tory. But they have never been obscure. In the tenth, and eleventh, and twelfth centuries, colonies of their population settled themselves in 12 Hungary and Transilvania 13; and allied themselves by marriages with the ruder chieftains of those regions. Saxon dukes became emperors of Germany soon after the separation of this dignity from the crown of France. Branches from their stem have formed the most illustrious princes in the north of Germany, and Saxony has the honour of having given birth to the great Reformer of Christianity in the fifteenth century, and her chieftains of successfully supporting this intellectual emancipation and improvement, till it became impossible for power or craft to suppress it. A king of Saxony still exists, though with dismembered dominions, and the country yet presents a people of the most cultivated mind of all the German continent. The rise of the Saxon nation has been, therefore, singularly propitious to human improvement. It created a new formation of mind and manners, and polity in the world, whose beneficial results the state and history of England expressively display. No events tended more to civilise Germany from the third century to the eleventh, than the activity, leagues, colonies, conquests, and transactions of this people. All the improvements of Germany, beyond what Rome imparted, have arisen from the Saxon and the Frankish mind. They kept from it the more barbarous population of the Slavonians and the Huns, and the rude heroes of Scandinavia and the Baltic. The imperial reigns of the house of Saxony, notwithstanding the faults of some of its princes, principally contributed to establish the 12 See the Chronicles of Hungary, of Thwrocz, pars ii. c. 11. c. 22. 13 See the authorities collected by Eder on this point, in his De initiis, juribusque primævis Saxonum Transilvanorum. Comment. p. 17. and 63-78. Flemings, Hollanders, and others also went there, ibid. Ed. Vienn. 1792. CHAP. VI. BOOK II. German independence, civilisation, and prosperity during the middle ages. But the beneficial agencies of this race on the continent having diminished, other nations, whom they assisted to form and educate, are now obtaining a political, and will probably gain a mental, preponderance; unless Saxony, in her adversity, shall regain a moral one-the great foundation of all intellectual superiority. CHAP. VII. The History of BRITAIN elucidated from the Death of MAXIMUS in 388, to the final Departure of the ROMANS. SOON after the termination of the fourth century, the Saxon invasion of England occurred. It will be, therefore, useful to consider the state of the island at that time. A just perception of the events which occurred in Britain previous to their arrival, will illustrate the causes of their success, and remove some of the difficulties with which this portion of our history, from a want of careful criticism, has been peculiarly embarrassed. It is true that the transactions of the natives of Britain from the fall of Maximus to the Saxon invasion are almost lost to us, from the want of accurate historiographers of this period. But the more defective our information, the greater should be our care and diligence to profit by the notices which can be gleaned and combined from the contemporary documents. These indeed are few. The crude declamation of Gildas, Bede's extracts from him, the abrupt intimations of Nennius, and Jeffry's historical romance, or rather amplification of Nennius, with many additions from unknown sources, or from his own invention, and a few lines in some other Latin authors, are all the original documents which either Britons or Saxons have left us on this curious and important interval. The querulous and vague invectives of Gildas have been reduced to some chronology by Bede; and the broken narrations of Nennius have been dramatised by Jeffry but the labours of Bede have not lessened CHAP. VIL BOOK II. Bede's of this pe riod erroneous. the original obscurity of Gildas: and all that the imagination of Jeffry has effected has been to people the gloom with fantastic shapes, which, in our search for authentic history, only make us welcome the darkness that they vainly attempt to remove.1 The chronology into which Bede has distorted the chronology rhetoric of Gildas, was erroneously framed and chosen by our venerable and valuable historian. His authority, which his learning would in any age make respectable, has been peculiarly impressive, because, without his ecclesiastical history, we should have lost almost all knowledge of the Anglo-Saxons for three centuries after their establishment in this island. With