Although the English invasion of Britain is by far the most important of all those which have affected the island, it is impossible to focus any very clearly defined picture of the happenings during the long period of nearly two centuries that followed the so-called departure of the Romans. The picture is blurred, but certain strong outlines are conspicuous, and in this chapter an attempt has been made to concentrate attention on these salient features.

The incident which led to the English invaders obtaining a secure foothold in south-east Britain was probably connected with internal troubles rather than foreign invasions. The Celtic chieftains of the south-west were less occupied than their northern contemporaries in repelling foreign invaders. They must have cast longing eyes upon the wealthy Romanized cities, and cherished hopes of bringing them, or some of them, under their sway. Vortigern, one of these rulers, probably prince of the Silures, seems to have partially succeeded in doing so, and about A.D. 450 appears as supreme over the south as far as Dover Straits. Whether his suzerainty extended north of the Thames must be considered very doubtful.

The ‘Historia Brittonum’ describes the situation as follows:

‘After the above-said war, the assassination of their rulers, and the victory of Maximus, who slew Gratian, and the termination of the Roman power in Britain, they were in alarm forty years. Vortigern then reigned in Britain, and in his time the people had cause of dread, not only from the inroads of the Picts and Scots, but also from the Romans, and their apprehensions of Ambrosius.’

The passage is a very confused one, and what appear to be the significant sentences are italicized. The opening statement is a kind of summing-up of the confused sections which precede it. It has been seriously misunderstood by several authors, but its meaning is fairly obvious. The chronology of the ‘Historia’ is its most hopeless feature, but here it presents no great difficulty. Forty years after the end of the Roman power, Vortigern reigned in Britain. As we have seen, direct Roman rule ended in 410-411. We therefore arrive at the year 450-451. Bede says that Hengist entered Britain in the reign of Marcianus and Valentinian III.—i.e., after 450; but he is out in his reckoning, and so makes the date A.D. 449. Gildas makes it after 446. Probably it was after 447, for in that year St. Germanus again came to Britain, and no foreign troubles are mentioned. On the other hand, the ‘Historia’ says that Vortigern died while St. Germanus was in the island—i.e., in 447. This would place the invasion of Kent in 445 or 446, and if it really did occur then, it agrees somewhat better with the famous letter to AËtius recorded by Gildas. But we dare not trust Gildas for anything before 470, and the ‘Life of St. Germanus’ used by the compilers of the ‘Historia’ was evidently a very fanciful work. On the whole the chronology of the English invasions is very uncertain. The one definite indication is that Vortigern’s reception of Hengist took place forty years after the end of Roman power in Britain.

Vortigern was also in fear of Ambrosius. This is a most interesting statement. The Ambrosius here mentioned may very well have been the father of the greater figure soon to be noticed. The name is a Latin one, and Ambrosius was almost certainly the leader of the Romanized inhabitants as distinct from the Kymry of the West. His family seems to have been a notable one, for we can hardly doubt that they are the forbears of the Ambrosius Aurelianus celebrated by Gildas. Where Ambrosius had his stronghold is not known; quite possibly he was in league with London, Verulam, and other Roman towns, and was perhaps the chief of their forces.

Finally, Vortigern was afraid of the Romans. This is probably exactly the state of affairs if he reigned from about 440 to 450; for the great general AËtius was very active in Gaul during this period, and may have sent assistance to the Romanizing party in Britain. Quite possibly in the letters mentioned by Gildas the ‘barbarians’ were the Kymry, and the second visit of St. Germanus may have been as much political as religious.

However this may be—and everything during this period is largely conjecture—there is no reason to doubt that Vortigern, whose suzerainty was evidently a most uneasy one, did, as the ‘Historia’ says, employ German mercenaries under Hengist and Hors, or Horsa. Very likely he had other bands in his pay, but the fame of this one has outshone that of the rest.

Hengist is practically beyond doubt an authentic historical figure. He is probably to be identified with the Hengist in the famous poem of Beowulf, who made a truce with the Frisian slayers of his lord HnÆf. The custom was for the followers to die with their lord or avenge him. The fact that Hengist did neither would be quite enough to cause his disgrace, and the ‘Historia Brittonum’ distinctly says that he was an exile. It also appears to bear out the ‘Historia’s’ character of him as a cunning and low-minded, if able, man.

