his subjects. It was now, therefore, resolved upon by the Britons to depose Vortigern, and to invest his son Vortimer with the administration of the kingdom.

This the Saxons could not fail to consider as a rupture between the two nations. The British chiefs, now roused to fury, with Vortimer at their head, prepared for war with the Saxons, who had already commenced hostilities. In the mean time, the clergy, seeing Vortigern's dissolute and incorrigible life, as well as being moved with his treachery to his country, solemnly excommunicated him, in a public synod convened for that purpose.

The first engagement between the Britons and the Saxons is said to have been fought at Darwent, in the sixth year after the coming over of Hengist and Horsa. The second was fought at Ailsford, according to the British chronicle; but the Saxon writers make this to be the first. Horsa, the brother of Hengist, and Cattigern, the son of Vortigern, fell in this action by mutual wounds. The chronicle gives the name of Episford to the place where this battle was fought; but that can be considered only as another name for Ailsford.

Two other battles soon ensued, in consequence of which the Saxons sustained a severe defeat, and were compelled to take refuge in the Isle of Thanet, from whence they embarked for Germany.

-That the Saxons at this time sustained an overwhelming defeat, appears from the circumstance, that Hengist ventured not to land on the shores of Britain until after the expiration of five years. About that time, Vortigern resuming the government (Vortimer having been poisoned by his step-mother Rowena), either gave an invitation to Hengist to come over once more to Britain; or that chieftain considered it a favourable juncture for his purpose.

Hengist landed with a powerful force under his command; but having had proofs of the valour of the Britons, and knowing how formidable they might prove, had recourse to an infernal stroke of policy. He pretended, in a message dispatched to the king, that his return was connected with no hostile design; that, being ignorant of the death of Vortimer, his intention was to come to the aid of his father-in-law, and to establish him on the throne; and that, seeing he was once more raised to that dignity, he was entirely at his disposal, and would retain or dismiss any number of his forces, according to his desire.

The weak and perfidious monarch admitted of the specious plea; and, moreover, consented to the proposal, that a national congress of the chiefs of the island should be convened, in order to concert the terms upon which a treaty of amity and alliance should be formed between the two nations. The Britons, on the first of May, were accustomed to hold a grand festival, in a place suitable for a general assemblage. Such a situation they had on Salisbury plain, where the performance of certain sacred rites was celebrated, in conjunction with every kind of festivity.*

The British chiefs, trusting to the sacredness of the occasion, and the honour of treaties, came unarmed; while the Saxon had enjoined his adherents to conceal their weapons; that, at a signal to be given in the season of joy and festivity, every man should act his part with cool and undaunted resolution. At an hour when the Britons were lost to every thought but that of pleasure, in the midst of the Mead-horns, Hengist exclaimed, in the language of their country, Draw your daggers.

*The situation was a grand heathen temple, and a place of national convention, which latter purpose it still served.

A dreadful carnage ensued, in which four hundred and sixty British chieftains are stated to have fallen at the feet of the perfidious Saxons. One nobleman, Eidol, the earl of Gloucester, is said to have performed feats of the most heroic valour; he slew no less than seventy Saxons with a truncheon!

The Saxons, according to the British history, now insisted on their own terms; and four of the principal towns were delivered into their hands, the king being speciously detained as a prisoner, as if reluctant to comply with their demands.

In the mean time Ambrosius, called by the Welsh Emrys Wledig, the rival of Vortigern, being supported by the chiefs of Cornwall, and the Armoric Britons, was preparing to put in his claim to the supreme command, as pendragon, or stadtholder of the Britons. Among other persons of consideration, the clergy gave their support to this young chieftain, who met now with no opposition, Vortigern being generally abhorred by all ranks.

As to the treacherous convention between the Saxons and the Britons on Salisbury plain, it would be well could it be blotted out of the page of history; but the mournful strains of Golyddan, a Bard of that age, as well as the faithful tradition handed down from age to age, render it a place in the black catalogue of erimes recorded in ancient history. At the end of the following chapter, the reader will find an extract from the Arymes Prydain, a celebrated poem of Galyddan, who was a northern Bard.

The perfidious Vortigern, now completely detested, fled to his own hereditary dominions among the Silurians; and shut himself up in a place called Gronow castle, in Herefordshire, on the banks of the Wye. This last retreat of the monarch was set on fire; and he

was consumed in the flames, at the instigation, it is said, of Ambrosius, his rival; whom the Britons preferred to the command of the army, and the government of the country.

It is rather uncertain at what time Emrys, or Ambrosius, was elected sovereign, or pendragon, of the Britons. Mr. Owen gives the date of A.D. 481, but it must have been considerably earlier.

The battle of Wyppet's Fleot, in Kent, was fought in the year 465; twelve British chieftains of distinction, with several thousands of inferior warriors, fell in that conflict.

"The name of Hengist," says Mr. Turner, “has been surrounded with terror, and his steps with victory: from Kent he is affirmed to have carried devastation into the remotest corner of the island; to have spared neither age, sex, nor condition; to have slaughtered the priests on the altar; to have butchered in heaps the people who fled to the mountains and deserts." In contradiction to all this, our author ventures to affirm, that all the battles of Hengist were either fought in Kent, or at no great distance from that territory, which he acquired for himself, and left to his posterity.* That what Gildas relates as the general consequences of all the Saxon invasions, ought not to be applied too hastily to the first successes of Hengist, is a just observation. I would add, that our British ancestors were not so unwarlike as to be driven before a few foreigners, like a herd of cattle, and without resistance, to be at their mercy on the contrary, they fought well, and valiantly for their liberty and independence for more than a cen

* The general account of Vortigern, as well as Hengist, appears to be greatly exaggerated. His authority most probably did not extend further than over the Cambro-Britons; and several transactions ascribed to him ought to be attributed rather to some Kentish prince,

tury; and some of them still continued the invincible Britons.

After the battle of Wippet's Fleot, in which the Saxon writers ascribe the victory to the enemy, the Britons having given such proofs of their valour, were not annoyed for some time; the Saxons confining themselves, we are told, to the territory they had acquired in Kent.

When Hengist and his son Esca found themselves competent to renew their attacks upon the Britons, they carried havoc and desolation into the neighbouring territories, until the inhabitants flew to arms, and checked their ravages.

Ambrosius, in order to restrain the Saxons of Northumberland, and to prevent their forming a junction with their brethren of Kent, projected an alliance with the Scots, independently of the Picts, who were the staunch friends and confederates of the Saxons. "These two nations, (to use the words of a respectable historian,) had already begun to be infected with mutual jealousy and distrust ; and many disputes had happened between them about the division of the lands and plunder which they had ravished from the Britons; so that their friendship was in the wane, when Ambrosius made his proposals to the Scots, who found them too advantageous to be rejected.* He ceded to them the lands between the friths (rather between the walls); and they engaged to harass the northern Saxons with incessant irruptions. They performed their part of the contract with incredible alacrity and perseverance, because they found their account in pillaging a rich industrious people by surprise; and this alliance with Ambrosius, but especially the cession of the regnum Cumbrense, was productive of a long and

* In a celebrated poem, called Arymes Prydain, written, it is supposed, by Golyddan, evident reference is made to those Hibernian Scots fighting with the Cymry.