Of all the barbarous nations, known either in ancient or modern times,
the Germans seem to have been the most distinguished both by their
manners and political institutions, and to have carried to the highest
pitch the virtues of valour and love of liberty; the only virtues
which can have place among an uncivilized people, where justice and
humanity are commonly neglected. Kingly government, even when
established among the Germans, (for it was not universal,) possessed a
very limited authority; and though the sovereign was usually chosen
from among the royal family, he was directed in every measure by the
common consent of the nation over whom he presided. When any
important affairs were transacted, all the warriors met in arms; the
men of greatest authority employed persuasion to engage their consent;
the people expressed their approbation by rattling their armour, or
their dissent by murmurs; there was no necessity for a nice scrutiny
of votes among a multitude, who were usually carried with a strong
current to one side or the other; and the measure thus suddenly chosen
by general agreement, was executed with alacrity and prosecuted with
vigour. Even in war, the princes governed more by example than by
authority; but in peace the civil union was in a great measure
dissolved, and the inferior leaders administered justice after an
independent manner, each in his particular district. These were
elected by the votes of the people in their great councils; and though
regard was paid to nobility in the choice, their personal qualities,
chiefly their valour, procured them, from the suffrages of their
fellow-citizens, that honourable but dangerous distinction. The
warriors of each tribe attached themselves to their leader with the
most devoted affection and most unshaken constancy. They attended him
as his ornament in peace, as his defence in war, as his council in the
administration of justice. Their constant emulation in military
renown dissolved not that inviolable friendship which they professed
to their chieftain and to each other: to die for the honour of their
band was their chief ambition: to survive its disgrace, or the death
of their leader, was infamous. They even carried into the field their
women and children, who adopted all the martial sentiments of the men:
and being thus impelled by every human motive, they were invincible;
where they were not opposed either by the similar manners and
institutions of the neighbouring Germans, or by the superior
discipline, arms, and numbers of the Romans [b].
[ [b] Caesar, lib. 6. Tacit. de Mor. Germ.]
The leaders and their military companions were maintained by the
labour of their slaves, or by that of the weaker and less warlike part
of the community, whom they defended. The contributions which they
levied went not beyond a bare subsistence; and the honours, acquired
by a superior rank, were the only reward of their superior dangers and
fatigues. All the refined arts of life were unknown among the
Germans: tillage itself was almost wholly neglected: they even seem to
have been anxious to prevent any improvements of that nature; and the
leaders, by annually distributing anew all the land among the
inhabitants of each village, kept them from attaching themselves to
particular possessions, or making such progress in agriculture as
might divert their attention from military expeditions, the chief
occupation of the community [c].
[ [c] Caesar, lib. 6. Tacit. de Mor. Germ.]
The Saxons had been for some time regarded as one of the most warlike
tribes of this fierce people, and had become the terror of the
neighbouring nations [d]. They had diffused themselves from the
northern parts of Germany and the Cimbrian Chersonesus, and had taken
possession of all the sea-coast from the mouth of the Rhine to
Jutland; whence they had long infested by their piracies all the
eastern and southern parts of Britain, and the northern of Gaul [e].
In order to oppose their inroads, the Romans had established an
officer, whom they called COUNT OF THE SAXON SHORE; and as the naval
arts can flourish among a civilized people alone, they seem to have
been more successful in repelling the Saxons, than any of the other
barbarians by whom they were invaded. The dissolution of the Roman
power invited them to renew their inroads; and it was an acceptable
circumstance, that the deputies of the Britons appeared among them,
and prompted them to undertake an enterprise, to which they were of
themselves sufficiently inclined [f].
[ d Amm. Marcell. lib. 28. Orosius.
[e] Marcell. lib. 27. cap. 7.
lib. 28. cap. 7.
[f] Will. Malm. p. 8.]
Hengist and Horsa, two brothers, possessed great credit among the
Saxons, and were much celebrated both for their valour and nobility.
They were reputed, as most of the Saxon princes, to be sprung from
Woden, who was worshipped as a god among those nations, and they are
said to be his great grandsons [g]; a circumstance which added much to
their authority. We shall not attempt to trace any higher the origin
of those princes and nations. It is evident what fruitless labour it
must be to search, in those barbarous and illiterate ages, for the
annals of a people, when their first leaders, known in any true
history, were believed by them to be the fourth in descent from a
fabulous deity, or from a man exalted by ignorance into that
character. The dark industry of antiquaries, led by imaginary
analogies of names, or by uncertain traditions, would in vain attempt
to pierce into that deep obscurity which covers the remote history of
those nations.
