CHAP. V. "Celt, Roman, and Saxon," CHAPTER V. THE DEPARTURE OF THE ROMANS, AND SETTLEMENT ILDAS, and some of our early historians, have drawn melancholy and probably exaggerated pictures of the state of Britain when the Romans abandoned it. It is difficult to fix the precise period when this occurred; but it is now believed that their troops were gradually withdrawn, and that the Saxons did not acquire their settlement in England in that dramatic and rapid manner which has been related by many of our native historians. Wright says that it was in the year 410* that Honorius 2nd Ed., p.391. acknowledged the freedom of the Britons, and sent letters to the cities exhorting them to provide for their own safety; and he tells us that as in Canterbury and other places. Roman and Saxon interments have been found in the same cemetery, it is more than probable that the Saxons by their predatory attacks had been gradually gaining a footing in the island before the period at which the grand invasions are said to have commenced; and permanent settlements were in the course of formation, especially on the southern portion of the island. In short, that German blood then predominated to a great extent in many of the Roman *Mr. Lewin, in his paper on the Castra of the Littus Saxonicum, communicated to the Society of Antiquaries in 1868, says it was in 409, after a rule of just 367 years, that the Romans abandoned the island, which thenceforth, until the arrival of the Saxons about half a century later, was a miserable wreck, held in piecemeal by domineering municipalities or by ambitious chieftains-aptly designated by Procopius as tyrants," cities in Britain. He, however, regards this period of our history as one involved in profound obscurity. CHAP. V. The Britons, abandoned by their Roman masters, seem to have proved unequal to the task of self-government. Internal dissensions, with plunder and famine in their train, drove them once more into the woods and forests for protection and bodily sustenance. Vortigern was ac- A.D. 449. knowledged by the Britons as their chief or king, but Vortigern. the heads of the different states were jealous of each other, and unity did not reign in their councils. Vortigern, according to the character handed down to us by all the William of ancient writers, did not possess those qualities so requisite Malmesbury, for governing such a distracted country; and tradition p. 7. says he resorted to the fatal expedient of hiring some of the marauders as a protection against the rest. In consequence, two of their chiefs, Hengist and Horsa, brothers Hengist and it is said, descended from Woden, sailed for Britain, and disembarked in the Isle of Thanet, where they were received by Vortigern. Geoffery of Monmouth, who lived in the early part of the twelfth century, and was Bishop of St. Asaph, wrote the Historia Britonum, a book full of fables, and often referred to with contempt. I only quote it to give the reader his description of the transaction : "In the meantime there arrived in Kent three brigantines, or long galleys, full of armed men under the command of two brothers-Horsa and Hengist. Vortigern was then at Dorobernia, now Canterbury, which city he used often to visit; and being informed of the arrival of some tall strangers in large ships, he ordered that they should be received peaceably and conducted into his presence. As soon as they were brought before him he cast his eyes upon the two brothers, who excelled all the rest both in nobility and gracefulness of person, and having taken a view of the whole company, asked them of what country they were and what was the occasion of their coming into his kingdom. To whom Hengist (whose years and wisdom entitled him to a precedence) in the name of the rest made answer." Then follows the answer and Vortigern's reply, clothed in the most pompous language. An alliance was formed, the strangers fulfilled their part of the treaty by driving back the Scots and Picts, and Bohn's Ed., Horsa. Giles' "Six Old Eng. Chron.," P. 183. CHAP. V. p. 396. Lewin on the cum. Hengist was afterwards invested with the government of Kent. So pleased, however, were the Saxons with their new quarters, that they invited their countrymen to cross over to them, and they soon began to plunder the very country they had traversed the ocean to protect. Wright doubts whether the first Anglo-Saxon settlement was under Hengist and Horsa. He thinks it probable they had been preceded by the Angles in the north, for when we first become acquainted with them, this tribe appears to have been long in undisturbed possession of the whole country from the Humber to the Wall of Antoninus. As closely connected with our subject, it will not be out of place if I again briefly allude to the Castra of the Littus Littus Saxoni- Saxonicum on our south-eastern coast. Mr. Lewin, in fixing the probable period of their erection, in the paper I have already referred to, distributes them into two classes those built to suppress rebellion or to keep open continental communications, and those erected to meet any sudden invasion from a piratical enemy. Of the former, on the south-eastern coast, were the Castra at Reculver, Richborough, and Dover; and