As the Romans retreated southwards, tribes of Picts, a fierce race inhabiting the northern parts of Britain followed in their wake plundering and destroying the cities built by the Romans, and everywhere falling upon the defenceless Britons. We know little of the doings of this terrible time, for with the departure of the Romans there descended upon Britain a veil of darkness that was not to be lifted for 150 years.

In the latter part of the fifth century the tide of Pictish invasion was rolled back by other races who landed on our southern and eastern coasts. These were the Saxons, Jutes, and Angles, the rude forefathers of the English people, who left their homes in Northern Germany to make new settlements and found kingdoms in our country. You will read elsewhere of the long and gradual conquest of England by these barbarian invaders. 'Field by field, town by town, forest by forest, the land was won' from the British inhabitants.

According to the story usually told, though I am obliged to admit that we have very strong evidence for it, it was not until the year 584 A.D. that any of them reached the part of the country that is now Cheshire. By that time the West Saxons, one of the most powerful of these tribes, had fought their way from the English Channel to the River Severn and Shropshire, where they destroyed the great Roman city of Uriconium. Under their leader Ceawlin they appear to have made an attempt to reach Chester, but were met near Nantwich at a spot called Fethanleagh, now probably the modern village of Faddiley, by Brocmael, Prince of Powys or mid-Wales. The Saxons were routed and retired quickly to the South. Chester was saved for a time and became the capital of the Welsh kingdom of Gwynedd.

Thirty years later, however, a greater than Ceawlin appeared before the walls of the Roman city. The Angles, who had founded on our north-eastern shores the powerful kingdom of Northumbria, crossed the Pennine Hills under their leader and king Aethelfrith, and descended upon Cheshire. Once more Brocmael put himself at the head of the Britons and Welsh. We are told by Bede, the earliest of our English historians, who wrote in the succeeding century, that 1,200 monks from a great monastery at Bangor-Iscoed on the Dee accompanied Brocmael after a fast of three days to the battlefield to offer up prayers for victory. Aethelfrith watched the wild gestures of the monks and bade his followers slay them first of all. 'Bear they arms or no,' he said, 'they fight against us when they cry against us to their God.' Brocmael left them to their fate and fled from the battle, which ended in the utter defeat of the Britons.

The victory of Aethelfrith was followed by the capture of Chester, and Cheshire became a portion of a kingdom that stretched from the Tweed to the Dee. But the most important result of the 'Battle of Chester' was that the northern Welsh Britons or 'Cumbrian' Welsh were now completely cut off from their kinsmen in Wales. Everywhere the conquered Britons were driven northwards and westwards to the mountains of Cumberland or Wales, and the Britons as a united nation ceased to exist.

For forty years Cheshire was ruled by Northumbrian kings, but during the latter part of this period another kingdom was gathering strength in the Midlands of England. This was the kingdom of Mercia or the Marchland. The Mercian Penda defeated the Northumbrian king and added Cheshire to the lands over which he ruled. Mercia and Cheshire were frequently raided by the Welsh, and it was to keep them out that Offa, greatest of the Mercian kings, built his famous 'Dyke' from Chester to South Wales, many portions of which you may trace to this day.

Mercia in turn was conquered by the kings of Wessex, one of whom, Ecberght, is usually styled the first king of all England. Ecberght and his West Saxons overran Cheshire and captured the city of Chester in the year 828. Thus did three kingdoms strive for the possession of Cheshire, which from its central position must have been the scene of many an unrecorded fight.

Numbers of Cheshire villages show by their names their Anglo-Saxon origin. Davenham, Frodsham, and Warmingham speak to us of the 'hams' or homesteads that the Saxons made for themselves in their newly won lands. Bebington, Bollington, and Congleton take their names from the 'tun', the enclosure or hedge of a farm or village; Prestbury, Marbury, and Astbury from the 'burh' or fortified house of the headman of a tribe.

Goostree is perhaps the 'God's tree' where the land was parcelled out among the villagers and punishment meted to wrong-doers; Thurstaston, or the tun of Thor's stone, the place of sacrifice to their heathen god Thor. The ash tree gives its name to several Cheshire villages, Ashton, Ashley, Astbury, for instance. This fact tells us that the tree was held in great veneration by the Angles and Saxons. Even to this day the tree is thought to possess the power of bringing good or evil. A superstitious Cheshire labourer will not, if he can help it, cut down an ash tree for fear it should bring him misfortune, and churn staves made of ash are used by farmers' wives to prevent the butter from being bewitched.

It is in fact from the Angles and Saxons that we have inherited the priceless possession of our English tongue. The oldest traces of our language in a written form in Cheshire may be seen in the Grosvenor Museum at Chester. Here on a plaster cast is an inscription written in strange letters, 'Runes' or 'mysteries' as they are called. This cast is a copy of an inscribed stone discovered at Upton-in-Wirral when the old church was pulled down. The stones of this building had previously been taken from the ancient ruined church at Overchurch. Learned scholars examined the stone carefully and made out these words: FOLCAE AREARDON BEC[UN]. [GI]BIDDATH FOR ATHELMUND. The meaning is 'Folk reared tomb, bid (i.e. pray) for Athelmund'. You can see that the words are English, though their form has changed considerably during the 1,200 years or more that have gone by since the runes were carved.

Fierce and bloodthirsty were these early ancestors of ours, 'hateful alike to God and men,' as Gildas, a Welsh monk, described them. Yet even they were taught in time to abandon their strange gods and turn to the worship of Christ, and through the land in town and village uprose a cross of wood or stone, the outward symbol of a new and better faith.