unsuspicious deference, our historians have rather studied Gildas as he has been transcribed by Bede, than in his own composition; and thus they have governed the chronology of this interesting interval by the authority of Bede, without examining if Bede has not been himself mistaken. Rise and It will much assist our inquiry to take a general survey of the history of the Roman empire at this period. While Gratian governed the western empire, and Theodosius the eastern, the legions of Britain, which 333-388. had so often been conspicuous for their turbulence, Maximus, 1 In the Archaiology of Wales are two copies of Jeffry's History in Welsh; but they are not entitled to more historical respect than his Latin work. The Welsh triads have some curious notices concerning the ancient history of the Britons; but these are very unlike the fables of Jeffry; and this dissimilarity, while it makes the most ancient triads more respectable, increases our disrespect for his work, whether in Welsh or Latin. Some of the triads, indeed, which have a more modern aspect, seem to be taken from Jeffry's history. But I cannot believe that this history, whether first written by Tyssilio, Caradoc of Lancarvan, or Jeffry, was in existence, in its present details, before the eleventh century. Some of its incidents may have been earlier traditional stories; but their present arrangement, chronology, and details, and the amplifications and additions with which they are accompanied, appear to me to be fictitious, and unauthorised; fully as much so as those of Saxo Grammaticus. The true cannot now be separated from the invented. We are therefore compelled to discredit the whole. 2 Bede postpones the invasions of the Picts and Scots, and the coming of the legions, until after Constantine. I have considered attentively the reasonings of his ingenious editor in his behalf, but I cannot coincide in his opinion. See Smith's Bede, App. p. 672. seceded from their allegiance to Gratian; and, in concert with the Britons, appointed Maximus, a Spaniard by birth, but then in the Roman service in Britain, to be their emperor in his stead. He was a man of great merit. He accepted the dangerous honour, and prepared to support it. Perhaps, if he had been contented to have reigned in Britain, his throne might have been perpetuated, and then a new destiny would have changed the fortune of England and the western world. The Saxons would in that case not have obtained Britain; and a Roman British kingdom might have stemmed the barbaric torrent that afterwards overwhelmed the empire. But either from the desire of extending his dominion into his native country, or because the dignity and life of the new sovereign were insecure until victory had confirmed the usurpation, he collected a great body of British youth, and with these he passed into Gaul. Many wonders have been fabled of his levies, and of the fatal effects of their absence from the island. Many legends of the most ridiculous nature have been appended, which grave historians have believed.1 That he raised all the force from Britain which he could collect is probable, because he had a great 3 Zos. lib. iv. p. 247. Socrates, lib. iv. c. 11. Sulpicius gives him a high chaVir omni vitæ merito etiam predicandus, if he had refused the offered Dial. ii. c. 7. racter. diadem. 4 See Usher, 617–636. Ib. 200. This affair, as stated by Jeffry, lib. v. c. 14., is, that Maximus ordered 100,000 common people and 30,000 soldiers out of Britain, to colonise Armorica; c. 15. he desired wives for them; and c. 16. the king of Cornwall sent Ursula, his beauteous daughter, with 11,000 noble ladies, and 60,000 meaner women, who embarked at London. Great storms drowned part, and Guanius king of the Huns, and Melga king of the Picts, murdered the others, who resolved to be virtuous. Johan Major will have Ursula to be the daughter of the Scottish king, that Scotland may have the credit of her story. A lady settles the point by averring that Verena, one of the virgins, assured her, in an express revelation, that the blessed Ursula was a Scotswoman; her convenient visions also authenticated their relics !! Vision Elizabeth, lib. iv. c. 2. Usher Primord. 618 -624. Baronius, who with others countenances the emigration, mentions, that the Martyrologies devoted the 11th October to the memory of Ursula and the 71,000; a day still religiously observed at Cologne for this superstitious incident. Some affirm, that no person can be buried at Cologne in the place where they were said to have lain, because the ground throws up other corpses, which some deny !! Usher, 202. and 993. CHAP. VII. |