/0823909691

I think that the important article by K. Sisam, "Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies", in Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 39 (1953), pp. 287-346 (required reading for those who really want to understand some of the processes by which early genealogies were faked), which was recently reprinted in the collection "British Academy Papers on Anglo-Saxon England" (Oxford University Press, 1990), shows that Cerdic's genealogy was, in fact, pretty much "made out of whole cloth". Cerdic's genealogy is interesting because enough manuscripts survive to show some of the stages of the falsification process. What follows is my attempt to outline Sisam's reconstruction of this

process (but read his article for a better explanation).

It started with the pedigree of the kings of Bernicia, which begins Woden, Baeldaeg, Brand, Benoc, Aloc (Alusa in some manuscripts), etc., followed by several more generations until you get to Ida (6th century), king of Bernicia. One early version of the West Saxon genealogy goes Woden, Baeldaeg, Brand, Giwis, Aluca, Cerdic, and the one given by Asser is very similar: UUoden, Beldeg, Brond, Geuuis, Elesa, Cerdic. Thus, in the early stages of the fake West Saxon pedigree, the first five generations of the Bernician pedigree are used, except that Benoc is replace by Giwis, and then Aluca (i.e. Aloc) is made the father of Cerdic. This pretty much kills the idea that the name Elesa is related to the similar Welsh name, for the name Elesa is in fact the name Aloc, "borrowed" from the royal genealogy of Bernicia, and Aloc, if he ever existed at all, would have been a many-generations-removed ancestor of Ida, and would have lived well before the Angles had any Welsh influence. The name "Gewisse" was the early name for the West Saxons, and the name Giwis which was used to replace Benoc was almost certainly invented to explain the name of the tribe, much like "Brutus" was invented explain the name Britain.

- Stewart L Baldwin

Welsh hagiography tells of a certain Caradoc son of ALAOG of NE Wales.  Here is what little we know of this petty chieftain, drawn from P.C. Bartram's A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY:

While it is tempting to try and relate this personage to Cerdic son of Elesa, he was a contemporary of St. Gwenfrewy (Winifred), who was born c. 575,  Thus he is way too late to be Cerdic of Wessex.

However, many years ago in another now defunct essay entitled ELAFIUS/ELESSA, THE LAME SON AND GREEK GUIOS, I demonstrated a better solution to the problem of Elesa in the genealogy of Cerdic.  

To begin, I had noticed that Elesa bore a striking resemblance to Elafius, a name found in the Life of St. Germanus of Auxerre.  /s/ and /f/ were frequently confused for each other in MSS.  The story of Elafius runs as follows (from http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artsou/constex.htm):

Chapter Twenty-Six

Meanwhile evil spirits, flying over the whole island, made known through the involuntary prophecies of their victims the coming of Germanus, with the result that one of the leading men in the country, Elafius by name, came hurrying to meet the holy men without having had any news of them through any regular messenger. He brought with him his son who had been crippled in early youth by a grievous malady. His sinews had withered and the tendons of the knee had contracted and his withered leg made it impossible for him to stand on his feet.

The whole province came along with Elafius. The bishops arrived and the crowds came upon them unexpectedly. At once blessings and the words of God were showered upon them. Germanus could see that the people as a whole had persevered in the faith in which he had left them and the bishops realized that the fallings-away had been the work only of a few. These were identified and formally condemned.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

At this point Elafius approached to make obeisance to the bishops and presented to them his son, whose youth and helplessness made his need clear without words. Everyone felt acutely for him, the bishops most of all, and in their pity they had recourse to the mercy of God. The blessed Germanus at once made the boy sit down, then felt the bent knee and ran his healing hand over all the diseased parts. Health speedily followed the life-giving touch. What was withered became supple, the sinews resumed their proper work, and, before the eyes of all, the son got back a sound body and the father got back a son.

