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a banquet. The account of Nennius represents him not only as soliciting a treaty of peace, which was closed by the invitation of the Britons to a friendly feast; but also as commanding his Saxons to come with their short swords under their garments, and on his exclaiming, "Nimed eure saxes," "Unsheath your swords," to slay all but Gwrtheyrn. The meeting was held, and the cruel perfidy was accomplished. 40 It cannot now be determined how much, or if any part, of this is true; or whether the fatal issue, if it occurred, is to be attributed to premeditated villany. One Welsh bard, two centuries afterwards, alludes to a catastrophe like this, but with no distinctness of historical detail. 41

As Nennius adds to the history of Gwrtheyrn incidents undeniably fictitious 22, and inserts fables as decided about St. Germain, in circumstances which the true chronology of the bishop disproves 43, he may have equally invented, or at least have exaggerated, this event. A feast, inebriation, an unpremeditated quarrel, and a conflict may have taken place; and the battle may have ended in the destruction of the Britons. But this is all that is credible of this cele

40 Nenn. c. 48.

41 The passage in Golyddan is: —

When they bargained for Thanet, with such scanty discretion,

With Hors and Hengys in their violent career,

Their aggrandisement was to us disgraceful,

After the consuming secret with the slaves at the confluent stream.

Conceive the intoxication at the great banquet of Mead;

Conceive the deaths in the great hour of necessity :

Conceive the fierce wounds: the tears of the women :
The grief that was excited by the weak chief:
Conceive the sadness that will be revolving to us,
When the brawlers of Thanet shall be our princes.

Gol. Arym. 2. W. Arch. 156.

The only words here that imply any premeditated treachery are, "rhin dilain," the consuming or destroying secret, which in the Cambrian Register for 1796 are translated too freely, "The plot of death."

42 See his Stories, from c. 38. to c. 34.

43 Nennius, c. 29, 30, &c. St. Germain was bishop of Auxerre, from 418 to 448. Fabricius, Bibl. Med. lib. vii. p. 139. He lived thirty years and five days after St. Amator, according to his ancient biographer Constantius. Amator died in 418, Stillingfleet, Orig. Brit. p. 209. Bede also errs in placing the visit of St. Germain into Britain, to oppose their Pelagian opinions, after the arrival of the Saxons.

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BOOK

III.

455.

57.

brated catastrophe; and even this statement is rather a concession to an ancient tradition, than the admission of an historical fact.

The great battle which, according to the Saxon chroniclers, completed the establishment of Hengist in Kent, was fought at Crayford, in 457. The Britons, defeated in this with great slaughter, abandoned Kent, and fled in terror to London. Eight years after, the Britons attacked Hengist again, but it was with ruin to themselves. And in 473, they attempted another battle with him, but with such a calamitous issue, that they are declared to have fled from the Saxons as from fire. 45

The name of Hengist has been surrounded with terror, and all his steps with victory. From Kent, he is affirmed to have carried devastation into the remotest corners of the island; to have spared neither age, sex, nor condition; to have slaughtered the priests on the altars; to have butchered in heaps the people who fled to the mountains and deserts 46; and to have finally established his dominion in Kent, Essex, Middlesex, and Sussex. But when from these hyperboles of conquest, we turn to the simple and authentic facts, that all the battles of Hengist, particularised by the Saxons, were fought in Kent; that one of the last contests was even in Thanet, in the extremity of his little kingdom, and that no good evidence is extant of his having penetrated, except in his first depredations, beyond the region which he transmitted 48 to his posterity; and, above all, that at

44 Sax. Chron. "And tha Bryttas tha forleton Centlond," p. 313. It is from this victory that Huntingdon dates the kingdom of Hengist, p. 311.

45 Sax. Chron. p. 14. Flo. Wig. 200, 201.

40 This statement is seriously given by Hume, p. 20., and by our venerable Milton. 1 Kennett's Collection of Histor. 37. Langhorn, p. 33., follows Jeffry, and adds York, Lincoln, London, and Winchester to his conquests.

47 Wippeds Fleot.

48 Mr. Carte has observed, that he never extended his territories beyond Kent. Hist. England, p. 198. Mr. Whitaker is of a similar opinion. Manchest. ii. 4to.

this very period the Britons were so warlike that twelve thousand went to Gaul, on the solicitations of the emperor, to assist the natives against the Visigoths 49, we must perceive that exaggeration has been as busy with Hengist as with Arthur; and that modern historians have suffered their criticism to slumber, while they were perusing the confused declamations of Gildas and his copyist Bede. What Gildas related as the general consequences of all the Saxon invasions has been too hastily applied to the single instance of Hengist. From this error the misconception of his real history has arisen. The truth seems to be, that the fame of Hengist depends more on the circumstance of his having first conceived and executed the project of a hostile settlement in Britain, than on the magnitude of his conquests, or the extent of his devastations.

