Her name, in Gaelic, was Cathair-ys-maen-ddu
("Queen of stones black"), rather a long name even for a queen, and
meaning in English the Queen of the City of the Black Stones, the
remaining three, out of the original twelve, being those, now known as
the Devil's Arrows, which we had seen the preceding night.
[Illustration: CAER CARADOC HILL, CHURCH STRETTON.]
The Romans, however, when they invaded Britain, called her Cartismunda,
her city ISURIUM, and the Brigantes' country they named Brigantia. But
as the Brigantes made a determined resistance, their invasion of this
part of England, begun in A.D. 47, was not completed until A.D. 70.
Queen Cartismunda was related to the King of Siluria, which then
embraced the counties of Hereford and Monmouth, besides part of South
Wales. He was one of the greatest of the British chieftains, named
Caradoc by the Britons and Caractacus by the Romans. He fought for the
independence of Britain, and held the armies of the most famous Roman
generals at bay for a period of about nine years. But eventually, in
A.D. 50, he was defeated by the Roman general Ostorius Scapula, in the
hilly region near Church Stretton, in Shropshire, not far from a hill
still known as Caer Caradoc, his wife and daughters being taken
prisoners in the cave known as Caradoc's Cave.
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