The crowds were overwhelmed by the miracle and the Catholic faith implanted in them was strengthened in all of them. There followed sermons to the people to confute the heresy, the preachers of which were by common consent banished from the island. They were brought to the bishops to be conducted to the Continent, so that the country might be purged of them an they of their errors. The effect of all this was so salutary that even now the faith is persisting intact in those parts. And so, with everything settled, the blessed bishops made a prosperous journey back to their own country.

It's the lame son here who is vitally important.  Why?  Because there is a Greek word guios, 'lame.' I'm certain some learned monk had chosen to "interpret" Gewis, the eponymous founder of the Gewissei, with this word.  Which would mean, of course, that the lame son of Elafius = Gewis and Elafius = Elesa.  

The Vita sancta Germani was produced by Constantius of Lyon in the 5th century. Thus the source is very early and could well have influenced the compilers of the Anglo-Saxon genealogies.  An Elesa as an immediate descendant of Gewis must assuredly be the correct Celtic form of the name, as the Gewessei were indisputably Irish (or at least in part Hiberno-British).

Scholars have pointed to the name Eliseg of the famous Eliseg Pillar in Powys.  Sometimes the name is also spelled Elisedd.  According to Dr. Simon Talyor of the University of Wales, the name is decidedly Biblical in origin:

"Patrick Sims-Williams (BBCS, 38 (1991), p. 51, n. 1) has argued that Eliseg, Elised are hypercorrect forms of Biblical Elise (who appears as an ancestor of the Welsh in the Historia Brittonum). These forms would thus date from a period after the loss of final /ɣ/ in speech, and occasional loss of final /ð/ (cf. OW triti beside tritid ‘third’, and cf. mini for mynydd ‘mountain’ in Modern Pembrokeshire Welsh). This seems to be generally accepted now: recent publications by John Koch and Thomas Charles-Edwards modernize the name of the king as Elise."

However, in my opinion the Biblical name may represent a substitution for an attested Irish name Ailgesach, Ailgheasach, Ailiosach, at least in the case of Elesa of the Gewessei genealogy.  The name comes from the following word (eDIL listing):

áilgesach

Cite this: eDIL s.v. áilgesach or dil.ie/1008

Forms: álgasach, áilghesach, áilgeasach

adj o, ā (áilges). Also álgasach.

(a) importunate . In name of poet Athairne áilghesach , Ériu xiii 13.13 . ailgesach dunaid ┐ rl. lán eneclann don rig a nailges do gabail de a sloigedh no a ndunaid, O'D. 1618 (H. 5.15, p. 14a).

(b) eager, zealous: ógh alghasach, Gorm. Mar. 29 gl. 5 . ba h-ailgiusach le hA. Serlus d'feicsin, ITS xix 32.14 . is urlum ailgiussach sindi im gach ni uas ail letsu, TTebe 674 . rob onorach ailgiusach leo a scela do cloisteacht, 1829 . oibreacha áilgheasacha na haithrighe, TSh. 1813 .

Note also: áilgeasach ` dysenteric ', Celtica vi 68 .

I have shown in my comparison of the heavily altered Welsh genealogy for Cunedda and that of the original version from the Irish that this Irish chieftain's father Aeternus is a reflection of the name Aithirne of Dun Aithirne, who is the same mythological poet as the Athairne ailghesach in the aforementioned eDIL definition.

Therefore, we can say with a fair degree of certainty (as the Cunedda genealogy as found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle runs backwards, a fact I have discussed elsewhere) that Elesa = the legendary Aithirne ailghesach.

