tary island, accessible on all sides to the Saxon fleets. The successive colonies which issued, in the period of a century, from the mouths of the Elbe, the Weser, and the Rhine, were principally composed of three valiant tribes or nations of Germany; the Jutes, the old Saxons, and the Angles. The Jutes, who fought under the peculiar banner of Hengist, assumed the merit of leading their countrymen in the paths of glory, and of erecting in Kent, the first independent kingdom. The fame of the enterprise was attributed to the primitive Saxons; and the common laws and language of the conquerors are described by the national appellation of a people, which, at the end of four hundred years, produced the first monarchs of South Britain. The Angles were distinguished by their numbers and their success; and they claimed the honour of fixing a perpetual name on the country, of which they occupied the most ample portion. The barbarians, who followed the hopes of rapine, either on the land or sea, were insensibly blended with this triple confederacy; the Frisians, who had been tempted by their vicinity to the British shores, might balance, during a short space, the strength and reputation of the native Saxons; the Danes, the Prussians, the Rugians, are faintly described; and some adventurous Huns, who had wandered as far as the Baltic, might embark on board the German vessels, for the conquest of a new world. But this arduous achievement was not prepared or executed by the union of national powers. Each intrepid chieftain, according to the measure of his fame and fortunes, assembled his followers; equipped a fleet of three, or perhaps of sixty, vessels; chose the place of the attack; and conducted his subsequent operations according to the events of the war, and the dictates of his private interest. In the invasion of Britain many heroes P All these tribes are expressly enumerated by Bede; (lib. 1. c. 15. p. 52; lib. 5. c. 9. p. 190.) and though I have considered Mr. Whitaker's remarks, (Hist. of Manchester, vol. 2. p. 538-543.) I do not perceive the absurdity of supposing that the Frisians, &c. were mingled with the Anglo-Saxons. vanquished and fell; but only seven victorious leaders assumed, or at least maintained, the title of kings. Seven independent thrones, the Saxon heptarchy, were founded by the conquerors, and seven families, one of which has been continued, by female succession, to our present sovereign, derived their equal and sacred lineage from Woden, the god of war, it has been pretended, that this republic of kings was moderated by a general council and a supreme magistrate. But such an artificial scheme of policy is repugnant to the rude and turbulent spirit of the Saxons: their laws are silent; and their imperfect annals afford only a dark and bloody prospect of intestine discord. State of the A monk, who, in the profound ignorance of Britons. human life, has presumed to exercise the office of historian, strangely disfigures the state of Britain at the time of its separation from the western empire. Gildas' describes in florid language the improvements of agriculture, the foreign trade which flowed with every tide into the Thames and the Severn, the solid and lofty construction of public and private edifices: he accuses the sinful luxury of the British people; of a people, according to the same writer, ignorant of the most simple arts, and incapable, without the aid of the Romans, of providing walls of stone, or weapons of iron, for the defence of their native land. Under the long dominion of the emperors, Britain had been insensibly moulded into the elegant and servile form of a Roman province, whose safety was intrusted to a foreign power. The subjects of Honorius contemplated their new freedom with surprise and terror; they were left destitute of any 4 Bede has enumerated seven kings, two Saxons, a Jute, and four Angles, who successively acquired in the heptarchy an indefinite supremacy of power and renown. But their reign was the effect, not of law, but of conquest; but he observes, in similar terms, that one of them subdued the isles of Man and Anglesey; and that another imposed a tribute on the Scots and Picts. (Hist. Eccles. lib. 2. c. 5. p. 83.) See Gildas de Excidio Britanniæ, c. 1. p. 1. edit. Gale. Mr. Whitaker (History of Manchester, vol. 2. p. 503. 516.) has smartly exposed this glaring absurdity, which had passed unnoticed by the general historians, as they were hastening to more interesting and important events. civil or military constitution; and their uncertain rulers wanted either skill, or courage, or authority, to direct the public force against the common enemy. The introduction of the Saxons betrayed their internal weakness, and degraded the character both of the prince and people. Their consternation magnified the danger; the want of union diminished their resources; and the madness of civil factions was more solicitous to accuse, than to remedy, the evils, which they imputed to the misconduct of their adversaries. Yet the Britons were not ignorant, they could not be ignorant, of the manufacture or the use of arms: the successive and disorderly attacks of the Saxons, allowed them to recover from their amazement, and the prosperous or adverse events of the war added discipline and experience to their native valour. Their re While the continent of Europe and Africa sistance, yielded without resistance to the barbarians, the British island, alone and unaided, maintained a long, a vigorous, though an unsuccessful struggle, against the formidable pirates, who, almost at the same instant, assaulted the northern, the eastern, and the southern coasts. The cities which had been fortified with skill, were defended with resolution; the advantages of