the Frisians, who had been tempted by their vicinity to the British shores, might balance, during a short space, the strength and reputation of the native Saxons; the Danes, the Prussians, the Rugians are faintly described; and some adventurous Huns, who had wandered as far as the Baltic, might embark on board the German vessels, for the conquest of a new world. 187 But this arduous achievement was not prepared or executed by the e union of national powers. Each intrepid chieftain, according to the measure of his fame and fortunes, assembled his followers; equipped a fleet of three, or perhaps of sixty, vessels; chose the place of the attack; and conducted his subsequent operations according to the events of the war and the dictates of his private interest. In the invasion of Britain many heroes vanquished and fell; but only seven victorious leaders assumed, or at least maintained, the title of kings. Seven independent thrones, the Saxon Heptarchy, were founded by the conquerors, and seven families, one of which has been continued, by female succession, to our present sovereign, derived their equal and sacred lineage from Woden, the god of war. It has been pretended that this republic of kings was moderated by a general council and a supreme magistrate. But such an artificial scheme of policy is repugnant to the rude and turbulent spirit of the Saxons; their laws are silent; and their imperfect annals afford only a dark and bloody prospect of intestine discord.138 Britons A monk, who, in the profound ignorance of human life, has state of the presumed to exercise the office of historian, strangely disfigures the state of Britain at the time of its separation from the Western empire. Gildas 139 describes, in florid language, the improvements of agriculture, the foreign trade which flowed with every tide into the Thames and the Severn, the solid and lofty construction of public and private edifices; he accuses the sinful luxury of the British people; of a people, according to the same writer, ignorant of the most simple arts, and incapable, without the aid 137 All these tribes are expressly enumerated by Bede (1. i. c. 15, p. 52, 1. v. c. 9, p. 190), and, though I have considered Mr. Whitaker's remarks (Hist. of Manchester, vol. ii. p. 538-543), I do not perceive the absurdity of supposing that the Frisians, &c. were mingled with the Anglo-Saxons. 138 Bede has enumerated seven kings, two Saxons, a Jute, and four Angles, who successively acquired in the heptarchy an indefinite supremacy of power and renown. But their reign was the effect, not of law, but of conquest; and he observes, in similar terms, that one of them subdued the Isles of Man and Anglesey; and that another imposed a tribute on the Scots and Picts (Hist. Eccles. 1. ii. c. 5, p. 83). [See below, note 171.] 139 See Gildas de Excidio Britanniæ, c. i. p. 1, edit. Gale. Their resistance of the Romans, of providing walls of stone or weapons of iron for the defence of their native land.140 Under the long dominion of the emperors, Britain had been insensibly moulded into the elegant and servile form of a Roman province, whose safety was entrusted to a foreign power. The subjects of Honorius contemplated their new freedom with surprise and terror; they were left destitute of any civil or military constitution; and their uncertain rulers wanted either skill, or courage, or authority, to direct the public force against the common enemy. The introduction of the Saxons betrayed their internal weakness and degraded the character both of the prince and people. Their consternation magnified the danger; the want of union diminished their resources; and the madness of civil factions was more solicitous to accuse than to remedy the evils which they imputed to the misconduct of their adversaries. Yet the Britons were not ignorant, they could not be ignorant of the manufacture or the use of arms: the successive and disorderly attacks of the Saxons allowed them to recover from their amazement, and the prosperous or adverse events of the war added discipline and experience to their native valour. While the continent of Europe and Africa yielded, without resistance, to the Barbarians, the British island, alone and unaided, maintained a long, a vigorous, though an unsuccessful struggle against the formidable pirates who, almost at the same instant, assaulted the Northern, the Eastern, and the Southern coasts. The cities, which had been fortified with skill, were defended with resolution; the advantages of ground, hills, forests, and morasses were diligently improved by the inhabitants; the conquest of each district was purchased with blood; and the defeats of the Saxons are strongly attested by the discreet silence of their annalist. Hengist might hope to achieve the conquest of Britain; but his ambition, in an active reign of thirty-five years, was confined to the possession of Kent; and the numerous colony which he had planted in the North was extirpated by the sword of the Britons. The monarchy of the West Saxons was laboriously founded by the persevering efforts of three martial generations. The life of Cerdic, one of the bravest of the children of Woden, was consumed in the conquest of Hampshire and the isle of Wight; and the loss which he sustained in the battle of Mount Badon reduced him to a state of inglorious repose. Kenric, his 140 Mr. Whitaker (History of Manchester, vol. ii. p 503. 