THE PROBABLE RULING CENTER OF CEREDIG/ARTHUR IN CEREDIGION

Llandewi Aberarth, church with hill fort above it

Llandewi Aberarth

In previous blog posts, I proposed that the name Arthur or Artorius was a Latin decknamen on an Irish name meaning "Bear-king", and that the king in question was Ceredig son of Cunedda of Ceredigion, known in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as Cerdic of the Gewessei.  Furthermore, I had theorized that the bear personal names in the Ceredigion genealogy could best be explained by the fact that in mid-Ceredigion there was an Arth or 'Bear' River, right next to the Afon Aeron.  Aeron or *Agrona, 'Slaughter goddess', suggested to me that the "Bear" might also have been a divine river.  If so, the bear names of Ceredig and his descendants were due to the fact that the ruling center of the kingdom was somewhere on the Afon Arth.

Subsequent research to find this ruling center of Ceredig/Arthur revealed only two possible sites. One is Dineirth, and the other Llandewi Aberarth.  What I needed to determine is which of the two places showed potential for sub-Roman or early medieval habitation.

According to Frances Foster, Archive & Library Assistant, Archive and Library Team, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales:

"I have checked the information we hold on the above site [Dineirth] and have not found any mention of Roman occupation or activity.  The description on the Ordnance Survey National Archaeological Record card states that the site was originally a Clare Castle (Richard de Clare) founded prior to 1136.

In R.E. Kay’s description he suggests that ‘the first Norman adventurers may have found the earthworks of a small promontory fort at their chosen site which they heightened and strengthened’.  He also says that ‘the Castle of Dineirth (or Dinarth) was probably founded by Richard de la Mare and follower of Richard de Clare in 1110.

http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/archive/search/result?CAT_NO=845881&SEARCH_MODE=COMPLEX_SEARCH

Again in Cadw’s scheduling description there is no mention of sub-Roman occupation of this site." 

Llandewi Aberarth may be different. On the possible ruling center of the kingdom of Ceredigion, Toby Driver, Senior Investigator (Aerial Survey) for the RCAHMW and author of HILLFORTS OF CARDIGAN BAY, says

"I would find it very difficult to decide on a place for a ‘ruling centre’, although a coastal position may be better connected than one inland [emphasis mine]... The Arth has a very restricted catchment, and I am not aware of any other major archaeological sites along its reaches. That said the presence of a major castle at Dinerth, the Viking hog-back stone at Llanddewi-Aberarth and the coastal hillfort, along with the ancient fish traps on the foreshore at Aberarth, all add up to a high concentration of interesting sites. Certainly it is an interesting locale along the Cardigan Bay coastline."

Here is the description of the hill fort at Llandewi Aberarth from COFLEIN (http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/419561/details/hillfort-st-davids-church-llanddewi-aberarth):

NPRN 419561

Map Reference SN46SE

Grid Reference SN47616337

Unitary (Local) Authority Ceredigion

Old County Cardiganshire

Community Dyffryn Arth

Type of Site DEFENDED ENCLOSURE, HILLFORT

Broad Class Defence

Period Iron Age

Site Description The church of St Davids sits below and to the east of the triangular summit of a prominent coastal hill which has been suggested as a possible Iron Age hillfort by the Dyfed Archaeological Trust, citing both its general shape and the presence of Bronze Age finds just below the summit.

Royal Commission aerial photographs of the hilltop taken during the drought summer of 2013 (on 12th July) appear to clarify parched banks and ditches of a large triangular or pear-shaped hilltop enclosure, generally following the lines of present field boundaries and walls but of more massive construction, suggesting a prehistoric origin. This main hilltop enclosure measures approximately 278m x 110m, enclosing 2.7 hectares. On the east side of the ridge is a discrete, smaller rectangular earthwork enclosure within the larger one, following the line of the ridge but with a rounded southern end, into which the cemetery of St Davids Church encroaches. It is possible that this is also a prehistoric or early medieval enclosure [emphasis mine], perhaps representing a first phase, or a contraction of a larger site. Recorded during RCAHMW aerial reconnaissance (frames AP_2013_2951-53) and also during winter conditions on 26th February 2014, highlighting the earthworks (frames AP_2014_0311-12, 319, 324-5).