For twelve years after the battle at Wippeds Fleot, he remained alone exposed to the vengeance of all the Britons in the island, except those in Kent, whom he had subdued. The ease with which he seems to have maintained his extorted dominion announces the continuance of the discord between the contending native chieftains, which was wasting the British strength 50, and which Gildas seems to protract to the times of Arthur. At length another adventurer appeared on the island. The success of Hengist made a new species of enterprise familiar to the Saxon states.

49 The expedition of Riothamus, mentioned in Sidon. Apollon. lib. iii. ep. 9., and Jornandes, c. 45. This incident was early noticed by Freculphus, Chron. t. ii. c. 17. Sigebert Gembl. in mentioning it gives a gentle lash to Jeffry; Quis autem fuerit iste, historia Britonum minime dicit, quæ regum suorum nomina et gesta per ordinem pandit. 1 Pist. 504. Either this Riothamus was Arthur, or it was from his expedition that Jeffry, or the Breton bards, took the idea of Arthur's battles in Gaul.

50 Gildas in his last section, and in his epistle, and Bede, c. 22. An abrupt but valuable passage of Nennius, p. 118., also intimates that Ambrosius was connected with the civil fury at this period: "A regno Guorthrigerni usque ad discordiam Guitolini et Ambrosii anni sunt duodecim." Huntingdon declares, "Non cessabant civilia bella," p. 311. And see the Lives of the Welsh Saints, MSS. Vesp. A. 14.

CHAP.

I.

457.

465.

BOOK
III.

465.

To combine to obtain riches, cultivated lands, and slaves to tend them, was more inviting than to risk the tempest for uncertain plunder. Hence it is not wonderful, that while some were diffusing themselves over Germany, the success of Hengist attracted the maritime part of the Saxon confederation; and assisted to convert it from naval piracy to views of regular conquest in Britain.

Hengist was succeeded in Kent by his son Æsc, who reigned twenty-four years. No subsequent event of importance is recorded of this little kingdom, till the reign of Ethelbyrhte, who acceded in 56051, and enjoyed the sceptre for above half a century.

51 Sax. Ch. p. 20.

52

52 Flor. Wig. dates his accession 561, and gives fifty-six years as the duration of his reign, p. 221. The names by which Alfred translates the title of duces, which Bede gives to Hengist and Horsa, are Latteowas and Heretogan, p. 483. The British king, whom Jeffry calls Vortigernus, and the Welsh writings Gwrtheyrn, Alfred names Wyrtgeorn, p. 482.

CHAP. II.

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CERDIC

ELLA arrives in SUSSEX, and founds a Kingdom there.
invades the South Part of the Island, and establishes the King-
dom of WESSEX.- Battles of his Successors with the BRITONS.

ELLA was the next Saxon chieftain, or king, who, twenty-eight years after the first arrival of Hengist, invaded Britain. He landed with three sons in

In

Sussex1; and drove the Britons into the great wood
which stretched from the south of Kent into Sussex
and Hampshire. Although they came with but three
ships, they succeeded in gaining a settlement. Hence
we may infer, that they were resisted only by the
petty British sovereign of the district. By slow de-
grees they enlarged their conquests on the coast.
the eighth year of their arrival they attempted to
penetrate into the interior; a dubious but wasteful
battle on the river Mercread checked their progress.
Recruited by new arrivals from the Continent, they
ventured to besiege Andredes Ceaster, a city strongly
fortified according to the usages of the age. The
Britons defended this with some skill. Taking ad-
vantage of the adjoining forest, while the Saxons
attempted to scale the walls, a division of the Britons.
attacked them from the woods behind; to repel them
the Saxons were compelled to desist from their assault
on the city. The Britons retired from the pressure
of their attack into the woods, sallying out again when
the Saxons again advanced to the city. This plan was

1 Saxon Chron. 14. Flor. Wigorn. 203. Ethelwerd, 834.

2 The weald of Kent was anciently 120 miles long towards the west, and 30 broad from north to south. On the edge of the wood, in Sussex, stood Andedres Ceaster. Lambard's Perambulation of Kent, 167, 168. This vast wood was a wilderness, not inhabited by men, but by deer and hogs.

CHAP.

II.

477.

Arrival of

Ella.

490.

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