of the latter, Lympne, Pevensey, and Bramber castle. The first, he considers, were in existence shortly after the invasion of Aulus Plautius, but to those designed exclusively to counteract piratical invasion, he is unable to assign any precise date, though he surmises it was between A.D. 289 and A.D. 409. A struggle now commenced between the Britons and Saxons which lasted a century and a half, and terminated in extirpating or expelling nearly all the British population from this portion of the island. At the beginning of this struggle Vortigern was deposed, and his son Vortimer placed on the throne. Several bloody battles followed, victory alternating between the contending armies. One of these engagements, it is supposed, took place between Folkestone and Hythe, when the Britons were victorious. Nennius tells us the fourth battle he fought was near the Stone on the shore of the Gallic sea, (possibly Stonar, near Sandwich), where the Saxons being defeated fled to the sea. Vortimer shortly afterwards died, but before his decease, "Anxious for the future prosperity of his country, he charged his friends to inter his body at the entrance of the Saxon port, viz., upon the rock where the Saxons first landed; 'For though,' said he, they may inhabit other parts of Britain, yet if you follow my commands they will never remain in this island.'" The Britons disobeyed his injunctions, and were severely punished, we are told, by the return of the Saxons. Vortigern (the father) was then restored to the throne; a cessation of hostilities followed; and the Saxons withdrew to Kent and Northumberland, the districts which had been before assigned to them. Hengist obtained a strong reinforcement of Saxons; several bloody battles were fought, the Britons abandoned Kent, and Hengist assumed the title of King of Kent. CHAP. V. Somner's "Ports and Forts," p. 97. Nennius. P. 405. His. of Eng., vol. i., p. 6. In matters affecting time which has past, as well as in those which concern eternity, there is, in this our day, a strong tendency to scepticism. Macaulay says that Vortigern, Hengist, and Horsa, are mythical persons, whose very existence may be questioned, and whose adventures must be classed with those of Hercules and Romulus. "Modern historical criticism (says another writer), which Mallet's has dissipated some of our most cherished classical il- North. Ant. lusions, will no longer listen to the old story of Vortigern seeking assistance from Saxon chieftains having such equivocal names as those of Hengist and Horsa." Another writer says the account is purely fabulous, being in fact not the history but the tradition of the Jutish kingdom of Kent. Though many of our great scholars are decidedly of opinion that much that has been written in the chronicles of the fifth century is fictitious, still the late Mr. Sandys has, I submit, proved, in his Consuetudines Kanciæ, that these chieftains were not the mere mythic heroes of poetry and of romance that it is now the fashion to assert; but that they did exist, and that they sustained the character and performed most of the actions attributed to them. Dr. Giles, in his pref. to Bede. Sandys' "Cons. CHAP. V. The Heptarchy. We now find the Saxon population spreading itself over the east of the island. The British chiefly retired to the west, while some sought refuge in Brittany, and a connection was thus established between Wales and that province, of which traces still exist in the language of each. A constant succession of exterminating and internal wars, a temporary disappearance of the Christian religion, and the obliteration of much of former civilization, followed; the language and almost all the arts of the Romans were forgotten, and our island began to bear the name of "Engla-land." Seven independent kingdoms were formed by the piratical invaders, now included under the common name of Anglo-Saxon. The three most extensive were to the north, and were inhabited by the Angles. The four richest and most populous were to the south, and were inhabited by the Saxons. These consisted of Kent, peopled by the Jutes, founded by Hengist in 460;* of Sussex, as we shall presently see, in 491 by Ella; of Essex, in 527, by Ercenwin; and of Wessex, the most powerful of the southern kingdoms, in 519 by Cerdic. The opposite courses of the Thames and Severn separated the Saxon kingdoms from those of the Angles; still these two people regarded one another as countrymen, and the seven kingdoms of the Saxon Heptarchy formed to some intents but one single political body. The kings whom the Saxons acknowledged as their leaders in war had but very limited authority in peace, and the assembly of the elders or wise men of each kingdom, the Witena-gemote, was consulted on all important measures. On extraordinary occasions one of the seven kings was acknowledged as Bretwalda, or chief of the Heptarchy. Kent was the first of the kingdoms of this Heptarchy, t and continued nearly 400 years in the succession of seven *Lappenberg in his "England under the Anglo-Saxons" (Thorpe's translation), considers that Hengist arrived in Britain earlier than the date usually given. + When all the kingdoms were settled in 586, they formed an Octarchy. |