teen kings; and no other single county appears to have had its own king for any great length of time. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle thus records the events. referred to in this chapter, which I have taken from Dr. Giles's translation: "A. 409.-This year the Goths took the city of Rome by storm, and after this the Romans never ruled in Britain; and this was about eleven hundred and ten years after it had been built. Altogether they ruled in Britain four hundred and seventy years since Caius Julius first sought the land. "A. 418.-This year the Romans collected all the treasures that were in Britain, and some they hid in the earth, so that no one has since been able to find them; and some they carried with them into Gaul. "A. 443.-This year the Britons sent over sea to Rome, and begged for help against the Picts; but they had none, because they were themselves warring against Attila, king of the Huns. And then they sent to the Angles, and entreated the like of the ethelings of the Angles. "A. 449.-This year Martianus and Valentinus succeeded to the empire, and reigned seven years. And in their days Hengist and Horsa, invited by Vortigern, king of the Britons, landed in Britain on the shore which is called Wippedsfleet; at first in aid of the Britons, but afterwards they fought against them. King Vortigern gave them land in the south-east of this country, on condition that they should fight against the Picts. Then they fought against the Picts, and had the victory wheresoever they came. They then sent to the Angles, desired a larger force to be sent, and caused them to be told the worthlessness of the Britons and the excellencies of the land. Then they soon sent thither a large force in aid of the others. At that time there came men from three tribes in Germany; from the Old-Saxons, from the Angles, from the Jutes. From the Jutes came the Kentish men and the Wightwarians, that is, the tribe which now dwells in Wight, and that race among the West Saxons which is still called the race of Jutes. From the Old-Saxons came the men of Essex, and Sussex, and Wessex. From Anglia, which has ever since remained waste betwixt the Jutes and Saxons, came the men of East Anglia, Middle Anglia, Mercia, and all North-humbria. Their leaders were two brothers, Hengist and Horsa: they were the sons of Wihtgils; Wihtgils, son of Witta; Witta, of Wecta; Wecta, of Woden. From this Woden sprang all our royal families, and those of the South-humbrians also. "A. 455.-This year Hengist and Horsa fought against King Vortigern at the place which is called Ægels-threp [Aylesford], and his brother Horsa was there slain, and after that Hengist obtained the kingdom, and Esc, his son. "A. 456.-This year Hengist and Esc slew four troops of Britons with the edge of the sword, in the place which is named Creccanford [Crayford]. "A. 457.—This year Hengist and Esc his son fought against the Britons at the place which is called Creccanford [Crayford] and there slew four thousand men; and the Britons then forsook Kent, and in great terror fled to London. CHAP. V. CHAP. V. Bede, 310. Vol. i. p. 1. "A. 465.-This year Hengist and Esc fought against the Welsh* near Wippidsfleet [Ebbsfleet], and there slew twelve Welsh Earldormen, and one of their own Thanes was slain there, whose name was Ebipped. "A. 473.-This year Hengist and Esc fought against the Welsh and took spoils innumerable; and the Welsh fled from the Angles like fire. This chapter may be summed up in the following terse but truthful sentences at the commencement of Kemble's "Saxons in England." He says: "Eleven centuries ago an industrious and conscientious historian, desiring to give a record of the establishment of his forefathers in this island, could find no fuller or better account than this: About the year of grace 445-446 the British inhabitants of England, deserted by the Roman masters who had enervated while they protected them, and exposed to the ravages of Picts and Scots from the extreme and barbarous portions of the island, called in the assistance of heathen Saxons from the continent of Europe. The strangers faithfully performed their task, and chastised the northern invaders; then, in scorn of the weakness of their employers, subjected them in turn to the yoke; and, after various vicissitudes of fortune, established their own power upon the ruins of Roman and British civilization.' "Such was the tale of the victorious Saxons in the eighth century: at a later period the vanquished Britons. found a melancholy satisfaction in adding details which might brand the career of their conquerors with the stain of disloyalty. According to these hostile authorities, treachery and fraud prepared and consolidated the Saxon triumph." * Britons and Welsh are merely general terms applied by the Saxon to the Romanised population of the island, CHAPTER VI. ANGLO-SAXON HISTORY:-THE CITY OF ANDERIDA, OR NOT ANDREDES-CEASTER. CHAP. VI. OTWITHSTANDING the doubts that have been raised respecting the origin of the Anglo-Saxon rule in Britain, I shall, like the old writers, treat Hengist as the first king of Kent, his full establishment in our county commencing about seven years after his arrival in England. During this interval his time had been occupied with conflicts with the Picts and Irish, his alliance with the Britons, his subsequent hostilities against them, and his final erection of Kent into a kingdom which he transmitted to his posterity. Nennius, Gildas, and Bede state that Hengist, before he became King of Kent, was thrice defeated, and even driven for a time from our island. Discord between the native chieftains continued; and Hengist, "whose Turner's Hist. name had been surrounded with terror, and all his steps of Anglo-Saxons, 4th Ed., with victory," appears to have maintained his kingdom vol. i., p. 249. with comparative ease during the remainder of his life, some reason for which I hope hereafter to be able to give. Hengist was succeeded by his son Esc, who reigned over Kent twenty-four years, and during this interval the A.D. 488. *A learned modern writer (Dean Stanley) describes the landing of Hengist and Horsa" which gave us our English forefathers" as one of the five great landings in English History.