The followers of Hengist only manned three ships, and possibly they were in a distressed condition when Vortigern took them under his protection. As the small band can hardly have been of much account by itself, we must suppose either that the king employed Hengist to raise a mercenary force, or that when the breach between employers and employed occurred, the latter were joined by swarms of adventurers. The ‘Historia’ says that, owing to Hengist’s persuasions, Vortigern employed in all fifty-nine ships’ crews. The romantic feature of the affair, according to the ‘Historia,’ is that Vortigern fell violently in love with Hengist’s daughter, who accompanied him, and married her. It was not quite an honour for the Jutish maiden Hrothwyn (Rowena), if indeed that was her name, for Vortigern’s amours were numerous and indiscriminate. She merely became one of his harem. But if the incident be true, it is another application of the French proverb, Cherchez la femme! The marriage was certainly the beginning of woes for Britain.

Vortigern apparently defeated and slew Ambrosius with the help of his German mercenaries, but then his troubles began. The Isle of Ruim (Thanet) had been assigned as the land-recompense of the mercenaries, but they declared that it was too small. Bede says that it supported six hundred families in his day, and as fifty-nine ships’ crews would mean hardly less than fifteen hundred warriors, the latter were, from their own point of view, perfectly right. In any case, they were accustomed to living by their swords, and presumably believed that Vortigern, allied to them by marriage, would give way to pressure exercised by the old and still practised methods of slaughter and pillage.

At any rate, in 455, if we may trust the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’ the bands of Hengist broke out of Thanet and began to move westward, ravaging as they went. Probably at first they did not attack the walled towns; they may merely have intended an armed protest. Where Vortigern was or what he did we cannot say; his sons Vortimer and Categirn led the opposition to the invaders. A battle was fought at a place not specified, and Hengist was driven back into Thanet. Presumably reinforced from the Continent, he again emerged from his fastness, and encountered Vortimer in two battles, both claimed as British victories, but clearly indecisive. One was on the Durgwentid River (perhaps either the Stour or Darenth), the other at Rit-hergabail or Episford, generally supposed to be Aylesford on the Medway. Horsa and Categirn were both slain. It was apparently an English reverse, for the fourth battle was fought by a Roman monument on the shore of the Channel. The invaders were defeated and driven on board their ships; but Vortimer, unfortunately for the Britons, died soon afterwards, perhaps of wounds received in the battle. The story goes that he desired his followers to bury him at the spot where Hengist had landed—presumably therefore at Ebbsfleet—so that in death he might keep watch over the country that he had for the moment saved. He was not obeyed. Geoffrey of Monmouth, who may perhaps have had some written authority for his statement, says that he was buried at London.

Vortigern now reappears on the scene, and opens negotiations with the invaders. The ‘Historia’ says that Hengist arranged a conference and banquet of six hundred unarmed notables, three hundred from each side. He, however, ordered his own followers to hide knives in their shoes, and when the feast was in full progress every Jute drew his dagger upon his helpless British comrade. Vortigern alone was spared, and, probably in fear of his life, concluded peace on very disadvantageous terms. There is no reason to discredit the story, except the quite inadequate one that the ancestors of Englishmen could not be guilty of such treachery.

This catastrophe appears to have ended Vortigern’s sovereignty in the south, and he fled to his own Welsh realm. There is a wild legend that Germanus called down fire from heaven upon him, but Germanus had died in Gaul some years before. The motive of the legend is obvious: no fate was too terrible for the hated dynast who had betrayed Britain, and the temptation to bring in Germanus must have been irresistible. Vortigern’s genealogy appears to have been well known, and his descendants were ruling in south-east Wales ten generations later.

Hengist does not ever appear to have lost Thanet, and in the disorder after Vortigern’s death he was again able to invade Kent. In 457 he won a victory at Crayford, and the Britons retreated to the walls of London; yet in 465, and again in 473, the invaders are apparently still fighting in Kent. As the Jutish kingdom never extended far beyond the bounds of the modern county, there is every reason to believe that the conquest of Kent was a very slow and difficult process.

