<P> The Battle of Deorham in 577 saw the separation of Dumnonia (and therefore Cornwall) from Wales, following which the Dumnonii often came into conflict with the expanding English kingdom of Wessex . The Annales Cambriae report that in 722 AD the Britons of Cornwall won a battle at "Hehil". It seems likely that the enemy the Cornish fought was a West Saxon force, as evidenced by the naming of King Ine of Wessex and his kinsman Nonna in reference to an earlier Battle of Lining in 710 . </P> <P> The Anglo - Saxon Chronicle stated in 815 (adjusted date) "and in this year king Ecgbryht raided in Cornwall from east to west ." and thenceforth apparently held it as a ducatus or dukedom annexed to his regnum or kingdom of Wessex, but not wholly incorporated with it . The Anglo - Saxon Chronicle states that in 825 (adjusted date) a battle took place between the Wealas (Cornish) and the Defnas (men of Devon) at Gafulforda . In the same year Ecgbert, as a later document expresses it, "disposed of their territory as it seemed fit to him, giving a tenth part of it to God ." In other words, he incorporated Cornwall ecclesiastically with the West Saxon diocese of Sherborne, and endowed Eahlstan, his fighting bishop, who took part in the campaign, with an extensive Cornish estate consisting of Callington and Lawhitton, both in the Tamar valley, and Pawton near Padstow . </P> <P> In 838, the Cornish and their Danish allies were defeated by Egbert in the Battle of Hingston Down at Hengestesdune (probably Hingston Down in Cornwall). In 875, the last recorded king of Cornwall, Dumgarth, is said to have drowned . Around the 880s, Anglo - Saxons from Wessex had established modest land holdings in the eastern part of Cornwall; notably Alfred the Great who had acquired a few estates . William of Malmesbury, writing around 1120, says that King Athelstan of England (924--939) fixed the boundary between English and Cornish people at the east bank of the River Tamar . </P> <P> One interpretation of the Domesday Book is that by this time the native Cornish landowning class had been almost completely dispossessed and replaced by English landowners, particularly Harold Godwinson himself . However, the Bodmin manumissions show that two leading Cornish figures nominally had Saxon names, but these were both glossed with native Cornish names . Naming evidence cited by medievalist Edith Ditmas suggests that many post-Conquest landowners in Cornwall were Breton allies of the Normans and further proposed this period for the early composition of the Tristan and Iseult cycle by poets such as Beroul from a pre-existing shared Brittonic oral tradition . </P>

Small town in cornwall with river of same name