-History of Canterbury. p. 1. CHAP. VI. Durobrivis was called, it is said, from a chief who ruled Wright, p. 397. over it, Hrofesceaster; that is, the ceaster [corrupted from castrum] or city of Hrof; now Rochester. A.D. 477. Saxon Chron. A.D. 485. Horsfield's Hist. of Sussex vol. i., p. 63. Vol. i. p. 259. The destruc tion of Andredscester. MSS., Brit. Mus. Imperfect and vague as is our early Anglo-Saxon history in relation to Kent, it is more so when we refer to Sussex. Ella was the next Saxon chieftain who, twenty-eight years after the first arrival of Hengist, invaded Britain with his three sons, Cymen, Wlencing, and Cissa. They landed on our southern coast in a place called Cymenes-Ora (supposed to be Chichester Harbour), and we are told that, like Hengist and Horsa, they came in three ships, and "there slew many Welsh, and some they drove in flight into the wood that is named Andredslea." Their landing must thus have been opposed, probably by the petty sovereign in the district. By slow degrees they appear to have enlarged their conquest on the coast, the Britons retreating towards the south-eastern part of the island. The Chronicle then informs us that this year (485)“ Ælla fought against the Welsh near the bank of Mearcrædsburn." Horsfield, in his History of Sussex, (quoting Hayley's MSS., Brit. Mus.), says, "It is easier to expound the name than to point out the place, and wherever it was, it was at some little stream that had its denomination from one Mercreade." He tells us that it was a most bloody and desperate encounter, and that the victory was doubtful. Turner says a dubious but wasteful battle on the river Mercread checked their progress. Six years appear to have passed without any further struggle, and the engagement I am about to narrate contains the only reference to Sussex which we find recorded, until the arrival of St. Augustine, forming an hiatus of more than a century; but writers ancient and modern are almost equally divided as to whether the battle really took place in Sussex or in Kent. Hayley says: "There was a strong and well fortified place situate in the neighbourhood of these parts in which providence had cast the lot of Ella's future conquests; and which being in the hands of the British must needs prove a check to his progress and curb his motions. It was therefore necessary for him as soon as possible to reduce this stronghold into his power." Hayley does not attempt here to explain where the stronghold was; for his phrase "the neighbourhood of these parts," would apply to either Kent or Sussex. As closely connected with our history, I propose first to give the reader the different narratives of the engagement, and then to refer to the long pending and still existing controversy, as to the site of the ancient city or station where the engagement actually took place. CHAP. VI. The Saxon Chronicle states: "This year (491) Ella A.D. 491. and Cissa besieged a town called Andredscester, and slew all that dwelt therein, so that not a single Briton was there left." In Ethelwerd's Chronicle we find, A.D. 492 (one year later*): "After three years Ella and Cissa besieged a town called Andredscester, and slew all the inhabitants both small and great, leaving not a single soul alive." Now three sons accompanied Ella to our shores, but we only read here of Cissa, and no mention is hereafter made of the other sons, who probably had either returned home or fallen in battle; and the destruction of the inhabitants is mentioned, but not that of the city. The following more detailed account of the destruction of Andredscester is given by Henry of Huntingdon : "The kingdom of Sussex, which Ella founded, he long and valiantly Bohn's Ed., maintained. In the third year after the death of Hengist, in the time p. 45. of Anastasius, Emperor of Rome, who reigned twenty-seven years, Ælla was joined by auxiliaries from his own country, with whose assistance he laid siege to Andredscester, a strongly fortified town.+ The Britons swarmed together like wasps, assailing the besiegers by daily ambuscades and nocturnal sallies. There was neither day nor night in which some new alarm did not harass the minds of the Saxons; but the more they *Our early writers were very careless about chronology, and it is not at all uncommon to find a difference of several years in various MSS. of the same author. +Saxon Chronicle. "Pevensey Castle is supposed to stand on the site of Andredscester, though some antiquaries place it elsewhere on the coast of Sussex. Its name, and the subsequent details of Henry of Huntingdon, shew that it stood on the verge of the great wood."-Dr. Giles' Note, p. 45. |