[ [g] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15. Saxon Chron. p. 13. Nennius, cap.
28.]
These two brothers, observing the other provinces of Germany to be
occupied by a warlike and necessitous people, and the rich provinces
of Gaul already conquered or overrun by other German tribes, found it
easy to persuade their countrymen to embrace the sole enterprise which
promised a favourable opportunity of displaying their valour and
gratifying their avidity. They embarked their troops in three
vessels, and about the year 449 or 450 [h], carried over 1600 men, who
landed in the Isle of Thanet, and immediately marched to the defence
of the Britons against the northern invaders. The Scots and Picts
were unable to resist the valour of these auxiliaries; and the
Britons, applauding their own wisdom in calling over the Saxons, hoped
thenceforth to enjoy peace and security under the powerful protection
of that warlike people.
[ [h] Saxon Chronicle, p. 12. Gul. Malm. p. 11. Huntington, lib.
2. p. 309. Ethelwerd. Brompton, p. 728.]
But Hengist and Horsa perceiving, from their easy victory over the
Scots and Picts, with what facility they might subdue the Britons
themselves, who had not been able to resist those feeble invaders,
were determined to conquer and fight for their own grandeur, not for
the defence of their degenerate allies. They sent intelligence to
Saxony of the fertility and riches of Britain; and represented as
certain the subjection of a people so long disused to arms, who, being
now cut off from the Roman empire, of which they had been a province
during so many ages, had not yet acquired any union among themselves,
and were destitute of all affection to their new liberties and of all
national attachments and regards [i]. The vices and pusillanimity of
Vortigern, the British leader, were a new ground of hope; and the
Saxons in Germany, following such agreeable prospects, soon reinforced
Hengist and Horsa with 5000 men, who came over in seventeen vessels.
The Britons now began to entertain apprehensions of their allies,
whose numbers they found continually augmenting; but thought of no
remedy, except a passive submission and connivance. This weak
expedient soon failed them. The Saxons sought a quarrel, by
complaining that their subsidies were ill paid, and their provisions
withdrawn [k]; and immediately taking off the mask, they formed an
alliance with the Picts and Scots, and proceeded to open hostility
against the Britons.
[ [i] Chron. Sax. p. 12. Ann. Beverl. p. 42.
[k] Bede, lib. 1.
cap. 15. Nennius, cap. 35. Gildas, Sec. 23.]
The Britons, impelled by these violent extremities, and roused to
indignation against their treacherous auxiliaries, were necessitated
to take arms; and having deposed Vortigern, who had become odious from
his vices, and from the bad event of his rash counsels, they put
themselves under the command of his son, Vortimer. They fought many
battles with their enemies; and though the victories in these actions
be disputed between the British and Saxon annalists, the progress
still made by the Saxons proves that the advantage was commonly on
their side. In one battle, however, fought at Eaglesford, now
Ailsford, Horsa, the Saxon general, was slain, and left the sole
command over his countrymen in the hands of Hengist. This active
general, continually reinforced by fresh numbers from Germany, carried
devastation into the most remote corners of Britain; and being chiefly
anxious to spread the terror of his arms, he spared neither age, nor
sex, nor condition, wherever he marched with his victorious forces.
The private and public edifices of the Britons were reduced to ashes:
the priests were slaughtered on the altars by those idolatrous
ravagers: the bishops and nobility shared the fate of the vulgar: the
people, flying to the mountains and deserts, were intercepted and
butchered in heaps: some were glad to accept of life and servitude
under their victors: others, deserting their native country, took
shelter in the province of Armorica; where, being charitably received
by a people of the same language and manners, they settled in great
numbers, and gave the country the name of Britany [l].
[ [l] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15. Usher, p.226. Gildas, Sec. 24.]
The British writers assign one cause which facilitated the entrance of
the Saxons into this island; the love with which Vortigern was at
first seized for Rovena, the daughter of Hengist, and which that
artful warrior made use of to blind the eyes of the imprudent monarch
[m]. The same historians add, that Vortimer died; and that Vortigern,
being restored to the throne, accepted of a banquet from Hengist, at
Stonehenge, where 300 of his nobility were treacherously slaughtered,
and himself detained captive [n]. But these stories seem to have been
invented by the Welsh authors, in order to palliate the weak
resistance made at first by their countrymen, anal to account for the
rapid progress and licentious devastations of the Saxons [o].