516) has smartly exposed this glaring absurdity, which had passed unnoticed by the general historians, as they were hastening to more interesting and important events. the on valiant son, advanced into Wiltshire; besieged Salisbury, at that on time seated on a commanding eminence; and vanquished an army which advanced to the relief of the city. In the subsequent battle of Marlborough,141 his British enemies displayed or their military science. Their troops were formed in three lines; the each line consisted of three distinct bodies, and the cavalry, the the archers, and the pikemen, were distributed, according to the v, principles of Roman tactics. The Saxons charged in one mighty tre column, boldly encountered with their short swords the long de lances of the Britons, and maintained an equal conflict till the c approach of night. Two decisive victories, the death of three she British kings, and the reduction of Cirencester, Bath, and Gloucester, established the fame and power of Ceaulin, the grandson ated of Cerdic, who carried his victorious arms to the banks of the -pit Severn. the per After a war of an hundred years, the independent Britons still and fight occupied the whole extent of the Western coast, from the wall of Antoninus to the extreme promontory of Cornwall; and the net principal cities of the inland country still opposed the arms of the Barbarians. Resistance became more languid, as the number out and boldness of the assailants continually increased. Winning ed their way by slow and painful efforts, the Saxons, the Angles, and their various confederates advanced from the North, from int, the East, and from the South, till their victorious banners were sunited in the centre of the island. Beyond the Severn the ed Britons still asserted their national freedom, which survived the and heptarchy, and even the monarchy, of the Saxons. The bravest Dwarriors, who preferred exile to slavery, found a secure refuge in ats the mountains of Wales; the reluctant submission of Cornwall i was delayed for some ages; 142 and a band of fugitives acquired of a settlement in Gaul, by their own valour or the liberality of the Merovingian kings.143 The Western angle of Armorica acquired 1 141 At Beran-Birig, or Barbury castle, near Marlborough. The Saxon chronicle assigns the name and date. Camden (Britannia, vol. i. p. 128) ascertains the place; and Henry of Huntingdon (Scriptores post Bedam, p. 314) relates the circumstances of this battle. They are probable and characteristic; and the historians of the twelfth century might consult some materials that no longer exist. 142 Cornwall was finally subdued by Athelstan (A.D. 927-941), who planted an English colony at Exeter, and confined the Britons beyond the river Tamar. See William of Malmsbury, 1. ii. in the Scriptores post Bedam, p. 50. The spirit of the Cornish knights was degraded by servitude; and it should seem, from the Romance of Sir Tristram, that their cowardice was almost proverbial. 143 The establishment of the Britons in Gaul is proved in the sixth century by Procopius, Gregory of Tours, the second council of Tours (A.D. 567), and the least suspicious of their chronicles and lives of saints. The subscription of a bishop The fame of the new appellations of Cornwall and the Lesser Britain; and the vacant lands of the Osismii were filled by a strange people, who, under the authority of their counts and bishops, preserved the laws and language of their ancestors. To the feeble descendants of Clovis and Charlemagne, the Britons of Armorica refused the customary tribute, subdued the neighbouring dioceses of Vannes, Rennes, and Nantes, and formed a powerful, though vassal, state, which has been united to the crown of France. 