to have migrated from Ireland, pierced the rampart of Adrian, no longer defended by the Roman arms, and extended their ravages over the fairest part of the country. The Romans, reduced to extremities at home, and fatigued with distant expeditions, informed the Britons that they must no longer look to them for succour; exhorted them to arm in their own defence; and urged them to protect by their valour their ancient independence. Accordingly, the Romans took a final adieu of Britain, after having been masters of the best portion of it nearly four centuries.

The abject Britons of the south, unaccustomed to the perils of war and the cares of civil government, A. D. found themselves incapable of resisting the incur448. sions of their fierce and savage neighbours. The Picts and Scots now regarded the whole of Britain as their prey; and the ramparts of the northern wall proved only a weak defence against the attacks of those barbarians. The Britons in vain implored the assistance of the Romans, in an epistle to ÆEtius the patrician, which was inscribed "The Groans of the Britons." The tenor of the epistle was suitable to the superscription: "The barbarians,” say they, on the one hand drive us into the sea, the sea, on the other, throws us back on the barbarians; and we have only the hard choice left us of perishing by the sword or by the waves." The Romans, however, at this time pressed by Attila, the most terrible enemy that ever assailed the empire, were unable to attend to the complaints of their allies. The Britons, reduced to despair, and attending only to the suggestions of their own fears, and to the counsels of Vortigern, the powerful prince of Dumnonium, rashly invited the protection of the Saxons. The Saxons had been for some time regarded as one

of the most warlike tribes of Germany, and had A. D. become the terror of the neighbouring nations. 449. They had spread themselves from the northern parts of Germany, and had taken possession of all the seacoast from the mouth of the Rhine to Jutland. Hengist and Horsa, two brothers, who were the reputed descendants of the god Woden, commanded the Saxons at this period. These leaders easily persuaded their countrymen to accept of the invitation of the Britons, and to embrace an enterprise in which they might display their valour and

gratify their desire of plunder. They embarked their troops in three vessels, and transported to the shores of Britain sixteen hundred men, who landed in the isle of Thanet, and attacked with confidence and success the northern invaders.

Hengist and Horsa, perceiving, from their easy victory over the Scots and Picts, with what facility they might subdue the Britons themselves, determined to fight and conquer for their own grandeur, and not for the defence of their allies. They sent intelligence to Saxony of the riches and fertility of Britain; and their representations procured for them a reinforcement of five thousand men. The Saxons formed an alliance with the Picts and Scots, whom they had been invited to resist, and proceeded to open hostility against the Britons, whom they had engaged to protect.

The Britons, roused to indignation against their treacherous allies, took up arms; and having deposed Vortigern, who had become odious for his vices, and for the bad success of his counsels, they put themselves under the command of his son Vortimer. They ventured to meet their perfidious enemies, and though generally defeated, one battle was distinguished by the death of Horsa, who left the sole command in the hands of his brother Hengist. This active general, reinforced by his countrymen, still advanced to victory; and being chiefly anxious to spread the terror of his arms, he spared neither age, sex, nor condition. Great numbers of Britons, to avoid his cruelty or avarice, deserted their native country, and passed over to the continent, where, in the province of Armorica, they were received by a people of the same language and manners, and gave to the country the name of Brittany.

The British writers say, that the love of Vortigern for Rowena, the daughter of Hengist, was one cause that facilitated the entrance of the Saxons into this island; and that Vortigern, who had been restored to the throne, accepted of a banquet from Hengist at Stonehenge, where three hundred of his nobility were treacherously slaughtered; and himself detained a captive. But these accounts are not sufficiently corroborated.

-After the death of Vortimer, Ambrosius was invested

with the supreme command over the Britons, and united them in their resistance to the Saxons. Hengist, however, maintained his ground in Britain. He invited into this island another tribe of Saxons, under the command of his brother Octa, and of Ebissa, the son of Octa, whom he settled in Northumberland; and he founded the kingdom of Kent, comprehending Kent, Middlesex, Essex, and part of Surry, which he bequeathed to his posterity.

The success of Hengist allured new swarms from the northern coasts of Germany. The southern Britons gradually receded before the invaders into Cornwall and Wales; and Ella, a Saxon chief, founded the kingdom of South Saxony, comprising Sussex and that portion of Surry which Hengist had not occupied.

The kingdom of the West Saxons, or of Wessex, was founded by Cerdic, and his son Kenric, in Hampshire, Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, and the Isle of Wight; but it was not till after many a bloody conflict, that these adventurers enjoyed in peace the harvest of their toils. They were opposed by Arthur, prince of the Silures, whose heroic valour suspended the declining fate of his country, and whose name has been celebrated by Taliesin and the other British bards. The military achievements of this prince have been blended with fiction; but it appears from incontestible evidence, that both in personal and mental powers, he excelled the generality of mankind.