[ [m] Nennius, Galfr. lib. 6. cap. 12.
[n] Nennius, cap. 47.
Galfr.
[o] Stillingfleet's Orig. Brit. p. 324, 325.]
After the death of Vortimer, Ambrosius, a Briton, though of Roman
descent, invested with the command over his countrymen, and
endeavoured, not without success, to unite them in their resistance
against the Saxons. Those contests increased the animosity between the
two nations, and roused the military spirit of the ancient
inhabitants, which had before been sunk into a fatal lethargy.
Hengist, however, notwithstanding their opposition, still maintained
his ground in Britain; and in order to divide the forces and attention
of the natives, he called over a new tribe of Saxons, under the
command of his brother Octa, and of Ebissa, the son of Octa; and he
settled them in Northumberland. He himself remained in the southern
parts of the island, and laid the foundation of the kingdom of Kent,
comprehending the county of that name, Middlesex, Essex, and part of
Surrey. He fixed his royal seat at Canterbury; where he governed
about forty years, and he died in or near the year 488; leaving his
new-acquired dominions to his posterity.
The success of Hengist excited the avidity of the other northern
Germans; and at different times, and under different leaders, they
flocked over in multitudes to the invasion of this island. These
conquerors were chiefly composed of three tribes, the Saxons, Angles,
and Jutes [p], who all passed under the common appellation, sometimes
of Saxons, sometimes of Angles; and speaking the same language, and
being governed by the same institutions, they were naturally led, from
these causes, as well as from their common interest, to unite
themselves against the ancient inhabitants. The resistance, however,
though unequal, was still maintained by the Britons; but became every
day more feeble; and their calamities admitted of few intervals, till
they were driven into Cornwall and Wales, and received protection from
the remote situation or inaccessible mountains of those countries.
[ [p] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15. Ethelwerd, p. 833. edit. Camdeni.
Chron. Sax. p. 12. Ann. Beverl. p. 78. The inhabitants of Kent, and
the Isle of Wight were Jutes. Essex, Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex, and
all the southern counties to Cornwall, were peopled by Saxons: Mercia,
and other parts of the kingdom, were inhabited by Angles.]
The first Saxon state, after that of Kent, which was established in
Britain, was the kingdom of South Saxony. In the year 477 [q], Aella,
a Saxon chief, brought over an army from Germany; and landing on the
southern coast, proceeded to take possession of the neighbouring
territory. The Britons, now armed, did not tamely abandon their
possessions; nor were they expelled, till defeated in many battles by
their warlike invaders. The most memorable action, mentioned by
historians, is that of Meacredes Burn [r]; where, though the Saxons
seem to have obtained the victory, they suffered so considerable a
loss, as somewhat retarded the progress of their conquests. But
Aella, reinforced by fresh numbers of his countrymen, again took the
field against the Britons, and laid siege to Andred-Ceaster, which was
defended by the garrison and inhabitants with desperate valour [s].
The Saxons, enraged by this resistance, and by the fatigues and
dangers which they had sustained, redoubled their efforts against the
place, and when masters of it, put all their enemies to the sword
without distinction. This decisive advantage secured the conquests of
Aella, who assumed the name of king, and extended his dominion over
Sussex and a great part of Surrey. He was stopped in his progress to
the east by the kingdom of Kent: in that to the west by another tribe
of Saxons, who had taken possession of that territory.
[ [q] Chron. Sax. p.14. Ann. Beverl. p. 81.
[r] Saxon Chron. A.D.
485. Flor. Wigorn.
[s] Hen. Hunting. lib. 2.]
These Saxons, from the situation of the country in which they settled,
were called the West Saxons, and landed in the year 495, under the
command of Cerdic, and of his son Kenric [t]. The Britons were, by
past experience, so much on their guard, and so well prepared to
receive the enemy, that they gave battle to Cerdic the very day of his
landing; and though vanquished, still defended, for some time, their
liberties against the invaders. None of the other tribes of Saxons
met with such vigorous resistance, or exerted such valour and
perseverance in pushing their conquests. Cerdic was even obliged to
call for the assistance of his countrymen from the kingdoms of Kent
and Sussex, as well as from Germany, and he was thence joined by a
fresh army under the command of Porte, and of his sons Bleda, and
Megla [u]. Strengthened by these succours, he fought in the year 508,
a desperate battle with the Britons, commanded by Nazan-Leod, who was
victorious in the beginning of the action, and routed the wing in
which Cerdic himself commanded; but Kenric, who had prevailed in the
other wing, brought timely assistance to his father, and restored the
battle, which ended in a complete victory gained by the Saxons [w].