Meanwhile, however, the successes of Hengist attracted the notice of his kinsfolk in Germany, and expeditions, not for purposes of plunder, but for permanent conquest, were being formed. The supposition must be put aside that England was founded as a number of separate states by independent bands of invaders. That the Britons made a stern resistance is beyond doubt, and to have been successful the invaders must have been acting in large and more or less organized bodies. Moreover, the invasions were national ones. Kent, indeed, possibly Sussex, may have been independent creations by chiefs of bodies of mixed mercenaries, but the whole English people (Angel-cynn) sooner or later took part in the settlement. It was a great national migration, and undoubtedly one of the most remarkable in history. The emigrants could not march by land, like the Goths and Franks, in great masses, which could bear down resistance by sheer weight of numbers and courage. They had to transfer themselves over hundreds of miles of sea in more or less frail open craft, at the mercy of every gale; yet in the course of a century the name of Angle had vanished from the Continent, and become peculiar to Britain. Possibly a remnant of the people remained behind; to this day a district of Schleswig bears the name of Angeln.

Bede says that the invaders came from three nations of Germany, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. This appears to be so far true in that these three peoples took part in the migration; but while practically the entire English nation came, they were accompanied by only a few Saxons and a portion of the Jutes. It is very probable, also, that fragments of nearly all the Teutonic tribes on the Continent were in the invading hosts. The kingdom of Kent is said to have been Jutish; certainly its social structure differed remarkably from that of the other English states, but Hengist himself seems to have been an Angle. Bede says that the Kentish Code was written in the English language. The confused grammatical structure of the present English tongue certainly points to a mingling of races, and on the whole we may infer that the invasion was conducted not only by the Angles, but by many kindred tribes, and that these latter in course of time gradually came to regard themselves as English also. Early mediÆval writers use the terms ‘Angle’ and ‘Saxon’ indiscriminately.

The invaders were no mere barbarians. Their deeds were often barbarous enough, no doubt; but it must be said that the picture drawn by Bede of kings like Aethelberht and Eadwine and their followers shows them in a very favourable light. Perhaps Bede idealizes; possibly in the course of a century the invaders had softened somewhat; but as that century had been passed for the most part in warfare, the latter conclusion is unlikely. At any rate, the English brought with them a highly organized social system, and judging merely from recorded facts, they were, as a nation, possessed of many of the elements of civilization.

Neither were the invaders a mere disorderly throng of ill-armed and unarmoured marauders. The evidence of archÆology is all to the effect that they were acquainted with, and used, defensive armour. Probably only the upper classes wore it, but as elaborate and costly coats of mail have been found in graves in Schleswig and Denmark dating from this period, this deduction cannot be made without qualification. Mail and weapons, which latter have been found in thousands, would hardly be buried, and therefore lost, unless they could be easily replaced. The chiefs undoubtedly rode to battle; the deposits are full of horse-trappings. On the whole, we may imagine the armies which conquered Britain as being more or less like those of the Homeric Greeks. The nucleus consisted of the king and his retinue, with a larger or smaller following of nobles and their retainers equipped with mailshirt, helmet, and shield, and armed with sword and spear. Though they rode to war, they probably, with few exceptions, fought on foot. Whether their peasantry were regarded as fighting men is doubtful. Professor Chadwick thinks that they were not. In that case the conquest of England was effected by armies consisting of chiefs with larger or smaller bands of well-armed followers combined into armies under kings or generals. Perhaps only when they had gained a firm foothold in the country did the English bring over their peasant retainers and serfs to till the land, while the fighting men protected them or carried out further conquests. The frequent gaps in the war-bands may have been filled up partly by levies from the peasantry, partly by adventurers from all sides. Success must have brought many of the latter to the English standards.

Having said so much, we will proceed to give, as far as is possible, a sketch of the conquest; but the reader must be warned that it is largely conjecture. The skeleton narrative which follows has been constructed with care, after study and comparison of the earliest authorities—Gildas, Nennius, and Bede, and the few other early mediÆval chroniclers who notice Britain—but probably there is hardly a statement which is not open to criticism.

At first the invaders appear to have come rather as bands of raiders than as conquering armies, but Gildas implies that some of them, at least, dashed right across the island to the Irish Sea. His lurid descriptions of the destruction of towns may be taken for what they are worth; it is to be noted that he does not name one of them. He appears to say that the shrine of St. Alban had been destroyed, but as it almost certainly lay outside Verulam, it need not be assumed that the town shared its fate. As a fact, judging from what occurred on the Continent, walled towns were able to defy large hosts of barbarians.

