490 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. xiv. 



The English Conquest. 



The invasion of Gaul by the Goths was swiftly 

 followed by that of Britain by the English, and the 

 destruction of the Koman empire by that of the province 

 of Britain. In the long and deadly warfare 1 which 

 followed the landing of the three keels in the Isle of 

 Thanet, in the year 449, the tide of conquest flowed 

 steadily to the west, and the borders of England were 

 enlarged until they extended to the western shores. 

 The Koman civilisation was destroyed, the cities were 

 burnt, their inhabitants driven away, until in the seventh 

 century after Christ the Koman provincials were only 

 represented by the Welsh of Cornwall, Wales, and 

 Cumbria (Strathclyde). Christianity was replaced by 

 the worship of Thor and Odin. The character of this 

 conquest is eloquently described by Gildas, 2 by the 

 metaphor that the flame kindled in the east raged over 

 nearly all the land till it flared red over the western 

 ocean. In 607 J^thelfrith advanced from the line of 

 the Upper Trent on Chester, and the Northumbrian and 

 British armies confronted each other. A body of monks 

 from the monastery of Bangor 3 having come out to pray 

 for victory over their enemies, j^Ethelfrith asked who 

 they were, and on being told said, " If they fight against 

 us with their prayers they are as truly our enemies as 

 if they were armed/' and began the battle by putting 

 them to the sword. Baeda, who tells the story, says 

 that eight hundred of them were killed. The British 

 were routed, and Chester so ruthlessly destroyed, that 



1 For the history of this conquest see Freeman, Early History of 

 England ; Green, History of the English People. 2 xxiv. 



3 Baeda, Hist. Eccles. i. 2. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 