Nazan-Leod perished with 5000 of his army; but left the Britons more
weakened than discouraged by his death. The war still continued,
though the success was commonly on the side of the Saxons, whose short
swords, and close manner of fighting, gave them great advantage over
the missile weapons of the Britons. Cerdic was not wanting to his
good fortune; and in order to extend his conquests, he laid siege to
Mount Badon or Banesdowne, near Bath, whither the most obstinate of
the discomfited Britons had retired. The southern Britons, in this
extremity, applied for assistance to Arthur, Prince of the Silures,
whose heroic valour now sustained the declining fate of his country
[x]. This is that Arthur so much celebrated in the songs of
Thaliessin, and the other British bards, and whose military
achievements have been blended with so many fables, as even to give
occasion for entertaining a doubt of his real existence. But poets,
though they disfigure the most certain history by their fictions, and
use strange liberties with truth where they are the sole historians,
as among the Britons, have commonly some foundation for their wildest
exaggerations. Certain it is, that the siege of Badon was raised by
the Britons in the year 520; and the Saxons were there discomfited in
a great battle [y]. This misfortune stopped the progress of Cerdic;
but was not sufficient to wrest from him the conquests which he had
already made. He and his son Kenric, who succeeded him, established
the kingdom of the West Saxons, or of Wessex, over the counties of
Hants, Dorset, Wilts, Berks, and the Isle of Wight, and left their
new-acquired dominions to their posterity. Cerdic died in 534, Kenric
in 560.
[ [t] Will. Malm. lib. 1. cap. 1. p.12. Chron. Sax. p. 15.
[u]
Chron. Sax. p. 17.
[w] H. Hunting. lib. 2. Ethelwerd, lib. 1. Chron.
Sax. p. 17.
[x] Hunting. lib. 2.
[y] Gildas, Saxon Chron. H.
Hunting. lib. 2]
While the Saxons made this progress in the south, their countrymen
were not less active in other quarters. In the year 527, a great
tribe of adventurers, under several leaders, landed on the east coast
of Britain; and after fighting many battles, of which history has
preserved no particular account, they established three new kingdoms
in this island. Uffa assumed the title of King of the East Angles in
575; Crida that of Mercia in 585 [z] and Erkenwin that of East Saxony,
or Essex, nearly about the same time, but the year is uncertain. This
latter kingdom was dismembered from that of Kent, and comprehended
Essex, Middlesex, and part of Hertfordshire. That of the East Angles,
the counties of Cambridge, Suffolk, and Norfolk; Mercia was extended
over all the middle counties, from the banks of the Severn to the
frontiers of these two kingdoms.
[ [z] Math. West. Huntington, lib. 2.]
The Saxons, soon after the landing of Hengist, had been planted in
Northumberland; but, as they met with an obstinate resistance, and
made but small progress in subduing the inhabitants, their affairs
were in so unsettled a condition, that none of their princes for a
long time assumed the appellation of king. At last, in 547 [a], Ida,
a Saxon prince of great valour [b], who claimed a descent, as did the
other princes of that nation, from Woden, brought over a reinforcement
from Germany, and enabled the Northumbrians to carry on their
conquests over the Britons. He entirely subdued the county now called
Northumberland, the bishopric of Durham, as well as some of the south-
east counties of Scotland; and he assumed the crown under the title of
King of Bernicia. Nearly about the same time, Aella, another Saxon
prince, having conquered Lancashire, and the greater part of
Yorkshire, received the appellation of King of Deiri [c]. These two
kingdoms were united in the person of Ethilfrid, grandson of Ida, who
married Acca, the daughter of Aella; and expelling her brother Edwin,
established one of the most powerful of the Saxon kingdoms, by the
title of Northumberland. How far his dominions extended into the
country now called Scotland, is uncertain; but it cannot be doubted,
that all the lowlands, especially the east coast of that country, were
peopled in a great measure from Germany; though the expeditions made
by the several Saxon adventurers have escaped the records of history.
The language spoken in those countries, which is purely Saxon, is a
stronger proof of this event than can be opposed by the imperfect, or
rather fabulous, annals which are obtruded on us by the Scottish
historians.
[ [a] Chron. Sax. p 19.
[b] Will. Malmes. p. 19.
[c] Ann. Beverl.
p. 78.]
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