Then Heinir shares the power of choosing Vidar,

And the sons of the two brothers

Inhabit the vast mansion of the winds.

СНАР.

IV.

BOOK

III.

The Arrival of HENGIST.

BOOK III.

CHAP. I.

His Transactions and Wars with the BRITONS, and final Settlement in KENT.

HITHERTO England had been inhabited by branches of the Kimmerian and Keltic races, apparently visited by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, and afterwards occupied by the Roman military and colonists. From these successive populations, it had obtained all the benefits which each could impart. But in the fifth century the period had arrived when both England and the south of Europe were to be possessed and commanded by a new description of people, who had been gradually formed amid the wars and vicissitudes of the Germanic continent; and to be led to manners, laws, and institutions peculiarly their own, and adapted, as the great result has shown, to produce national and social improvements superior to those which either Greece or Rome had attained. The Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain must therefore not be contemplated as a barbarisation of the country. Our Saxon ancestors brought with them a superior domestic and moral character, and the rudiments of new political, juridical, and intellectual blessings. An interval of slaughter and desolation unavoidably occurred before they established themselves and their new systems in the island. But when they had completed their conquest, they laid the foundations of that national constitution, of that internal polity, of those peculiar customs, of that female modesty, and

of that vigour and direction of mind, to which Great Britain owes the social progress which it has so eminently acquired. Some parts of the civilisation which they found in the island assisted to produce this great result. Their desolations removed much of the moral degeneracy we have before alluded to.

causes.

Although in the fictions of romance kingdoms fall almost at the will of the assailant, yet in real life no great revolutions of states occur without the preparatory and concurring operation of many political The Saxons had for nearly two centuries. been attacking Britain, with no greater successes than the half-naked Scoti from Ireland had obtained. They plundered where they arrived unexpectedly. They were defeated when they encountered a military or naval resistance. Hengist and Ella would not have been more fortunate than their depredatory countrymen who had preceded them, if the events of the day had not by their agencies conducted them and their successors, from exile and piracy, to the proprietorship of the kingdoms of the English octarchy.

Amid the sovereignties into which the island was divided, and the civil distractions which this division. of power produced, it appears that one ruler was made the supreme monarch, with the addition of a council of the other chiefs. The council is mentioned by all the ancient writers who treat of this period1, and Gwrthyern is named by each as the predominating sovereign.2

Gwrtheyrn is mentioned as a proud and cruel tyrant; but with these features Gildas describes the

1 As by Gildas, s. 22, 23.

Nennius, c. 38, &c. Bede, p. 52. Flor. Wig. 194. Thus W. Malmsb. p. 9. "Omnes reguli insulæ Vortigerni substernebantur monarchiæ." The traditions of the Welsh that have been committed to writing notice the same plan of government. The seventh historical triad exhibits Arthur as the pen-teyrn, literally the head-king; and Maelgwn, the king of Gwynedd, as the pen-hynain, or chief elder. Welsh Archæol. vol. ii. p. 3. According to this British appellation, Gwrtheyrn was the pen-teyrn, whose supreme power was called unbenaeth, literally, the one head-ship or monarchy.

CHAP.

I.

BOOK

III.

general body of the Britons, both clergy and laity.3 Their supreme king seems to have acted only with the selfish spirit of his contemporaries, and he was surrounded with many political difficulties that would have embarrassed a wiser and a better man. His authority was disputed by a chieftain of Roman parentage, whose parents had perished in the possession of the imperial purple, and to whom Gildas gives the name of Ambrosius 5 Aurelianus. The Scoti and Picts were harassing the island wherever they could penetrate, and a mortal distemper was raging among the people, which appears to have spread over a large part of the world. But the greatest affliction of Britain was the numerous petty sovereignties into which, after the departure of the Romans, it had become divided.9 Gwrtheyrn had to encounter each of these evils, and all nearly at the same time. The country became dissatisfied at its sufferings, and its discontent increased the civil factions of the period. Royalty has no safety when the sovereign is unpopular. When the fuel of rebellion abounds in every part, the restlessness of the disturbed society seldom

3 See Gildas's epistola annexed to his history, p. 10–39.

4 Nennius, c. 28.

5 Gildas, s. 25. Nennius, c. 44. The Welsh triads call him Emrys Wledig, or king Emrys, which is the name disfigured, in the MSS. or printed copy of Nennius, into Embreis gleutic, c. 44. He is frequently mentioned in the triads. His descendants were alive in the time of Gildas, but much degenerated.

