List of legendary kings of Britain

Annius of Viterbo in 1498 claimed to have found ancient fragments from Berossus detailing the earliest settlement of 'Celtica', including the British Isles, by Samothes, a son of Japheth, son of Noah, after the Great Flood. These fragments were later revealed to have been forged by Annius himself, and are now known as "Pseudo-Berossus". The fragments can be found in Asher (1993) and include a king list. Before being revealed as a hoax, the list found its way into John Bale's Illustrium majoris Britanniae scriptorum (1548), John Caius' Historia Cantabrigiensis Academiae (1574), William Harrison's Description of England (1577), Holinshed's Chronicles (1587) and Anthony Munday's A briefe chronicle (1611).[14]

Iolo Morganwg, between 1801 and 1807, published a series of Welsh Triads he claimed to have discovered in manuscript form, with the help of the antiquarian William Owen Pughe. These were later revealed to be a mixture of forgeries by Morganwg and Williams' alterations to authentic triads.[15][16] Exactly how much "authentic" content there is of Morganwg's published work remains disputed by scholars today. Morganwg's triads describe the earliest occupation of Britain (Prydain) and contain a pseudo-historical reign of kings, beginning with Hu Gadarn, the "Plough King".[17]

Hu Gadarn is described by Morganwg in his triads as being the earliest inhabitant of Britain having travelled from the "Summerland, called Deffrobani, where Constantinople now stands" in 1788 BC.[18] He is credited as having founded the first civilisation in Britain and introduced agriculture. Morganwg's Barddas (1862, p. 348) further states that this king is descended from Hu, but that, after a huge flood (see Afanc), only two people, Dwyfan and Dwyfach, survived from whom the later inhabitants of Britain descended. The Welsh clergyman Edward Davies included this myth in his Celtic Researches on the Origin, Traditions and Languages of the Ancient Britons (1804):

First, the bursting of the lake of waters, and the overwhelming of the face of all lands, so that all mankind drowned, excepting Dwyvan and Dwyvach, who escaped in a naked vessel and from then the Island of Britain was re-peopled.

Several 19th-century Christian authors—for example, Henry Hoyle Howorth[19]—interpreted this myth to be evidence for the Biblical flood of Noah, yet in Morganwg's chronology Dwyfan and Dwyfach are dated to the 18th or 17th century BC, which does not fit the Biblical estimate for the Noachian deluge.[20]

Tea Tephi is a legendary princess found described in British Israelite literature from the 19th century.[21][22] Revd F. R. A. Glover, M.A., of London in 1861 published England, the Remnant of Judah, and the Israel of Ephraim in which he claimed Tea Tephi was one of Zedekiah's daughters. Since King Zedekiah of Judah had all his sons killed during the Babylonian Captivity, no male successors could continue the throne of King David, but, as Glover noted, Zedekiah had daughters who escaped death (Jeremiah 43:6). Glover believed that Tea Tephi was a surviving Judahite princess who had escaped and travelled to Ireland, and who married a local High King of Ireland in the 6th century BC who subsequently became blood linked to the British monarchy.[23] This theory was later expanded upon by Rev. A.B. Grimaldi, who published in 1877 a successful chart entitled Pedigree of Queen Victoria from the Bible Kings and later by W.M.H. Milner in his booklet The Royal House of Britain an Enduring Dynasty' (1902, revised 1909). Charles Fox Parham also authored an article tracing Queen Victoria's lineage back to King David (through Tea Tephi) entitled Queen Victoria: Heir to King David's Royal Throne.[24]

The Tea Tephi-British monarchy link is also found in J. H. Allen's Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright (1902, p. 251). A central tenet of British Israelism is that the British monarchy is from the Davidic line and the legend of Tea Tephi from the 19th century attempted to legitimise this claim. Tea Tephi, however, has never been traced to an extant Irish source before the 19th century and critics assert she was purely a British Israelite invention.[25] A collection of alleged bardic traditions and Irish manuscripts which detail Tea Tephi were published by J. A. Goodchild in 1897 as The Book of Tephi, the work is, however, considered pseudo-historical or a forgery. There is though a queen called Tea in Irish mythology who appears in the Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland.[26] She is described as the wife of Érimón a Míl Espáine (Milesian) and dated to 1700 BC (Geoffrey Keating: 1287 BC). These dates are inconsistent with the British Israelite literature which dates Tea Tephi to the 6th century BC, but later British Israelites, such as Herman Hoeh (Compendium of World History, 1970), claimed that the Milesian Royal House (including Tea) was from an earlier blood descendant of the Davidic Line who entered Britain around 1000 BC (citing Ruaidhrí Ó Flaithbheartaigh's reduced chronology).[27] Linked to Glover's original claims of Tea Tephi, are Grimaldi and Milner's theory that Jeremiah himself in the company of his scribe Baruch ben Neriah travelled to Ireland with Tea Tephi and that they are found described in Irish folklore and old Irish manuscripts. Some British Israelites identify Baruch ben Neriah with a figure called Simon Berac or Berak in Irish myth, while Jeremiah with Ollom Fotla (or Ollam, Ollamh Fodhla).[28] However, like Tea Tephi, there has long been controversy about these identifications, mainly because of conflicting or inconsistent dates. In 2001, the British-Israel-World Federation wrote an article claiming they no longer subscribed to these two identifications, but still strongly stick to the belief that the British monarchy is of Judahite origin.[25][29] In an earlier publication in 1982, Covenant Publishing Co. admitted that Tea Tephi could not be traced in Irish literature or myth and may have been fabricated by Glover, but they clarified they still believed in the Milesian Royal House-Davidic Line bloodline connection (popularised by Hoeh).[30] Herbert Armstrong (1986) also took up this legendary connection.[31]