No doubt the raids were destructive enough, and Gildas, despite his exasperating style, probably does not overstate the misery in those districts which were wasted by the marauders. But it is certainly rash to deduce from his narrative that the whole of Eastern Britain up to the central watershed, including all the important Roman towns, was conquered and ruined within a few years after 450. The archÆological evidence is of the scantiest. The sites of the greater Roman towns are almost all built upon. Calleva and Venta Silurum were small places and of no special importance. The site of Verulam has scarcely been touched.

It is needless to say that all maps of Britain at this period are purely conjectural. There is no real clue as to the lines of advance of the invaders. The probability is that they made their way inland along the rivers. After a time the bands are found coalescing into armies; for this must be the meaning of Bede’s statement that Aella, whose coming is placed by the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’ in 477, was the first ‘Bretwalda.’ The chronology is, of course, worthless, but that Aella really did command the English host for a time is highly probable. His main sphere of action is said by the Chronicle to have been Sussex; but probably, commanding as he did an army whose base was the sea, he had other fields of operations. His chief exploit is said to have been the storm of Anderida (Pevensey) in 491, according to the Chronicle, but probably earlier. He, with his son Cissa, ‘beset Anderida, and slew all that were therein, nor was there afterwards one Briton left.’

The Britons, according to Gildas, were for a while unable to make any effective resistance to the attacks of their enemies, who were being steadily reinforced from oversea; but after a weary time of ravage and defeat, a Roman (Romanized Briton) named Ambrosius Aurelianus, perhaps a son of the Ambrosius who had opposed Vortigern, took the lead. The plan of accepting the suzerainty of Kymric dynasts for the sake of peace and unity had led to disaster, and men were ready to rally to one who stood for Roman traditions. Ambrosius succeeded in organizing an effective resistance, and the result seems to have been that he was acknowledged as king in the south at least. The ‘Historia Brittonum’ states that Vortigern’s son Pascentius was subject to him, and in the Welsh traditions he appears as ‘Emrys Gwledig.’

Nevertheless, the success was only partial. It appears certain that the Teutons were firmly established on the eastern coast as well as in Kent and Sussex. Ambrosius fought against them incessantly with varying fortune all through his reign, but if he confined them to the territory which they had already won, and checked their raids inland, it was as much as he could do. The invaders’ base was the sea, and they could attack when and where they pleased; we do not hear, nor is it probable, that Ambrosius succeeded in organizing a navy, and no other means could have definitely checked the advance. On the other hand, Ambrosius probably had to some extent the advantage which unity of command gives, while his opponents’ operations would often be disunited and erratic. In the midst of the struggle Ambrosius died.

His gallant efforts appear to have produced important results. Not only was he able to pass on his power to his descendants, as Gildas witnesses, but a more or less united resistance was kept up against the invaders. In the place of Ambrosius the cities and kings appear to have chosen as Commander-in-chief, or Dux Bellorum, a certain Artorius, famed in legend as ‘King Arthur.’ He may or may not have been the immediate successor of Aurelianus; perhaps here again Geoffrey of Monmouth had some authority for interposing a third figure between the two, though ‘Uther’ looks suspiciously like a variation of Arthur. Artorius may have been a relation of Ambrosius.

At any rate, his leadership was signalized by a long succession of victories. The ‘Historia Brittonum’ gives the rather suspicious round number of twelve, but as it is obtained by there having been four battles in the same locality, there is no obvious reason for doubting it.

The first battle was at the mouth of the river Gleni; the second, third, fourth, and fifth on the river Dubglas, in the region Linuis; the sixth on the river Bassas; the seventh in Celidon Wood. The eighth was at Gwinnion Castle, and in this fight it is especially noted that Arthur’s standard was an image or picture of the Virgin. The ninth battle was at the City-of-the-Legion, the tenth on the Ribruit or Tribruit, and the eleventh on a mountain called Agned. The twelfth was at Mount Badon, and in it Arthur is credited with the slaughter, single-handed, of nine hundred and sixty Saxons!

Of these twelve engagements the field of the seventh is practically certain. Coit Celidon must be the Caledonian Forest (on the upper Forth). This fixes some of the battles at least as fought in the north; and this is rendered more probable, because one recension of the ‘Historia’ says that the Virgin of Gwinnion was afterwards deposited at Wedale, near Melrose. The Gleni may be the Glen in Northumberland. The Dubglas must clearly have been a most important strategic point if four battles were fought there.