ground, hills, forests, and morasses, were diligently improved by the inhabitants; the conquest of each district was purchased with blood; and the defeats of the Saxons are strongly attested by the discreet silence of their annalist. Hengist might hope to achieve the conquest of Britain; but his ambition, in an active reign of thirty-five years, was confined to the possession of Kent; and the numerous colony which he had planted in the north, was extirpated by the sword of the Britons. The monarchy of the West-Saxons was laboriously founded by the persevering efforts of three martial generations. The life of Cerdic, one of the bravest of the children of Woden, was consumed in the conquest of 2 K VOL. IV. Hampshire, and the isle of Wight; and the loss which he sustained in the battle of mount Badon, reduced him to a state of inglorious repose. Kenric, his valiant son, advanced into Wiltshire; besieged Salisbury, at that time seated on a commanding eminence; and vanquished an army which advanced to the relief of the city. In the subsequent battle of Marlborough,' his British enemies displayed their military science. Their troops were formed in three lines; each line consisted of three distinct bodies, and the cavalry, the archers, and the pikemen, were distributed according to the principles of Roman tactics. The Saxons charged in one weighty column, boldly encountered with their short swords the long lances of the Britons, and maintained an equal conflict till the approach of night. Two decisive victories, the death of three British kings, and the reduction of Cirencester, Bath, and Gloucester, established the fame and power of Ceaulin, the grandson of Cerdic, who carried his victorious arms to the banks of the Severn. After a war of a hundred years, the indeand flight. pendent Britons still occupied the whole extent of the western coast, from the wall of Antoninus to the extreme promontory of Cornwall; and the principal cities of the inland country still opposed the arms of the barbarians. Resistance became more languid, as the number and boldness of the assailants continually increased. Winning their way by slow and painful efforts, the Saxons, the Angles, and their various confederates, advanced from the north, from the east, and from the south, till their victorious banners were united in the centre of the island. Beyond the Severn, the Britons still asserted their national freedom, which sur At Beran-birig, or Barbury castle, near Marlborough. The Saxon Chronicle assigns the name and date. Camden (Britannia, vol. 1. p. 128.) ascertains the place; and Henry of Huntingdon (Scriptores post Bedam, p. 314.) relates the cir cumstances of this battle. They are probable and characteristic; and the historians of the twelfth century might consult some materials that no longer exist. vived the heptarchy, and even the monarchy, of the Saxons. The bravest warriors, who preferred exile to slavery, found a secure refuge in the mountains of Wales: the reluctant submission of Cornwall was delayed for some ages;" and a band of fugitives acquired a settlement in Gaul, by their own valour, or the liberality of the Merovingan kings. The western angle of Armorica acquired the new appellations of Cornwall, and the Lesser Britain; and the vacant lands of the Osismii were filled by a strange people, who, under the authority of their counts and bishops, preserved the laws and language of their ancestors. To the feeble descendants of Clovis and Charlemagne, the Britons of Armorica refused the customary tribute, subdued the neighbouring diocesses of Vannes, Rennes, and Nantes, and formed a powerful, though vassal state, which has been united to the crown of France. The fame In a century of perpetual, or at least implaof Arthur. cable war, much courage, and some skill, must have been exerted for the defence of Britain. Yet if the memory of its champions is almost buried in oblivion, we need not repine; since every age, however destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts " Cornwall was finally subdued by Athelstan, (A. D. 927-941.) who planted an English colony at Exeter, and confined the Britons beyond the river Tamar. See William of Malmsbury, lib. 2. in the Scriptores post Bedam, p. 50. The spirit of the Cornish knights was degraded by servitude; and it should seem, from the romance of sir Tristram, that their cowardice was almost proverbial. * The establishment of the Britons in Gaul is proved in the sixth century, by Procopius, Gregory of Tours, the second council of Tours, (A. D. 567.) and the least suspicious of their chronicles and lives of saints. The subscription of a bishop of the Britons to the first council of Tours, (A. D. 461. or rather 481.) the army of Riothamus, and the loose declamation of Gildas (alii transmarinas petebant regiones, c. 25. p. 8.) may countenance an emigration as early as the middle of the fifth century. Beyond that era, the Britons of Armorica can be found only in romance; and I am surprised that Mr. Whitaker (Genuine History of the Britons, p. 214-221.) should so faithfully transcribe the gross ignorance of Carte, whose venial errors he has so rigorously chastised. y The antiquities of Bretagne, which have been the subject even of political controversy, are illustrated by Hadrian Valesius, (Notitia Galliarum, sub voce Britannia Cismarina, p. 98-100.) M. d'Anville, (Notice de l'Ancienne Gaul, Corisopiti, Curiosolites, Osismii, Vorganium, p. 248. 258. 508.720. and Etats de l'Europe, p.76 -80.)Longuerue, (Description de la France, tom. 1. p. 84-94.) and the abbé de Vertot. (Hist. Critique de l'Etablissement des Bretons dans les Gaules, 2 vols. in 12mo. Paris, 1720.) I may assume the merit of examining the original evidence which they have produced. |