135. Cornwall was finally subdued by Athelstan (A.D.
927-941), who planted an English colony at Exeter, and
confined the Britons beyond the river Tamar. See William of
Malmesbury, 1. ii. in the Scriptores post Bedam, p. 50. The
spirit of the Cornish knights was degraded by servitude: and
it should seem, from the romance of Sir Tristram, that their
cowardice was almost proverbial.