The

were expected to perform, they were every one found dead in his cell, all choosing rather a voluntary death than to be the ignominious instruments of brutal pleasure to their conquerors. chastity of this people is equally remarkable: and to be without children was to be without praise. But their chief excellence, and what they most gloried in, was their skill in war. They had, in some measure, learned discipline from the Romans, whom they had often defeated; and had for a century and a half before, made frequent descents upon the coasts of Britain for the sake of plunder. They were, therefore, a very formidable enemy to the Romans when settled there; and an officer was appointed to oppose their inroads, under the title of the "Count of the Saxon shore." Thus, ever restless and bold, they considered war as their trade, and were, in consequence, taught to consider victory as a doubtful advantage, but courage as a certain good. A nation, however, entirely addicted to war, has seldom wanted the imputation of cruelty, as those terrors which are opposed without fear are often inflicted without regret. The Saxons are represented as a very cruel nation; but we must remember that their enemies have drawn the picture.

449.

It was upon this people that Vortigern turned his eyes A. D. for succour against the Picts and Scots, whose cruelties, perhaps, were still more flagrant. It certainly was not without the most pressing invitations that the Saxons deigned to espouse their cause; and we are yet in possession of the form of their request, as left us by Witichindus, a contemporary historian of some credit: "The poor and distressed Britons, almost worn out by hostile invasions, and harassed by continual incursions, are humble supplicants to you, most valiant Saxons, for succour. We are possessed of a wide-extended and a fertile country; this we yield wholly to be at your devotion and command. Beneath the wings of your valour we seek for safety, and shall willingly undergo whatever services you may hereafter be pleased to impose."

It was no disagreeable circumstance to these conquerors, to be thus invited into a country upon which they had, for ages before, been forming designs. In consequence therefore of Vortigern's solemn invitation, they arrived with fifteen hundred men, under the command of Hengist and Horsa, who were brothers, and landed on the isle of Thanet. There they did not long remain inactive; but, being joined by the British forces, they boldly marched against the Picts and Scots, who had advanced as far as Lincolnshire, and soon gained a complete victory over them.

Hengist and Horsa possessed great credit among their countrymen at home, and had been much celebrated for their valour and the splendour of their descent. They were believed to be sprung from Woden, who was worshipped as a god among this people, and were said to be no more than the fourth in descent from him. This report, how fabulous soever, did not a little contribute to increase their authority among their associates; and being sensible of

the fertility of the country to which they came, and the barrenness of that which they had left behind, they invited over great numbers of their countrymen to become sharers in their new expedition. It was no difficult matter to persuade the Saxons to embrace an enterprise which promised at once an opportunity of displaying A. D. their valour and of rewarding their rapacity. Accordingly 451. they sent over a fresh supply of five thousand men, who passed over in seventeen vessels.

It was now but too late, that the Britons began to entertain apprehensions of their new allies, whose numbers they found augmenting as their services Lecame less necessary. They had long found their chief protection in passive submission; and they resolved, upon this occasion, to bear every encroachment with patient resignation. But the Saxons, being determined to come to a rupture with them, easily found a pretext, in complaining that their subsidies were ill paid, and their provisions withdrawn. They, therefore, demanded that these grievances should be immediately redressed, otherwise they would do themselves justice; and in the mean time they engaged in a treaty with the Picts, whom they had been called in to repress. The Britons, impelled by the urgency of their calamities, at length took up arms: and having deposed Vortigern, by whose counsel and vices they were thus reduced to an extremity, they put themselves under the command of Vortimer, Many were the battles fought between these enraged nations; their hatred to each other being still more inflamed by the difference of their religion, the Britons being all Christians, and the Saxons still remaining in a state of idolatry. There is little to entertain the reader in the narration of battles, where rather obstinate valour than prudent conduct procured the victory; and, indeed, the accounts given us of them are very opposite, when described by British and Saxon annalists. However the progress the latter still made in the island sufficiently proves the advantage to have been on their side; although in a battle fought at Eglesford, Horsa, the Saxon general, was slain.

his son.