If the first batch of battles occurred in the north, it is fair to assume that they were fought against the Angles, and this practically fixes them in the north-east. There is good reason for believing that the Angles had very early established themselves in this quarter. Now, it is worthy of note that there is to-day a streamlet called the Dunglass at the entrance of Cockburnspath, the pass through the eastern corner of the Lammermuirs, south-east of Dunbar, which played an important part in the Great Civil War over eleven centuries later. Cockburnspath is just the place at which one might expect battles between rival forces moving from north to south and vice versa. The hills around are still covered with the remains of fortifications, many apparently of great antiquity. It may be that the course of the war in this neighbourhood was as follows: The English moving south from their settlements on the Firth of Forth were met and defeated by Arthur, perhaps on the Glen, and retreated to Cockburnspath. After a succession of engagements, they were driven thence, again defeated on the Bassas (locality unknown), and finally pursued into the Caledonian Forest.

The seat of war then appears to shift southward. Gwinnion may have been fought to drive off some of the invaders who had got into the rear of the Britons while the latter were fighting at the Forth. Urbs Legionis is probably in this instance York. The Ribruit and Agned cannot be identified; Mons Badonis or Badonicus is supposed to have been Bath, but there is no reason for this identification; it probably arose out of the similarity between Badon and the English appellation of Aquae Sulis. Wadon Hill, near Avebury, and Badbury (? Baden-burh) Rings in Dorset have both been identified with this mysterious site. It seems from Gildas that it was a fortress. Probably it was besieged by the invaders, and relieved by Arthur in a battle which stayed the English advance for many years.

The date of these events is doubtful. Gildas, in a sentence which is the despair of all Latinists, seems to say that the battle of Mons Badonicus was fought forty-four years and one month before he wrote his book. We know that he wrote some years before the death of King MÆlgwn of Gwynedd (A.D. 547). This fixes the date of the battle at about 500. The ‘Annales CambriÆ’ put it in 516, but the ‘Annales’ are as late as the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.’ Mr. E.B. Nicholson has suggested that the forty-four years are to be reckoned from the appearance of Ambrosius to 516. It is quite possible that the great leader did commence his campaigns about 472, but Gildas hardly gives us the impression of a man capable of very accurate chronology. But if he were born on the day of the battle, as he says, it would be a simple matter. On the whole, we may reasonably say that the battle was fought about the year 500, and its effect was to stay the advance of the English in the south for at least forty-four years.

One would willingly hear more of the men whose efforts for a while stayed the flowing English tide; but practically all that is known is here set down. The ‘Annales CambriÆ’ state that twenty-one years after Mons Badonicus Arthur and Medrant fell in a battle at Camlan. Arthur is repeatedly mentioned in the bardic poems of Wales, but we cannot tell to what extent these works may have been altered in later ages.

Whatever the fate of Arthur, and whatever the extent and nature of his influence in Britain, his victories staved off ruin for half a century, but no longer. The curse of Britain was that there were too many dynasts for ever warring among themselves. The picture that Gildas has painted may be highly coloured, but there is no reason to doubt that when the danger appeared to be over, the old tribal quarrels began again. Strathclyde and Reged were divided among the different branches of the Houses of Coroticus and Coel. About 540 the energetic but unscrupulous and dissolute MÆlgwn, King of Gwynedd, succeeded in getting rid of his related competitors. He may also have asserted a primacy in the south and west, for Gildas calls him ‘Insularis Draco’ (Island Dragon), though it is true that this may simply refer to the fact that the seat of the Cunedda dynasty was at Aberffraw in Mona. Gildas overwhelms him with turgid invective and garbled quotations from Scripture—in fact, his so-called history is, on the face of it, nothing but a sermon directed at MÆlgwn. He also denounces two other Welsh dynasts—Vortipore of the DemetÆ, and Cuneglass of Powys(?), and two princes with Latin names—Constantinus of Damnonia and Aurelius Caninus. The first name of the latter suggests that he may have been one of those degenerate grandsons of Ambrosius Aurelianus of whom Gildas speaks.

