most deeply interested in the quarrel, were the first to take arms all the other states soon followed the example; and Boadicea, a woman of great beauty and masculine spirit, was appointed to head the common forces, which amounted to two hundred and thirty thousand fighting men. These, exasperated by their wrongs, attacked several of the Roman settlements and colonies with success. Paulinus, who commanded the Roman forces, hastened to relieve London, which was already a flourishing colony; but found on his arrival that it would be requisite for the general safety to abandon that place to the merciless fury of the enemy. London was soon therefore reduced to ashes; such of the inhabitants as remained in it were massacred; and the Romans, with all other strangers, to the amount of seventy thousand, were cruelly put to the sword. Flushed with these successes, the Britons no longer sought to avoid the enemy, but boldly came to the place where Paulinus awaited their arrival, posted in a very advantageous manner with a body of ten thousand men. The battle was obstinate and bloody. Boadicea herself appeared in a chariot with her two daughters, and harangued her army with masculine intrepidity; but the irregular and undisciplined bravery of her troops was unable to resist the cool intrepidity of the Romans. They were routed with great slaughter, eighty thousand perished in the field, and an infinite number were made prisoners, while Boadicea herself, fearing to fall into the hands of the enraged victor, put an end to her life by poison.

The general who finally established the dominion of the Romans in this island, was Julius Agricola, who governed it during the reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, and distinguished himself as well by his courage as humanity. For several years after his time a profound peace seems to have prevailed in Britain, and little mention is made of the affairs of the island by any historian. At length, however, Rome, that had for ages given laws to nations, and diffused slavery and oppression over the known world, began to sink under her own magnificence. Mankind, as if by a general consent, rose up to vindicate their natural freedom; almost every nation asserting that independence which they had been long so unjustly deprived of.

During these struggles, the British youth were frequently drawn away into Gaul, to give ineffectual succour to the various contenders for the empire, who failing in every attempt, only left the name of tyrants behind them. In the mean time, as the Roman forces decreased in Britain, the Picts and Scots continued still more boldly to infest the northern parts; and

crossing the Friths, which the Romans could not guard, in little wicker boats covered with leather, filled the country wherever they came with slaughter and consternation.

The Romans, therefore, finding it impossible to stand their ground in Britain, in the reign of the emperor Valentinian, took their last leave of the island, after being masters of it near four hundred years, and now left the natives to the choice of their own government and kings. They gave them the best instructions the calamitous times would permit, for exercising their arms and repairing their ramparts, and helped them to erect a-new a wall of stone built by the emperor Severus across the island, which they had not at that time artisans skilful enough among themselves to repair.

T

CHAP. IF.

THE SAXONS.

THE Britons being now left to themselves, considered their new liberties as their greatest calamity. The Picts and Scots uniting together, began to look upon Britain as their own, and attacked, with success, the northern wall which the Romans had built to keep off their incursions. Having thus opened to themselves a passage, they ravaged the whole country with impunity, while the Britons sought precarious shelter in their woods and mountains.

It was in this deplorable and enfeebled state that the Britons had recourse to the Saxons, a brave people, who for their strength and valour were formidable to all the German nations around them, and supposed to be more than a match for the gods themselves. They were a people restless and bold, who considered war as their trade; and were, in consequence, taught to consider victory as a doubtful advantage, but courage as a certain good. A nation, however, entirely addicted to war, has seldom wanted the imputation of cruelty, as those terrors which are opposed without fear are often inflicted without regret. The Saxons are represented as a very eruel nation: but we must remember that their enemies have drawn the picture.

It was no disagreeable circumstance to these ambitious people to be invited into a country upon which they had for ages before been forming designs. In consequence, therefore, of Vortigern's solemn invitation, who was then king of Britain, they arrived with fifteen hundred men, under the command of Hengist and Horsa, who were brothers, and

landed on the isle of Thanet. There they did not long remain inactive: but being joined by the British forces, they boldly marched against the Picts and Scots, who had advanced as far as Lincolnshire, and soon gained a complete victory over them.

The Saxons, however, being sensible of the fertility of the country to which they came, and the barrenness of that which they had left behind, invited over great numbers of their countrymen to become sharers in their new expedition. Accordingly, they received a fresh supply of five thousand men, who passed over in seventeen vessels, and soon made a permanent establishment in the island.

The British historians, in order to account for the easy conquest of their country by the Saxons, assign their treachery, not less than their valour, as a principal cause. They alledge that Vortigern was artfully inveigled into a passion for Rowena, the daughter of Hengist; and, in order to marry her, was induced to settle the fertile province of Kent upon her father, from whence the Saxons could never after be removed. It is alledged also, that upon the death of Vortimer which shortly happened after the victory he obtained at Eglesford, Vortigern his father was reinstated upon the throne. It is added that this weak monarch, accepting of a festival from Hengist, three hundred of his nobility were treacherously slaughtered, and himself detained as a captive.