But a single victory, or even a repetition of success, could avail but little against an enemy continually re-enforced from abroad; for Hengist, now become sole commander, and procuring constant supplies from his native country, carried devastation into the most remote corners of Britain. Chiefly anxious to spread the terror of his arms, he spared neither sex, age, nor condition, but laid the country desolate before him. The priests and bishops found no protection from their sacred calling, but were slaughtered upon their altars. The people were massacred in heaps; and some, choosing life upon the most abject terms, were contented to become slaves to the victors. It was about this time that numbers deserted their native country, and fled over to Armorica, since called Brittany, where they settled in great numbers, among a people of the same manners and language with themselves.

The British historians, in order to account for the easy conquest

of their country by the Saxons, assign their treachery, not less than their valour, as a principal cause. They allege that Vortigern was artfully inveigled into a passion for Rowena, the daughter of Hengist; and, in order to marry her, was induced to settle upon her father the fertile province of Kent, from which the Saxons could never after be removed. It is alleged also, that, upon the death of Vortimer, which happened shortly after the victory obtained at Eglesford, Vortigern his father was reinstated upon the throne. It is added, that this weak monarch accepting of a festival from Hengist, three hundred of his nobility were treacherously slaughtered, and himself detained as a captive.

Be these facts as they may, it is certain that the affairs of the Britons gradually declined; and they found but a temporary relief in the valour of one or two of their succeeding kings. After the death of Vortimer, Ambrosius, a Briton, though of Roman descent, was invested with the command, and in some measure proved successful in uniting his countrymen against the Saxons. He penetrated with his army into the heart of their possessions; and though he fought them with doubtful advantage, yet he restored the British interest and dominion. Still, however, Hengist kept his ground in the country, and inviting over a new tribe of Saxons, under the command of his brother Octa, he settled them in Northumberland. As for himself, he kept possession of the kingdom of Kent, (comprehending also Middlesex and Essex); fixing his royal seat at Canterbury, and leaving his new-acquired dominions to his posterity.

A. D.

488.

After the death of Hengist, several other German tribes, allured by the success of their countrymen, came over in great numbers. A body of their countrymen, under the command of Ella and his three sons, had some time before laid the foundation of the kingdom of the South Saxons, though not without great opposition and bloodshed. This new kingdom included Surrey, Sussex, and the New Forest; and extended to the frontiers of Kent.

A. D.

477.

Another tribe of Saxons, under the command of Cerdic and his son Kenric, landed in the West, and thence took the name of West Saxons. These met with a very vigorous opposition from the natives; but being re-enforced from Germany, and assisted by their countrymen on the island, they routed the Britons: and, although retarded in their progress by the celebrated king Arthur, they had strength enough to keep possession of the conquests they had already made. Cerdic, therefore, with his son Kenric, established the third Saxon kingdom in the island, namely, that of the West Saxons, including the counties of Hants, Dorset, 519. Wilts, Berks, and the Isle of Wight.

A. D.

It was in opposing this Saxon invader that the celebrated prince Arthur acquired his fame. Howsoever unsuccessful all his valour might have been in the end, yet his name makes so great a figure in the fabulous annals of the times, that some notice must be taken