It is in the interval between Mons Badonicus and 577 that the Saxon Chronicle places the conquest of Wessex. To discuss this matter in detail would be to occupy far more space than is here available, but it may be said, in short, that there is every reason to believe that the Chronicle’s chronology is wrong; that it is highly improbable that the West Saxons ever came up Southampton Water, the shores of which were occupied by Jutes at an early date; finally, that Cerdic is a very doubtful figure. The West Saxons were also, and commonly, called GewissÆ, ‘the Confederates.’ Cerdic is a Celtic name; it is, indeed, the same as Coroticus, or Caradoc, and this fact, coupled with the curious name of the kingdom, suggests that Cerdic may have been a Celtic prince, who founded a kingdom with the aid of English mercenaries or allies, and became so identified with them that his origin was forgotten. The latest opinion is that Wessex did not start from Hampshire at all. Some of the battles mentioned—i.e., that with Natan-leod—may be authentic, but they were the work of Jutes. Any delimitation of the territory occupied by the invaders at the time must necessarily be a very vague one; but it is probable that when Gildas wrote they fell into three sections. South of the Thames—largely south of the Weald—a long English-Jutish strip of territory stretched from Southampton Water to Thanet, never reaching far inland except in Kent, which was solidly occupied, and, perhaps, always the wealthiest of the new States.

North of the Thames indications are even vaguer. Professor Oman is of opinion that all the Romano-British cities in Eastern Britain perished very early, mainly on the authority of Gildas, who appears to give ‘a picture of a Celtic Britain which does not extend anywhere towards the east coast.’

To attempt to make any definite geographical deductions from a writer so vague as Gildas is rash; as a fact, we know that his five dynasts are only some of several, and the territory of one of them who bears the most suggestive name of all is not specified. Aurelius Caninus may just as well have been king of London and Verulam as of Glevum, Corinium, and AquÆ Sulis. Opinion is steadily trending in the direction of a belief in the continuous existence of London through the ‘lost’ centuries. This is too great a question to discuss here, but on practical military grounds it may be pointed out that London, strongly fortified, apparently populous, and situated astride of a great river, was eminently fitted to be the curb of a barbarian invasion. There is also to be considered the curious fact that the country round London was called Middlesex, as if it at one time formed a sort of buffer between East and West Saxons. The name certainly seems to show that London and its territory became English late.

The English north of the Thames possibly lay north and east of a line drawn from Leicester to the mouth of the Thames. If so, their abode corresponded roughly to the later ‘Danelaw.’ They probably formed, like the Vikings, a confused mingling of petty kingdoms, earldoms, and the camps of war bands. What was going on north of the Humber is not known, but certainly the Bernician Angles in Lothian were fighting hard with the British kingdoms of Strathclyde and Reged. Not until 547 did they take Bamborough. The beginnings of Deira were probably still later; it is not at all certain that the English had as yet any footing in Yorkshire. Had a second Ambrosius Aurelianus or Artorius arisen to coerce the warring British states into unity, the English settlements might have been conquered, as were those of the Danes by Alfred and Eadward I. This was not to be. About 540 the Anglian settlements were fast increasing in strength. The whole ‘Angel-cynn,’ in fact, were streaming over to Britain every year as fast as their ships could take them. Probably they were forced on by the disorder in Europe, and the pressure caused by the migrating Slavs and the raiding Avars with their kindred tribes. At any rate, about 550 we find the English once more on the move, and this time the Britons had no Ambrosius or Arthur to save them.

About 547 King Ida of Bernicia took Dinguardi, soon to be Bebban-burh, and began to push southward in the teeth of a desperate resistance from the Britons of Reged under King Dutigern. The struggle was celebrated in the songs of the great bards, TalhÆrn, Aneurin, Taliesin, and Llywarch. Ida left twelve sons, several of whom reigned after him. The most celebrated was the fierce raider Theudric—‘Flamddwyn,’ the ‘Burner,’ as the Britons called him. After much fighting, he was completely defeated by Urien of Reged, and forced to take refuge on Lindisfarne. But Urien was murdered by his own jealous kinsfolk in the hour of victory, and Theudric, reinforced by new Anglian war bands, was able to take the offensive again. The murder of Urien seems to have broken the British power. His son Owen was slain by the ‘Burner,’ and Theudric ranged up and down the country, wasting it mercilessly, and finally establishing English Bernicia so strongly that it was never again in peril (circa A.D. 570). Meanwhile, in the south, too, about 571, the English had begun a fresh advance under Ceawlin, the first authentic king of the GewissÆ or West Saxons. He probably commanded a large confederate army collected from all the English states between Humber and Thames. A great battle was fought at Bedford. The English were completely victorious, and conquered the whole of the south-east Midlands as far as the Thames. The towns captured are given their English names by the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’ which is only to be expected; by the ninth century their Roman appellations had vanished. The effect of the victory would naturally be to leave London isolated. Possibly it maintained its independence for some time, but by 596 it was certainly included in Essex or Kent. Perhaps it had been in alliance with Kent for some time, for Ceawlin had hostilities with the young King Aethelberht, and the possession of London may have been the casus belli.