144 In a century of perpetual, or at least implacable, war, much courage, and some skill, must have been exerted for the defence of Britain. Yet, if the memory of its champions is almost buried in oblivion, we need not repine; since every age, however destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of blood and military renown. The tomb of Vortimer, the son of Vortigern, was erected on the margin of the sea-shore, as a landmark formidable to the Saxons, whom he had thrice vanquished in the fields of Kent. Ambrosius Aurelian was descended from a noble family of Romans,145 his modesty was equal to his valour, and his valour, till the last fatal action,146 was crowned with splendid success. But every British name is effaced by the illustrious name of ARTHUR,147 the hereditary prince of the Silures, in South of the Britons to the first council of Tours (A.D. 461, or rather 481), the army of Riothamus, and the loose declamation of Gildas (alii transmarinas petebant regiones, c. 25, p. 8) may countenance an emigration as early as the middle of the fifth century. Beyond that æra, the Britons of Armorica can be found only in romance; and I am surprised that Mr. Whitaker (Genuine History of the Britons, p. 214-221) should so faithfully transcribe the gross ignorance of Carte, whose venial errors he has so rigorously chastised. 144 The antiquities of Bretagne, which have been the 'subject even of political controversy, are illustrated by Hadrian Valesius (Notitia Galliarum, sub voce Britannia Cismarina, p. 98, 100), M. d'Anville (Notice de l'Ancienne Gaule, Corisopiti, Curiosolites, Osismii, Vorganium, p. 248, 258, 508, 720, and Etats de l'Europe, p. 76-80), Longuerue (Description de la France, tom. i. p. 84-94), and the Abbé de Vertot (Hist. Critique de l'Etablissement des Bretons dans les Gaules, 2 vols. in 12mo. Paris, 1720). I may assume the merit of examining the original evidence which they have produced. 145 Bede, who in his chronicle (p. 28) places Ambrosius under the reign of Zeno (A.D. 474-491), observes that his parents had been "purpurâ induti!" which he explains, in his ecclesiastical history, by "regium nomen et insigne ferentibus' (1. i. c. 16, p. 53). The expression of Nennius (c. 44, p. 110, edit. Gale [c. 42, p. 186, ed. Mommsen]) is still more singular, "Unus de consulibus gentis Romanicæ est pater meus". 146 By the unanimous, though doubtful, conjecture of our antiquarians, Ambrosius is confounded with Natanleod, who (A.D. 508) lost his own life and five thousand of his subjects in a battle against Cerdic, the West Saxon (Chron. Saxon. p. 17, 18). 147 As I am a stranger to the Welsh bards Myrdhin, Llomarch, and Taliessin, my faith in the existence and exploits of Arthur principally rests on the simple and circumstantial testimony of Nennius (Hist. Brit. c. 62, 63, p. 114). Mr. Whitaker 3 Wales, and the elective king or general of the nation. According to the most rational account, he defeated, in twelve successive battles, the Angles of the North and the Saxons of the West; but the declining age of the hero was embittered by popular ingratitude and domestic misfortunes. The events of his life are less interesting than the singular revolutions of his fame. During a period of five hundred years the tradition of his exploits was preserved, and rudely embellished, by the obscure bards of Wales and Armorica, who were odious to the Saxons and unknown to the rest of mankind. The pride and curiosity of the Norman conquerors prompted them to enquire into the ancient history of Britain: they listened with fond credulity to the tale of Arthur, and eagerly applauded the merit of a prince who had triumphed over the Saxons, their common enemies. His romance, transcribed in the Latin of Jeffrey of Monmouth, and afterwards translated into the fashionable idiom of the times, was enriched with the various, though incoherent, ornaments which were familiar to the experience, the learning, or the fancy, of the twelfth century. The progress of a Phrygian colony, from the Tiber to the Thames, was easily engrafted on the fable of the Æneid; and the royal ancestors of Arthur derived their origin from Troy, and claimed their alliance with the Cæsars. His trophies were decorated with captive provinces and Imperial titles; and his Danish victories avenged the recent injuries of his country. The gallantry and superstition of the British hero, his feasts and tournaments, and the memorable institution of his Knights of the Round Table were faithfully copied from the reigning manners of chivalry; and the fabulous exploits of Uther's son appear less incredible than the adventures which were achieved by the enterprising valour of the Normans. Pilgrimage and the holy wars introduced into Europe the specious miracles of Arabian magic. Fairies and giants, flying dragons and enchanted palaces, were blended with the more simple fictions of the West; and the fate of Britain depended on the art, or the predictions, of Merlin. Every nation embraced and adorned the popular romance of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; their names were celebrated in Greece and Italy; and the voluminous tales of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram were devoutly studied by the princes and nobles, who disregarded the genuine heroes and historians of antiquity. At length the light (Hist. of Manchester, vol. ii. p. 31-71) has framed an interesting, and even probable, narrative of the wars of Arthur; though it is impossible to allow the reality of the round table. |