After the death of Hengist, several other German tribes, allured by the success of their countrymen, went over in great numbers. A body of Saxons, under the conduct of Ælla and his three sons had some time before laid the foundation of the kingdom of the South Saxons, though not without great opposition and bloodshed. This new kingdom included Surry, Sussex, and the New Forest; and extended to the frontiers of Kent.

Another tribe of Saxons, under the command of Cerdic and his son Kenric, landed in the West, and from thence took the name of West Saxons. These met with a very vigorous opposition from the natives, but being reinforced from Germany, and assisted by their countrymen on the island, they routed the Britons; and although retarded in their progress by the celebrated King Arthur, they had strength enough to keep possession of the conquests they had already made. Cerdic, therefore, with his son Kenric, established the third Saxon kingdom in the island, namely, that of the West Saxons, including the counties of Hants, Dorset, Wilts, Berks, and the isle of Wight.

It was in opposing this Saxon inyader that the celebrated

prince Arthur acquired his fame. Howsoever unsuccessful all his valour might have been in the end, yet his name made so great a figure in the fabulous annals of the times, that some notice must be taken of him. This prince is of such obscure origin, that some authors suppose him to be the son of king Ambrosius, and others only his nephew: others again affirm that he was a Cornish prince, and son of Gurlois, king of that province. However this be, it is certain he was a commander of great valour, and if courage alone could have repaired the miserable state of the Britons, his might have been effectual. According to the most authentic historians, he is said to have worsted the Saxons in twelve successive battles. In one of these, namely, that fought at Caerbadon, in Berks, it is asserted that he killed no less than four hundred and forty of the enemy with his own hand. But the Saxons were too numerous and powerful to be extirpated by the desultory efforts of single valour; so that a peace, and not conquest, was the immediate fruit of his victories. The enemy, therefore, still gained ground; and this prince, in the decline of life, had the mortification, from some domestic troubles of his own, to be a patient spectator of their encroachments. His first wife had been carried off by Melnas, king of Somersetshire, who detained her a whole year at Glastonbury, until Arthur, discovering the place of her retreat, advanced with an army against the ravisher, and obliged him to give her back. In his second wife, perhaps, he might have been more fortunate, as we have no mention made of her; but it was otherwise with his third consort, who was debauched by his own nephew, Mordred. This produced a rebellion, in which the king and his traiterous kinsman meeting in battle, slew each other.

In the mean time, while the Saxons were thus gaining ground in the West, their countrymen were not less active in others parts of the island. Adventurers still continuing to pour over from Germany, one body of them, under the command of Uffa, seized upon the counties of Cambridge, Suffolk, and Norfolk, and gave their commander the title of king of the East Angles, which was the fourth Saxon kingdom founded in Britain.

Another body of these adventurers formed a kingdom under the title of East Saxony, or East Essex, comprehending Essex, Middlesex, and part of Hertfordshire. This kingdom which was dismembered from that of Kent, formed the fifth Saxon principality founded in Britain.

The kingdom of Mercia was the sixth which was established by these fierce invaders, comprehending all the middle

counties, from the banks of the Severn to the frontiers of the two last named kingdoms.

The seventh and last kingdom which they obtained was that of Northumberland, one of the most powerful and extensive of them all. This was formed from the union of two smaller Saxon kingdoms, the one called Bernicia, containing the present county of Northumberland and the bishoprick of Durham; the subjects of the other, called the Deiri, extending themselves over Lanchashire and Yorkshire. These kingdoms were united in the person of Ethelfrid, king of Northumberland, by the expulsion of Edwin, his brother-in-law, from the kingdom of the Deiri, and the seizure of his dominions. In this manner, the natives being overpowered, or entirely expelled, seven kingdoms were established in Britain, which have been since well known by the name of the Saxon Heptarchy.

The Saxons being thus established in all the desirable parts of the island, and having no longer the Britons to contend with, began to quarrel among themselves. A country divided into a number of petty independent principalities, must ever be subject to contention, as jealousy and ambition have more frequent incentives to operate. After a series, therefore, of battles, treasons, and stratagems, all these petty principalities fell under the power of Egbert, king of Wessex, whose merits deserved dominion, and whose prudence secured his conquests. By him all the kingdoms of the Heptarchy were united under the common jurisdiction; and to give splendour to his authority, a general council of the clergy and laity was summoned at Winchester, where he was solemnly crowned king of England, by which name the united kingdom was thenceforward called. Thus, about four hundred years after the first arrival of the Saxons in Britain, all the petty settlements were united into one great state, and nothing offered but prospects of peace, security, and increasing refinement.

It was about this period that St. Gregory undertook to send missionaries among the Saxons, to convert them to Christianity. It is said, that before this elevation to the papal chair, he chanced one day to pass through the slave-market at Rome, and perceiving some children of great beauty who were set up for sale, he enquired about their country, and finding they were English Pagans, he is said to have cried out, in the Latin language, Non Angli sed Angeli, forent, si essent Christiani, They would not be English, but Angels, had they been but Christians. From that time he was struck with an ardent desire to convert that unenlightened nation, and ordered a monk, named Augustine, and others of the same. ternity, to undertake the mission into Britain.