The battle of Bedford firmly established the kingdom of the GewissÆ, and Ceawlin probably extended his sway southward to the Weald and the New Forest. Perhaps it was now that Calleva was finally abandoned. The confines of the Britons were narrowed, and the last seats of the old Roman civilization (if it had not by now entirely disappeared) were about to fall into the hands of the English.

In 577 Ceawlin went westward, perhaps from Calleva, with the whole host of the GewissÆ. At Deorham, probably Derham, north of Bath, he met a confederate British army under three kings—Conmail, Farinmail, and Condidan. The last name may perhaps be read (Aurelius) Candidianus. The English victory was complete; the three kings were slain; Glevum, Corinium, and AquÆ Sulis, together with the whole valley of the lower Severn, fell into the hands of the conquerors.

Ceawlin’s later fortune was not equal to that of his earlier days. He was defeated in an attempt to penetrate Wales, and his motley host then revolted and deposed him. The Gewissan state became subject to Aethelberht of Kent, who now succeeded to Ceawlin’s position of ‘Bretwalda.’ Nevertheless, Ceawlin had done his work; the battle of Deorham was the most decisive struggle in the war which won Britain for the English.

North of the Humber, after the death of Aethelric, the last of Ida’s sons, Aethelfrith, the son of Aethelric, became king of Bernicia about 593. He made himself supreme also over Deira, and in 603 gained a most complete and decisive victory over a confederation of Strathclydian and Regedian Britons, Scots, and Irish from Ulster, under Aedan, King of the Scots of Dalriada. The result was the destruction of Reged, which survived only in a few scattered fragments, and the consolidation of English power in the north. Then, in 613, the Northumbrian king advanced upon Deva; a glance at the map will show his admirable strategy. Bede’s half-sorrowful praise of him (he was a heathen) was evidently well deserved.

Before Deva there gathered for battle Cadwan, King of Gwynedd, the most powerful of the Kymric princes; Brochmail, King of Theyrnllwg; and Selim, perhaps Prince of Powys. Near Deva lay the great monastery of Bangor Iscoed, with its 2,100 monks; and, after spending three days in prayer and fasting, 1,200 of the latter accompanied the Britons to the field. They stood apart, and a detachment of warriors under Brochmail guarded them. Aethelfrith watched the gestures and movements of the strange company, and the sound of their chants and prayers floated across to him. ‘They bear not arms,’ he said to his chiefs, ‘but our enemies they be, for their imprecations assail us. Slay them first.’ The grim order was obeyed. Brochmail and his followers were put to flight; the monks were butchered ruthlessly, and then, having disposed of supernatural enmity, the English turned to fight their secular adversaries. The battle was long and desperately contested, and Bede says that Aethelfrith’s army suffered severely; but it ended in another great English victory. Two British kings were slain; Cadwan and Brochmail fled with only a remnant of their army.

Aethelfrith did not live to complete the conquest of the north; he died in civil strife four years later. But the battles of Deorham and Deva ensured the complete conquest of Britain. The British states were hopelessly parted from one another, and could never again combine for resistance, even had they the will to do so. They were, in 620, as their foes had been in 520, cut into disconnected masses. Worse still, they occupied wild and barren territories, and the dynastic conditions did not make for internal peace. Nor did they ever again produce a really great leader. After Deorham and Deva there was never any real hope of recovering the lost ground, and to Ceawlin and Aethelfrith this result was almost entirely due.

Inadequate and nebulous as this narrative of the events of a period of such vital importance to the English nation may appear, yet out of it there stand forth certain clearly-defined epochs and figures. The invaders at first only plundered, until an apparently chance incident opened the way to permanent settlement. For a time the tide of conquest and occupation was checked by the series of brilliant victories gained by Ambrosius and Arthur, but the civil broils of the Britons prevented any permanent success over the continually multiplying enemy; and with the advent of two really great leaders on the side of the invaders, the older inhabitants found themselves hopelessly penned up in the barren regions of the west. Thenceforth Britain was Britain no longer, but Angle-land—England.