HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



e barbarians of North Britain ; and it is prob- 

 ile enough that they had recourse to Teutonic 

 ercenaries, as the Romans had done. The 

 medy, however, was found no better than the 

 sease. The Teutons, indeed, defeated the Picts ; 

 t having acquired a footing in the island, the 

 .ditional account is, that the isle of Thanet was 

 ed to the followers of Hengest and Horsa, as a 

 ward for their assistance. These hardy adven- 

 ers sent over for fresh swarms of their country- 

 from North Germany, and made war, on 

 eir own account, against the Britons. The war 

 ;ted for 150 years, and there is some reason to 

 lieve that the victory was not always with the 

 invaders ; on the contrary, the British prince, 

 Arthur, now celebrated more in romance and 

 poetry than in history, would seem to have defeated 

 the Saxons at Badbury, in Dorsetshire, in the year 

 520, and to have checked their conquests for a con- 

 iderable time. Finally, however, the Britons or 

 elsh (that is to say, strangers), as their oppo- 

 ts styled them, were completely overthrown. In 

 ny districts, they were absolutely extirpated or 

 laved ; and so completely was the population 

 nged, that, excepting in the names of some j 

 the hills and rivers, the British language was | 

 .tinguished, and even the name of the country 

 was changed from what it originally was to Angle- 

 land or England, the land of the Angles. By the 

 end of the sixth century, the Teutonic dominion 

 extended from the German Ocean to the Severn, 

 and from the English Channel to the Firth of 

 Forth. Some of the Britons fled to France, 

 giving their name to the province of Little 

 Brittany ; but the majority of them sought shelter 

 in what is now known as Wales, the peninsula 

 containing Cornwall, Devon, and part of Somerset, 

 and in what was subsequently styled the kingdom 

 of Strathclyde, stretching from Dumbarton to 

 ~~ ester. 



After a time, and about the end of the sixth 

 ntury, seven kingdoms of the Teutonic settlers 

 became pre-eminent Kent, founded by the Jutes 

 under Hengest ,- Sussex (South Saxons), founded 

 by the Saxons under Ella ; Wessex (West Saxons), 

 founded by Cerdic ; Essex ; Northumbria (which 

 extended from the Humber to the Forth), founded 

 by the Angles under Ida ; East Anglia, founded 

 by Offa ; and Mercia, founded by Crida. These 

 seven kingdoms have sometimes been called the 

 Heptarchy, but historical criticism has shewn that 

 they were never under the supremacy of a single 

 overlord, although occasionally one chief gained a 

 certain authority over the others, and was called a 

 Bretwalda, or leader of Britain. 



The Anglo-Saxons were heathens ; their chief 

 deities were Wodin or Odin the giver of valour 

 and victory and Thunder or Thor, the ruler of 

 the sky (whose names are still perpetuated in the 

 two days of the week, Wednesday and Thursday) ; 

 and they believed in a Walhalla, or heaven, in 

 which the brave were to continue their favourite 

 earthly pursuits, such as war and the chase. Their 

 kings were taken from the royal house, but still 

 were elected. The king was guided by a sort 

 of parliament, called the Witan or Witena-gemot, 

 or Meeting of the Wise, in which all freemen 

 could take part. The freemen were divided 

 into Earls and Churls, corresponding very much 

 to ' gentle ' and ' simple.' There were also thralls, 

 or slaves, many of whom had been originally 



Welshmen or Britons. The king had his thegns, 

 or thanes, warriors specially devoted to his service. 

 The chief district divisions were the shire, or 

 county ; the hundred, a division of the county ; 

 and the mark, or township. 



In the northern part of the island were the 

 Picts, first mentioned in 296, and generally be- 

 lieved to be of Celtic origin, and who held 

 the east of Scotland ; the Britons, who held 

 Strathclyde or Cumbria, stretching from Lanca- 

 shire to the Clyde, having as their chief seat 

 Alclyd or Dumbarton ; the Scots or Dalriads, a 

 Gaelic tribe who, in 503, under a famous chief, 

 Fergus Mor MacEarca or Loam More, crossed in 

 leathern coracles from the north-eastern coast of 

 Antrim to the coast of Southern Argyll ; and the 

 Saxons, who struggled much with the Picts, often 

 extending their conquests to the Forth, while the 

 former often extended theirs to the Humber. 

 The Picts and Scots continued distinct until the 

 latter proved the superior race, and Kenneth 

 united both under himself in 843. Kenneth's 

 successors conquered Strathclyde, and made 

 further progress, until one of them, Malcolm II. 

 held nearly the whole of Scotland north of the 

 Tweed, and even laid claim to Cumberland and 

 Northumberland. 



The conversion of the Teutonic population to 

 Christianity was due, not to the Welsh, but directly 

 to Rome. Pope Gregory the Great, in 597, sent a 

 band of monks, having at their head the celebrated 

 Augustine, into Britain. He converted ^Ethelbert, 

 king of Kent, then the chief prince in Southern 

 Britain, partly through his wife Bertha, who was 

 a Christian, and the daughter of Charibert, a 

 Frankish king in Gaul. He gave Augustine and 

 his monks a home in Canterbury, and the former 

 became the first archbishop of Canterbury. 

 Edwin of Deira, who ascended the Northumbrian 

 throne in 617, and who was the most powerful 

 monarch of his time in England, was converted 

 by Bishop Paulinus, whom his wife, the daughter 

 of ^Ethelbert, brought with her, and he founded 

 York Minster. The Northumbrians subsequently 

 lapsed into heathenism, and were reconverted 

 by Aidan, a monk from the Scotch monastery of 

 lona, who fixed his episcopal see in Lindisfarne, 

 since called Holy Island. The other kingdoms 

 of England were converted to Christianity during 

 the seventh century. It is not certain how Chris- 

 tianity was introduced into Scotland, but the 

 first great name that occurs is that of Ninian, 

 who founded a religious house at Whithorn, in 

 Wigtownshire, and who is said to have died in 

 432, the same year that St Patrick evangelised 

 Ireland. It was from Ireland, then a land of peace 

 and enlightenment, that the great missionary 

 of Christianity to Scotland, Columba, came. Ex- 

 communicated by the Irish church, on account, it 

 is said, of a deadly quarrel between two Irish clans 

 about the appropriation of a Psalter, Columba, 

 who was connected with chiefs in Argyll, sailed 

 from Ireland to lona in 563, and founded there 

 a monastery, which became both a missionary 

 centre and an ecclesiastical training college. The 

 original Columbites, whose successors the simple 

 brotherhood of Culdees were believed to be, did 

 not acknowledge the supremacy of Rome, and it 

 was not till 716 that they conformed to the 

 Roman ritual. 



For a time three of the Anglo-Saxon monarchies, 



