though many of them afterwards crossed the sea to the part of Northern Britain where Argyleshire is now, and later on gave the name of Scotland, or the land of the Scots, to the northern part of our island. The Picts lived to the north of the Firths of Clyde and Forth before the Scots came. These Scots and Picts came amongst the Britons, plundering and killing. The Britons had always been defended by the Roman army, and feeling quite helpless they wrote to the Roman general to bring his soldiers back. The general did as he was asked, drove off the Scots and Picts, and then went away for ever. The Scots and Picts returned. A people which cannot defend itself is likely to meet with no mercy.

CHAPTER II.

THE ENGLISH CONQUEST.

1. Coming of the English.-The Britons spoke a language which was the same as that which some of the Welsh, who are descended from them, still speak. The Scots and Picts spoke a language not very different. Beyond the North Sea was a different people living on both sides of the mouth of the river Elbe. They were called Angles, and Saxons, and Jutes, speaking a language which was German, though it was not quite the same as the German . spoken in Germany now. It is called Low German,

and was more like the Dutch language. The Angles, and Saxons, and Jutes were as fierce as the Scots and Picts. They had small vessels and were hardy sailors. They came across the sea, plundering,

and burning, and slaying, like the Scots and Picts. About the year 449, some Jutes, said to have been led by Hengist and Horsa, landed in the Isle of Thanet. Other chiefs with bands of armed followers landed in other parts of the island. They did not bring law

and order for the Britons as the Romans had done. They slew or drove away most of the Britons, dividing their land amongst themselves. They did not care to live in towns, as they had always been accustomed to live in the country. So they either burnt the towns and left them desolate, or else suffered them to decay till at a later time they too learned to live in towns and to trade.

2. Fate of a Roman Town near Pevensey.-A curious example of the way in which the towns were treated is to be found on the coast of Sussex, between Hastings and Eastbourne. There is to be seen the spot where once was the flourishing Roman city of Anderida. The Roman walls are still there, firmly built with that mortar which the Romans knew how to make, and which is harder than even the stones which it binds together. Inside is a green flat space with no trace of any building except in one corner, where are the ruins of a castle built there long after the days of the Romans. The Saxon conqueror could not destroy the city wall. He destroyed the houses inside it. He liked better to live outside. Two little villages in front of the old gates of the City tell us by their names the language to which they belong and what sort of men they were who came there. To the West is West Ham— that is to say, the western home of some settler whose name we do not know. To the East is Pevensey, the meaning of which name is the Island of Peofn ; and Peofn, no doubt, was the one amongst the conquerors who fixed his abode there.

3. Gradual conquest of Britain. These Saxons and

Jutes, and Angles did not conquer the country all at once. Like the Britons before the Romans came, they did not form one people, but lived separately, each tribe by itself. Many of our counties bear the names of these tribes. The East Saxons lived in Essex, the Middle Saxons in Middlesex, the South Saxons in Sussex. At first the conquest was not very difficult. The south-eastern part of England had been more civilised by the Romans than the rest of the country. It was richer because it was nearer to the Continent, and the people who lived in it traded with those who lived beyond the sea. Its inhabitants were also less warlike than those who lived in the Western hills, so that the conquest was easiest here. In the south-east there had been formed four small kingdoms, Kent, answering to the modern county; Sussex, including the modern Sussex and Surrey, Essex, including the modern Essex and Middlesex; and East Anglia, including Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire. In the north and west the struggle was harder, and the conquerors found it necessary to join their small tribes together in order that they might bring a stronger force against the enemy. The three larger kingdoms were those of Northumberland, or the land North of the Humber as far as the Clyde, of Mercia, occupying the centre of the country, and of Wessex, the land of the West Saxons, occupying the country westward from the border of Sussex. These three went on fighting with the Britons. In 128 years of conflict they had pushed their frontier as far as the chain of the hills known as the Pennine range, and thence scuth