Estrildis

Template:Short description Estrildis was the beloved mistress of King Locrinus of the Britons and the mother of his daughter Habren, according to the 12th-century chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth.<ref name="Tatlock">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Oxford">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Olson">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Medieval literature

In Geoffrey's pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), Estrildis, the daughter of a king in Germania, was brought to Britain as a captive of Chief Humber the Hun during his invasion following the death of King Brutus. Eventually Humber's Huns were defeated by Brutus' three sons, the eldest of whom—Locrinus—fell in love with the beautiful Germanic princess upon discovering her in one of Humber's ships.<ref name="Brewer">Template:Cite book</ref>

Locrinus was forced to honour his prior betrothal to Gwendolen, the daughter of King Corineus of Cornwall, but kept Estrildis as his mistress.<ref name="Tolhurst">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Johns">Template:Cite book</ref> For seven years he secretly visited her in a cave beneath Trinovantum (London, i.e., "New Troy"), where she was cared for by servants.<ref name="Reinhard">Template:Cite book</ref> Estrildis bore him a daughter, Habren.

When Corineus died, Locrinus deserted Gwendolen and their son Maddan and declared Estrildis his queen. Gwendolen retaliated by raising a Cornish army against Locrinus and defeating him in battle; she then had Estrildis and her daughter, Habren, drowned in a river thereafter called Hafren in Welsh and Sabrina by the Romans (which is the River Severn in English).

Post-mediaeval literature

Elstridis and her story feature in Elstrild by Charles Tilney (d. 1586),<ref name="Berek">Template:Cite journal</ref> The Faerie Queene (1590) by Edmund Spenser, The Complaynt of Elstred (1593) by Thomas Lodge, and Locrine (1887) by Swinburne.<ref name="Oxford"/>

A variant of the story is told by Oliver Mathews, in which Estrildis is called Sŵs-wên, and Locrinus builds Caersws for her.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="WCD Locrinus">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

The story went on to inspire the folktale of Rosamund Clifford, mistress of King Henry II, being hidden in an underground labyrinth.<ref name="Worrall 1977">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Name

Her name is probably a Latinized form of the medieval name Estrild (Template:Langx), which survived in England only until the 12th century, according to the 1984 Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names.<ref>"Feminine Given Names in A Dictionary of English Surnames" (Medieval Names Archive at www.s-gabriel.org)</ref>