9

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the world. But the greatest affliction of Britain CHAP. was the numerous petty sovereignties into which, after the departure of the Romans, it had become divided. 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 fails to produce events or characters which begin the fatal conflagration.

In this state of the country, three Saxon cyules, Arrival of Hengist, or vessels, arrived from Germany on or near the A.D.449. British 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

8 Gildas, c. 21. Marcellinus mentions a great pestilence following a famine at Constantinople, when Ætius III. and Symmachus were consuls, ann. 446, p. 41. Scal. Euseb. Evagrius, lib.ii. c. 6., extends it over Asia and the world Tηy 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, increase 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, 66 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."

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.

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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"; 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 to serve against the northern invaders, the Pihtas, Scoti, and other foes; they were promised food and clothing, and were stationed in Thanet.14 Their first exertions are stated

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. p. 25. — Lazamon gives the probable number, "Threo scipen gode comen mid than flode, threo hundred cnihten," MSS. Cott. Calig. A. 9. p. 79.

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. 1. 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.

14 Gildas, s. 13. Nennius, s.28.35. The ancient British name of Thanet was Ruithina. Nen. c. 28.

15

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to have been directed against the Irish and Picts, CHAP. in just performance of their engagement, and with immediate success. But it was not enough to repress one incursion of these active enemies. It was their habit to attack, plunder, retire, and return; and if one quarter was too well guarded, to attempt another. All pirates in every age use this policy, and exhibit this perseverance. was not enough to have repelled the first assailants; and to do more, larger forces were requisite. as the numbers which had come with Hengist were few, it was natural that he should recommend the invitation of more of his countrymen, if they were to be used for the purpose of continued military 16 defence. The king assented; and they sent to their native land for further supplies."

But

BUT we must not resort to Wittichind for the speech of the ambassadors. Though a Saxon himself, he appears to have been completely ignorant of the Saxon antiquities.18 We can conceive the application to have been an address to the courage

15 Bede, lib. i. c. 15. p. 52. Sax. Ch. p. 12. Ethelwerd, lib. i. p. 833. 16 Nennius, s. 37.

17 I would place at this period, as well as at their first arrival, that invitation which Bede, lib. i. c. 15., Ethelwerd, 833., Sax. Chron. 12., and others, affirm.

18 He was the biographer of his contemporary, Otho, who died 972, Sigebert 1196. Germ. Quat. Celeb. Chron. He addresses his Saxon history to Matilda, Otho's maiden daughter. He knows nothing of the Saxons prior to their entering Thuringia. He was so ignorant of them as to say, that the Saxons in England were called Angli-Saxones, because the island was in a sort of angle of the sea. P. 3. he says, when he was a boy, he heard of the Macedonian extraction of the Saxons. If the Saxons sprang from the Sacasene, who lived near Persia, which is the most probable account of their origin, traditions connected with the battles of Alexander might have remained with them, as with the nations in the East; but this is a subject too illusory to deserve any attention. If it be worth recollecting at all, it is merely as another tradition pointing to their Eastern origin.

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BOOK and spirit of adventure of the youth of Jutland, from which Hengist had sailed.19 Hengist may have added, as a lure, the probability of greater aggrandisement; but the lofty projects of ambition are not the first conceptions of humbler fortunes: auspicious events gradually teach hope to be more aspiring. One unexpected success occasions a further elevation to be attempted, until a greatness, at one time the most improbable, is attained with a facility which surprises the adventurer. But in the beginning of his employment, it is not probable that Hengist, with his scanty means, could have projected the conquest of a country so well peopled as Britain. It was the civil feuds, divided sovereignties, and warring interests of the unhappy island, and events not before anticipated, which also arise in disturbed periods of society, that led him to perceive that permanent settlements were attainable, and to desire their acquisition. Hence we need not fancy that his primary invitations held out magnificent hopes, or that his first friendly allies came in search of thrones. The sword of the Saxon was ready for every enterprise; war and booty were his high-prized pleasures; and it is probable, that at the first call of Hengist many thronged, who knew only that they were to fight and to be rewarded.

THE Saxons at that time had, as we have already described, spread from the Elbe to the Rhine; and the old Saxon Chronicler describes them to have then been active in depredation on all the sea-coast from Holland to Denmark. 20

19 Bede, p. 52.

20 Ethelwerd, p. 833.

His Chronicle ends with Edgar, about He derives himself from Ethelred, the brother of Alfred, p. 831. It is a rude but valuable Chronicle.

whose time he lived.

THE subsequent actions of Hengist are not satisfactorily detailed in our oldest writers: their great result, the occupation of Britain by the Anglo-Saxon nations, and the consequent defeats and sufferings of the Britons, are strongly but generally expressed. Few of the accompanying circumstances are noticed, and these, it is not easy to arrange under any definite chronology. All that criticism can do is to select the incidents that seem indisputable, and to add the remarks which they naturally suggest.

It was not until the seventh year after his arrival in England that Hengist is stated to have begun his kingdom in Kent." Thus a period of six years intervened between his entrance and his establishment; and this interval was occupied by three classes of events, which are all mentioned, though not circumstantially narrated. These were his conflicts with the Picts and Irish, his alliance and friendship with Gwrtheyrn and the Britons,—and his subsequent hostilities against them, and final conquest of Kent into a kingdom, which he transmitted to his posterity. These events followed in the order thus stated; but the time which each occupied cannot now be discriminated.

THE Consequences of admitting and employing Hengist and his followers became so calamitous to the Britons, that the original policy of the measure has been generally reprobated. But this was not

21 The Saxon Chronicle expressly states, that after the battle in 455, in which Horsa fell, Hengist acquired his little kingdom; æfter tham Hengest feng to rice, p. 13. The more ancient Ethelwerd has the same date, with et Hengest cepit regnum, p. 834. Henry of Huntingdon dates his acquisition one year later, p. 311.; and Florence of Worcester one year earlier, p. 204. Nennius, without specifying the exact year, indicates a similar interval.

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