Roman Britain and Early England 15 



' treatment they never succeeded in throwing off the yoke of the 

 Romans, and when the latter withdrew from the island in 410, the 

 Britons were faced with difficulties which they could not overcome. 



A. weak people in possession of a land which was rich and well 

 cultivated for these times, they became an object of attack by 

 the hardy and unconquered tribes of Wales and Scotland, as well 

 as by the more daring tribes from across the North Sea. With 

 such fierce enemies on every side the Britons thought it was wise 

 to choose one of them for an ally to assist in defending them 

 against the others. They chose the tribes who came from North 

 Germany, and they again> like those who came from Belgium 

 earlier, seeing the country, and noticing how inferior to them- 

 selves the Britons were as fighters, decided on a bolder policy. 

 Some time in the fifth century they began to come, not with 

 the object of acting as allies, but of conquering the country and 

 settling permanently in it. The tribes who came were the 

 Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and a few Frisians. The Angles came as 

 a people nobles, freemen, and slaves, with all their flocks and 

 herds. More than 200 years later we are told that their old 

 home-land in North Germany, which they abandoned so utterly, 

 still remained a desert. The Saxons, Frisians, and others also 

 took their cattle, for they had special breeds on which they set 

 a high value ; and it is strange that to-day a breed of milch cows 

 from these districts fetches the highest prices. They would not 

 lose many lives or many cattle on the voyage ; they were better 

 sailors than Caesar's men, and they had better ships than those in 

 which he carried his cavalry across the channel 500 years before. 



We must now look at the face of Britain as it was then, and 

 at the people who had come to conquer and inhabit it. We are 

 apt to think that when the Anglo-Saxons arrived, the country 

 was exceedingly rough and uninviting. There were certainly 

 more woods and marshes than now in the valleys and in the low- 

 lying parts where trees grow naturally, but there were no planta- 