If I'm right about the Arth River being the location of the Dark Age ruling center belonging to Ceredig and his descendants, then the hill fort at Llandewi Aberarth must be considered the primary contender.  Of course, only excavation of the site, and in particular of the smaller enclosure on the east side of the ridge, would be able to demonstrate whether sub-Roman or early medieval habitation occurred there.

I'm still trying to procure at least a preliminary report on the hill fort at Llandewi Aberarth, but so far have had no success obtaining such a document.  It may not exist. However, if such a report is forthcoming, I will immediately make it available here.  

THE CERDIC/ARTHUR BATTLE MAP

Here is my final arrangement of the battles of Cerdic/Ceredig/Arthur.  For a more detailed discussion of them, please see some of my more recent blog posts.  

A few notes on the map:

1) Ceredicesora or "Cerdic's shore" has been thought to be the Ower near Calshot.  This is a very good possibility for a landing place.  However, the Ower further north by Southampton must be considered a leading contender, as it is quite close to some of the other battles.

2) Cerdicesleag or "Cerdic's wood" I would tentatively identify with Lee (leag)-on-the-Solent.  I pick this location because of the mention of Stuf (= Stub/b) both before and after the Cerdicesleag battle. Lee-on-the-Solent is just a little bit west of Stubbington, the settlement of the descendents of Stuf/Stubb.  It is also just across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, which was given to both Wihtgar and Stuf.  

3) Bitton on the Somerset Avon is thought to be the Roman period Trajectus (= Tribruit).  While the place may have been called this, it was named for the actual crossing of the Severn from here to Caerwent in Wales.  

4) Wallop, here in green letters, was supposedly the location of a battle of Ambrosius.  The great Danebury Hill camp is at Nether Wallop and I would make the case for this being the actual battle site.

Here are the correspondences of the Historia Brittonum battles and the modern place-names:

Glein = Ower 1 or Ower 2

Dubglas in Linnuis = River Blackwater

Bassas = Charford

Castle Guinnion = Wihtgarasburh

City of the Legion = Caerleon

Tribruit = Bitton (Severn Crossing from Caerwent)

Breguoin/Agned (Bremenium/Egnatius) = Liddington Castle/Badbury

Badon = Badbury/Liddington Castle

A NOTE ON CHEARSLEY AND NOTLEY

Some discussion has been made of Chearsley and Notley in Buckinghamshire as indicators that Cerdic of Wessex's battles originally belonged there, rather than in Hampshire.  This is quite simply wrong.

Charford, for example, has known early forms such as Cerdeford.  Notley is not remotely possible for Natanleod/leag.  Here are the two Buckinghamshire place-names as discussed briefly by Dr. Richard Coates of The English Place-Name Society:

"The bulk of early spellings are of the type Cherdes-, and nothing definitely points to Ceolred (no <l>) or Cerdic (no <c>).  Notley (Bucks) is just a straight up and down hnutu + leah, as all the medieval spellings show. And Natan- won’t give Nut- spellings."

CADBURYS AND THE PERSONAL NAME BAD(D)A

Cadbury Castle, Somerset

As I mentioned in my previous blog piece http://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2017/01/arthurs-badon-at-last-evidence-for.html, Badda of the Badbury/Baddanbyrig hill forts is an attested English name that is also found spelled Bada. It is the spelling with a single /d/ that should interest us the most.

