He who first among the Angles shall wear the diadem of Brutus shall repair the city laid waste by slaughter. A fierce people shall forbid the sacrament of confirmation throughout the country, and in the house of God shall place images of the gods.
As the reader will become aware Henry Blois has intentions of becoming King after the Celts rebel against Henry II and Henry Blois is predicting his downfall through prophecy. So he sees himself as the first among the Angles appearing to be accepted as a representative king when he returns to England Or at least this is how he sees his future position being an acceptable choice in the guise of the king of the Angles after repairing Winchester which had been raised to the ground by his own command as clearly identified by chroniclers of the Anarchy.
A fierce People are the Normans when they initially forbid confirmation of the Briton populace.
Commentators believe this passage to be directly relative to Athelstan….as he is said to be the first to wear the crown of the Saxons in Britain:
But the Saxons were more wise, kept peace and concord amongst themselves, tilled their fields and builded anew their cities and castles, and thus throwing off the sovereignty of the Britons, held the empire of all Loegria under their Duke Athelstan, who was the first to wear a crown amongst them.894
As we will get to later, when I cover the First Variant, (which was constructed for a Roman papal audience), we shall see that Henry Blois has had to follow historical annals more closely than what he later redacted into the Vulgate HR
While on the subject of the crown of Brutus I will just clarify another Merlin prophecy so the reader can understand going forward the nature of the updated prophecies. I will just split up this set so the reader can see that c.1157 Henry Blois intention was to incite the Celts to rebellion through these updated prophecies:
…the Lynx that seeth through all things, and shall keep watch to bring about the downfall of his own race, for through him shall Neustria lose both islands and be despoiled of her ancient dignity. Henry Blois while at Clugny predicts the downfall of Henry II as the Lynx losing both Ireland and Briton.
Then shall the men of the country be turned back into the island for that strife shall be kindled amongst the foreigners. He is predicting the foreigners i.e. the Normans fighting amongst themselves in the Anarchy. Not forgetting ‘Geoffrey’ has the cover story of a Welshman.
An old man, moreover, snowy white, sitting upon a snow-white horse, shall turn side the river of Pereiron and with a white wand shall measure out a mill thereon. Henry Blois had gone white haired and had a white stallion charger as a Bishop Knight. Henry Blois built a mill on the River Parrett.
894HRB, XII, xix.
Cadwallader shall call unto Conan and shall receive Albany to his fellowship. Then shall there be slaughter of the foreigners then shall the rivers run blood: This was Henry Blois’ clever incitement to rebellion of the Celts c.1155-7 against Henry II which never came to fruition. This is fully explained in progression that both Cadwallader and Conan are contemporary with Henry II.
then shall gush forth the fountains of Armorica and shall be crowned with the diadem of Brutus. Cambria shall be filled with gladness and the oaks of Cornwall shall wax green. Henry Blois as Merlin hopes his prophecy will come true and forsees an outcome which did not transpirei.e. that Conan from Brittany along with Cadwallader from Wales and the Cornish (no Scots in this version like in the VM version) would rebel against Henry II.
The island shall be called by the name of Brutus and the name given by foreigners shall be done away.
Henry Blois wrote the prophecy above which also refers to the crown of Brutus in the hope that he might return to England after Henry II had been defeated by a Celtic uprising (which he himself is trying to instigate) and take the crown himself now his brother and his son Eustace are dead. That Henry wants the crown is evident in the JC prophecies. This is why Henry Blois is so nervous about returning to England in 1158. The Lynx or ‘pest’ is Henry II. Henry Blois is predicting the present King is going to lose both Britain and Ireland.
The old man is him (as I will cover later). Henry Blois has a white charger and he did divert the River Parratt and build a mill on it. But the real trickery of Henry Blois is inciting Conan from Brittany with the Welsh and other Celts referring to the Normans as foreigners.895 Henry Blois’ genius is having Merlin predict these things archaically referring to Neustria and Armorica as if these could only have been prophesied back in the sixth century.
895This is plainly his plan as can been witnessed in John of Cornwall’s rendition.