“Here I stand, and here I rest,

And this place shall be called Totnes!”

Why the name should be appropriate to the circumstances, we might vainly strive to guess, did not Westcote and Risdon inform us that it was intended to represent Tout à l’aise! We need not be ashamed of adopting their incredulity, and of doubting with them whether Brutus spoke such good French, or, indeed, whether French was then spoken at all.

The stone itself affords no aid. All mystery departed when it was recently lifted in the course of pavemental repairs, and found to be a boulder of no great dimensions, with a very modern-looking bone lying below. However, it is the “Brutus stone,” and I dare say will long be the object of a certain amount of popular faith.[[2]]

But, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth himself, Totnes town could not have been intended by him as the scene of the landing of Brutus. It was when Brutus was “holding a solemn festival to the gods, in the port where they had at first landed,” that he and his followers were attacked by Goemagot and his party. There it was that Goemagot and Corinæus had that famous wrestling bout, which ended in Corinæus running with his gigantic foe to the next shore, and throwing him off a rock into the sea. There is no sea at Totnes, no tall craggy cliff; and for Corinæus to have run with his burden from Totnes to the nearest point of Start or Tor Bay would have been a feat worthy even of a Hercules.

We are not surprised to find, therefore, that Totnes has her rivals—Dover, set up by the Kentish folk, and Plymouth,[[3]] each claiming to be the scene of the combat between Corinæus and Goemagot, and claiming, therefore, incidentally, also to be the port in which Brutus landed. I do not know that we can trace either tradition very far into antiquity. They do not occur in the chronicles, where, indeed, the very name of Plymouth is unknown. The earliest reference to that locality has been generally regarded as the Saxon Tamarworth. I am not at all sure, however, that Plymouth is not intended by Geoffrey’s “Hamo’s Port,” which he assumes to be Southampton. Geoffrey, indeed, says that Southampton obtained the “ham” in its name from a crafty Roman named Hamo, killed there by Arviragus; but if the identification is no better than the etymology, we may dismiss it altogether. On the other hand, the name of the estuary of the Tamar is still the Hamoaze—a curious coincidence, if it goes no further. There is nothing in the story of Hamo itself to indicate Southampton or preclude Plymouth; only a few references to Hamo’s Port occur in Geoffrey. One of these, where Belinas is described as making a highway “over the breadth of the kingdom” from Menevia to Hamo’s Port, may rather seem to point to Southampton; but there is no positive identification, even if we assume the story to be true. Again, “Maximian the senator,” when invited into Britain by Caradoc, Duke of Cornwall, to be King of Britain, lands at Hamo’s Port; and here the inference would rather be that it was on Cornish territory. And so when Hoel sent 15,000 Armoricans to the help of Arthur, it was at Hamo’s Port they landed. It was from Hamo’s Port that Arthur is said to have set sail on his expedition against the Romans—a fabulous story, indeed, but still helping to indicate the commodiousness and importance of the harbour intended. It was at Hamo’s Port that Brian, nephew of Cadwalla, landed on his mission to kill the magician of Edwin the King, who dwelt at York, lest this magician might inform Edwin of Cadwalla’s coming to the relief of the British. After he had killed Pellitus, Brian called the Britons together at Exeter; and it would be fair to infer that the place where he landed was likely to be one where the Britons had some strength. Here, again, whatever we may make of the history, it is Hamo’s Port that is the fitting centre of national life; and it is the Hamoaze that best suits the reference.

This legend of Brute the Trojan was firmly believed in, and associated with these Western shores, by the leading intellects of the Elizabethan day. Spenser refers to it in his:—

That well can witness yet unto this day

The Western Hogh besprinkled with the Gore

Of mighty Goemot.