C

of him. This prince is of such obscure original, that some authors suppose him to be the son of king Ambrosius, and others only his nephew; others again affirm that he was a Cornish prince, and son of Gurlois, king of that province. However this be, it is certain he was a commander of great valour; and, could courage alone repair the miserable state of the Britons, his might have been effectual. According to Nennius, and the most authentic historians, he is said to have worsted the Saxons in twelve successive battles. In one of these, namely, that fought at Caer-Baden, in Berks, it is asserted that he killed no less than four hundred and forty of the enemy with his own hand. But the Saxons were too numerous and powerful to be extirpated by the desultory efforts of single valour; so that a peace only, and not conquest, resulted from his victories. The enemy, therefore, still gained ground; and this prince, in the decline of life, had the mortification, from some domestic troubles of his own, to be a patient spectator of their encroachments. His first wife had been carried off by Meluas, king of Somersetshire, who detained her a whole year at Glastonbury, until Arthur, discovering the place of her retreat, advanced with an army against the ravisher, and obliged him to give her back, by the mediation of Gildas Albanius. In his second wife, perhaps, he might have been more fortunate, as we have no mention made of her; but it was otherwise with his third consort, who was debauched by his own nephew Mordred. This produced a rebellion, in which the king and his traitorous kinsman meeting in battle they slew each other. In the meantime, while the Saxons were thus gaining ground in the West, their countrymen were not less active in other parts of the island. Adventurers still continuing to pour over from Germany, one body of them, under the command of Uffa, 573. seized upon the counties of Cambridge, Suffolk, and Norfolk, and gave their commander the title of king of the East Angles, which was the fourth Saxon kingdom founded in Britain.

A. D.

Another body of these adventurers formed a kingdom under the title of East Saxony, or Essex, comprehending Essex, Middlesex, and part of Hertfordshire. This kingdom, which was dismembered from that of Kent, formed the fifth Saxon principality founded in Britain.

The kingdom of Mercia was the sixth which was established by these fierce invaders, comprehending all the middle counA. D. ties, from the banks of the Severn to the frontiers of the two last-named kingdoms.

585.

The seventh and last kingdom which they obtained was that of Northumberland, one of the most powerful and extensive of them all. This was formed from the union of two smaller Saxon kingdoms, the one called Bernicia, containing the present county of Northumberland and the bishopric of Durham; the subjects of the other, called the Deïri, extending themselves over Lancashire and Yorkshire. These kingdoms were united in the person of Ethelfrid, king of Northumberland, by the expulsion of Edwin, his

brother-in-law, from the kingdom of the Deïri, and the seizure of bis dominions.

In this manner, the natives being overpowered, or entirely expelled, seven kingdoms were established in Britain, which have been since well known by the name of the Saxon Heptarchy.-The unfortunate Britons, having been exhausted by continual wars, and even worn out by their own victories, were reluctantly compelled to forsake the more fertile parts of the country, and to take refuge in the mountainous parts of Wales and Cornwall. All the vestiges of Roman luxury were now almost totally destroyed by the conquerors, who rather aimed at enjoying the comforts of life than its magnificence. The few natives who were not either massacred or expelled from their habitations, were reduced to the most abject slavery, and employed in cultivating for their new masters those grounds which they once claimed as their own.

From this time British and Roman customs entirely ceased in the island; the language, which had been either Latin or Celtic, was discontinued, and the Saxon or English only was spoken. The land, before divided into colonies or governments, was cantoned into shires, with Saxon appellations to distinguish them. The habits of the people in peace, and arms in war, their titles of honour, their laws, and methods of trial by jury, were continued as originally practised by the Germans, only with such alterations as increasing civilization produced. Conquerors, although they disseminate their own laws and manners, often borrow from the people they subdue. In the present instance they imitated the Britons in their government, by despotic and hereditary monarchies, while their exemplary chastity, and their abhorrence of slavery, were quite forgotten.

The Saxons being thus established in all the desirable parts of the island, and having no longer the Britons to contend with, began to quarrel among themselves. A country divided into a number of petty independent principalities must ever be subject to contention, as jealousy and ambition have more frequent incentives to operate. The wars and revolutions of these little rival states were extremely numerous, and the accounts of them have swelled the historian's page. But these accounts are so confusedly written, the materials so dry, uninteresting, and filled with such improbable adventures, that a repetition of them can gratify neither the reader's judgment nor curiosity. Instead, therefore, of entering into a detail of tumultuous battles, petty treacheries, and obscure successions, it will be more conformable to the present plan to give some account of the introduction of Christianity among the Saxons, which happened during this dreary period.

The Christian religion never suffered more persecution than it underwent in Britain from the barbarity of the Saxon pagans, who burned all the churches, stained the altars with the blood of the clergy, and massacred all those whom they found professing Christianity. This deplorable state of religion in Britain was first taken