Gildas, c. 20. Bede, lib. i. c. 16. The Vita S. Carentoci names the leaders of the Scoti, "In istis temporibus Scotti superaverunt Britanniam; nomina ducum quorum Briscus, Thuibaius, Machleius, Anpacus.' MSS. Vesp. A. xiv. p. 90. 7 Gildas, c. 21.

8 Gildas, c. 21. Marcellinus mentions a great pestilence following a famine at Constantinople, when Atius III. and Symmachus were consuls, ann. 446, p. 41. Scal. Euseb. Evagrius, lib. ii. c. 6., extends it over Asia and the world тny yny, p. 298. ed. Vales. Corporibus tumescentibus oculos amittebant: simulque tussi vexati tertio die moriebantur. No remedy could be found for it.

9 The custom of gavel-kind, which prevailed among the Britons, increased this evil. In the Lives of the Welsh Saints in the Cottonian library, Vesp. A. 14. and Titus, D. 22., MSS. seemingly of the twelfth century, two striking instances of this custom are given. The Vita Cadoci, after mentioning a king who left ten sons, says of them, "paternum regnum inter se secundum eorum numerum unicuique suam provinciam diviserunt." So the Vita S. Carentoci, speaking of the son of Cunedda, states that "divisit possessiones patris sui inter fratres suos."

fails to produce events or characters which begin the fatal conflagration.

Arrival of

Hengist.

In this state of the country, three Saxon chiules, or vessels, arrived from Germany on or near the British A.D. 449. coast; whose leaders were named Hengist and Horsa, two brothers, and descendants from Woden. As their numbers were too few for conquest, their visit must have been either a matter of accident or for the purpose of a transient depredation. Nennius says, they were exiles.10

If we estimate the number of these Saxons from the size of the Danish vessels in a subsequent age, they could not have exceeded three hundred men 11 and there is no reason to believe that the Saxon ships, as they are mentioned by Sidonius, were larger. They may have been some of the Saxons who were at this time supporting the Armorici, and hovering on the coast of France.

They arrived at Ebbs-fleet 12, in the Isle of Thanet, near Richborough. The king and British chiefs were at that time holding a public council on the best means to repel their Irish and Scottish enemies, and it was agreed to employ these Saxon adventurers as subsidiary soldiers.13 They were accordingly retained

10 Nennius, c. 28. Many authorities mention that the Saxons were invited, and many that they came accidentally. It is most likely that the first arrival off the island was casual, but that their landing and subsequent increase were the result of invitation.

11 Gildas, Bede, Flor. Wigorn., Malmsbury, H. Huntingd., and others mention the ships, but not the number of men. Verstegan and his authority, p. 126., and Speed, Hist. 291., outrage probability so far as to crowd 9000 into these three ships. The Danish ships of a subsequent age had 100 men in each. Herv. Sag. Lazamon gives the probable number, "Threo scipen gode comen mid than flode, threo hundred cnihten," MSS. Cott. Calig. A. 9. p. 79.

p. 25.

12 Or Ypwines fleot, Sax. Chronicle, 12. It was near the estuary of the Wanstum, which divides Thanet from the main land of Kent. - The Wanstum was once navigable for ships of large burthen. See Batteley, Ant. Rutup. 13. In Bede's time it was three stadia broad, and fordable only in two places, lib. i. c. 25. It is now, at Reculver, one of its entrances, a brook which may be stepped over, and in its centre, towards the Sarr road, is not six feet broad. Ebbsfleet is now an inland spot at some distance from the sea. Sarr was a naval station formerly, and some old drawings still exist which represent a man with a ferry-boat at this place.

13 Gildas, s. 22. Nen. c. 28. The British poem of Golyddan indignantly alludes to this council. Welsh. Arch. v, i, p. 156.