I was thinking about the several Badburys and recalled that a similar pattern of hill fort names exists further to the west in England, in territory that remained much longer in control of the British.  I'm referring, of course, to the Cadbury forts.  There are four of these:

Cadbury Camp in North Somerset

Cadbury Castle in Devon

Cadbury Castle in Somerset

Cadbury Hill in North Somerset

To these we may compare -

Badbury Rings in Dorset
Badbury in Wiltshire
Badbury Hill in Berkshire
Badbury in Northants.
Baumber in Lincolnshire (Badeburg in the Domesday Book; Bada's or Badda's burg, according to                                                 Ekwall)

It is fashionable in older books (even Mills!) to find the first component of this place-name as a hypothetical OE personal name *Cada.  But more recent scholars (like noted English place-name expert Dr. Richard Coates) agree with me that the known Brythonic name (found in an Arthurian context!) Cadwy/Cato/Cado/Cattw, etc., more likely explains Cad-.  Although Cadwy is included in some royal genealogies and is presented to us as a human hero, his name might well be a hypocoristic form of a divine name like the Gaulish god Caturix, 'Battle-king'.  Dr. Coates response to my query about whether Cadwy could stand for Caturix or similar was merely "Yes."

The Welsh word cad as listed in the GPC:

cad1

[Crn. cas, Gwydd. cath, Gal. Caturīges; fel elf. mewn e. fel catberth, caterwen, catffwl ac enw nant fel Cadnant golyga ‘cryf, nerthol, mawr’]

eb. ll. cadau, cadoedd.

a  Brwydr, ymladdfa, rhyfel, ymryson, ymdrech, helynt:

battle, conflict, war, strife, struggle, trouble. 

In other words, the Cadbury hill forts are elevated defensive earthworks that were deemed sacred to a sort of divine personification of battle.

I would suggest that the same is true of the Badbury forts - and, indeed, that this and only this can explain why here are several such forts all bearing the same name.  

In the famous, though exceedingly brief, account of Badon in Gildas, we are told a great slaughter of the enemy occurred at the hill.  Gildas's word here is the Latin strages. [For those who would like to study for themselves the relevant sections on Badon in Gildas, in Latin text form and in good modern English translations, please see http://people.clas.ufl.edu/jshoaf/2014/07/07/gildas/.  As I've mentioned before, Bede pretty well repeats what Gildas has to say on the battle, using stragis for strages.] Strages or 'slaughter', as it happens, is one of the meanings of OE beado, a word that occurs in numerous uncompounded and compounded personal names in a fairly wide variety of spellings.

From the Anglo-Saxon dictionary of Bosworth and Toller:

BEADO, beadu; g. d. beadowe, beadwe, beaduwe; f. Battle, war, slaughter, cruelty; pugna, strages :-- Gúþ-Geáta leód, beadwe heard the War-Goths' prince, brave in battle, Beo. Th. 3082; B. 1539. Wit ðære beadwo begen ne onþungan we both prospered not in the war, Exon. 129b; Th. 497, 2; Rä. 85, 23. Beorn beaduwe heard a man brave in battle, Andr. Kmbl. 1963; An. 984. Ðú þeóde bealdest to beadowe thou encouragest the people to slaughter, Andr. Kmbl. 2373; An. 1188. [O. H. Ger. badu-, pato-: O. Nrs. böð, f. a battle: Sansk. badh to kill.]

So on the model of the Cadbury forts, I propose that Bada or Badda is merely a spelling variant of a beado-derived name, and that Gildas's comment on the strages that took place there is not only a description of the result of military action at the location, but an actual definition of Bada/Badda as 'Slaughter.'  When I passed this idea along to Dr. Coates, he commented "Well, to my mind this is ingenious."

If I am right, this is yet more evidence in support of Badon = Badbury, in this case the one now called Liddington Castle in Wiltshire.  

DECIDING BETWEEN BATH AND BADBURY OR A TALE OF TWO LID BROOKS

Barbury Castle, Wiltshire

Here is the 'Badon Problem' in a nutshell, and it is one I've been wrestling with for decades: the place-name itself is universally held by Celtic linguists and place-name specialists to be a British form of the Old English Bathum or 'Baths.'  The philological and phonological arguments are very solid.  

But there are major problems with this identification.  Firstly, Gildas - who claims the battle happened when he was born, and who should, therefore, have some authoritative knowledge regarding the event - claims the Saxons were soundly defeated there.  This seems quite impossible for Bath in Somerset, as the English has not penetrated anywhere near this far into the West Country at this point in history.  