Whilst the Saxons thus established themselves in the south, great numbers of their countrymen, under several leaders, landed on the east coast of Britain. In the year 575, Uffa assumed the title of king of the East Angles; in 585, Crida, that of Mercia; and, about the same time, Erkenwint, that of the East Saxons. This latter kingdom was dismembered from that of Kent, and comprehended Essex, Middlesex, and part of Hertfordshire; that of the East Angles, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, and Norfolk; Mercia was extended over all the middle counties, from the banks of the Severn to the frontiers of those two kingdoms.

Though the Saxons had been settled in Northumberland soon after the landing of Hengist, yet they met with so much opposition from the inhabitants, that none of their princes for a long time assumed the appellation of king. In 547, Ida, a Saxon prince, who boasted his descent from

Woden, and who had brought other reinforcements from Germany, subdued all Northumberland, the bishopric of Durham, and some of the south-east counties of Scotland. About the same time, Ælla, another Saxon prince, having conquered Lancashire, and the greater part of Yorkshire, received the appellation of king of Deira. These two

kingdoms were united in the person of Ethelfrid, grandson of Ida, who married Acca, the daughter of Ælla; and expelling his brother-in-law Edwin, he assumed the title of king of Northumberland.

Thus was established, after a violent contest of nearly a hundred and fifty years, the Heptarchy, or seven Saxon kingdoms, in Britain; under which the whole southern part of the island, except Wales and Cornwall, in a great measure mixed its inhabitants, and changed its language, customs, and political institutions. The Britons, under the Roman dominion, had made such progress in the arts and civilization, that they had built twenty-eight considerable cities, besides a great number of villages and countryseats; but the Saxons, by whom they were subdued, restored the ancient barbarity, and reduced to the most abject slavery those few natives who were not either massacred, or expelled their habitations.

After the Britons were confined to Cornwall and Wales, and no longer disturbed the conquerors, the alliance between the princes of the Heptarchy was in a great measure dissolved. Dissensions, wars, and revolutions among themselves, were the natural consequence. At length, nearly four hundred years after the first arrival of the Saxons in Britain, all the kingdoms of the Heptarchy were united in one great state, under Egbert, whose prudence and policy effected what had been often in vain attempted. His territories were nearly of the same extent with what is now properly called England; and prospects of peace, security, and increasing refinement, were thus afforded.

A. D.

827.

The Saxons at this period seem not to have much ex-. celled their German ancestors in arts, civilization, humanity, justice, or obedience to the laws. Christianity had not hitherto banished their ignorance, nor softened the ferocity of their manners; credulity and superstition had accompanied the doctrines received through the corrupted

channels of Rome; and the reverence towards saints and reliques seems almost to have supplanted the adoration of the Supreme Being. Monastic observances were esteemed more meritorious than the active virtues; the universal belief in miraculous interpositions superseded the knowledge of natural causes; and bounty to the church atoned for every violence against society. The sacerdotal habit was the only object of respect. Hence the nobility preferred the security and sloth of the cloister to the tumult and glory of war, and endowed monasteries of which they assumed the government. Hence also the kings, impoverished by continual benefactions to the church, were neither able to bestow rewards on valour or military services, nor retained sufficient influence to support their government.

Another inconvenience which attended this corrupt species of Christianity, was the superstitious attachment to Rome. The Saxons were taught by the monks a profound reverence for the holy see; and kings, abdicating their crowns, sought a secure passport to heaven at the feet of the Roman pontiff. The successors of St. Peter, encouraged by the blindness and submissive disposition of the people, advanced every day in their encroachments on the independence of the English church. In the eight century, Wilfrid, bishop of Lindisferne, the sole prelate of the Northumbrian kingdom, increased this subjection by an appeal to Rome against the decisions of an English synod. Wilfrid thus laid the foundation of the papal pretensions, which we shall find in the sequel were carried to the most disgraceful heights, and submitted to with a patience almost incredible.

CHAP. II.

From the Union of the Kingdoms of the Heptarchy under Egbert, to the Norman Conquest.

A, D.

THE kingdoms of the Heptarchy appeared to be firmly united in one state under Egbert; and this union 827. promised future tranquillity to the inhabitants of Britain. But these flattering hopes were soon over cast by the appearance of the Danes. The emperor Charlemagne had been induced to exercise great severities in Germany; and the more warlike of the natives, to escape