Slightly more likely is the other 'bathum', namely Aquae Arnemetia at Buxton in Derbyshire. Buxton, however, does not fit in at all with the other battles as I've laid them out in the South of England.

I've recently identified Arthur's City of the Legion and the following battle of Tribruit with Caerleon-on-Usk and the Trajectus or Severn crossing to the Avon.  Bath is, of course, on the Avon, and so would fit in well with this grouping as Badon.  But, the intervening battle of Mount Breguoin/Agned must give us pause.  

I've shown how the meaning of the root of the place-name Breguoin (= Brewyn/Bremenium) matches that of the root found in the Liddington place-name that was given to the Badbury hill fort in Wiltshire.  Agned is for Egnatius, the name of a Roman governor who became associated with Bremenium.  This is too much of a coincidence, and I'm fairly certain Breguoin is here a substitute for the English place-name Liddington.  

From http://kepn.nottingham.ac.uk/map/place/Wiltshire/Liddington:

Liddington

'Farm/settlement on the stream called Hlyde (= the noisy one)'. The water-course is on record as the Lid Brook.

Elements and their meanings

hlȳde (Old English) A noisy stream (literally a loud one.

tūn (Old English) An enclosure; a farmstead; a village; an estate.

Refs

Watts; Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-names 372

E. Ekwall; Dictionary of English Place-Names 297

A.D. Mills; Dictionary of English Place-Names 298

"Gover, Mawer and Stenton, The Place-Names of Wiltshire" 282

I have noticed that there is a Lid Brook a few miles ENE of Bath as well.  While I tried making a case for Bury Wood Camp being named for the Lid Brook, the truth is that the hill fort is between two branches of the Doncombe Brook, with the Lid being a fair distance to the south.  Nor could I make a case for the Lid Brook once being the original name of the By Brook river, for this last was originally called the Weaver. Here are the early forms and the etymology for the By Brook (as kindly supplied to me by Ally McConnell, Archivist, Wiltshire and Swindon Archives, Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, who was drawing from THE PLACE-NAMES OF WILTSHIRE):

Essentially the same information is to be found in Eilert Ekwall’s book English River Names (1928 edition):

What this means is that the 'Badon' identified with Breguoin has to be Liddington Castle.

I've also demonstrated that the so-called Second Battle of Badon of the HISTORIA BRITTONUM would appear to be a reference to the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE'S account of Cenwalh's being driven to Ashdown by Wulfhere.  Ashdown is only a few miles from the Liddington Badbury and we might assume that the ravaging went right past the hill fort.  

As I see it, there are two possible solutions to the 'Badon Problem:'

1) Very early on the superficially similar names Bathum/Badon and Baddan(-byrig) were confused in the Welsh tradition. Gildas or his source may not have been responsible for this, but subsequent copyists certainly could have been.  Thus what should have more closely resembled Baddan- ended up, merely by mistake, as Badon.  Eventually, the incorrect form became accepted as canonical, while the correct one was forgotten.

OR

2) Modern linguists are, at least in this one case, overly strict in disallowing the possibility that Badon actually represents Baddan(-byrig) and not Bathum. In other words, that some otherwise unexplainable development took place which transmuted Baddan- to Bathum.

My own feeling is that it is far more likely the ancient Welsh are the ones to blame for the place-name switch.  They were far less astute in the science of language evolution than today's scholars.  In this respect, then, the linguists and place-names experts are both right and wrong: they are right in that Badon cannot be the linguistic equivalent of Baddan-, but they are wrong if they insist that precisely because this is so Badon cannot be the Liddington Badbury.  

For what it's worth, Liddington Castle has my vote as Arthur's Badon. 

COMING NEXT: Deciding between Bath and Badbury or A Tale of Two Lid Brooks

Lid Brook, Wiltshire