OUR ANCESTORS. 229 



political subjugation for personal slavery. For example, 

 it seems likely that the West Saxons landed in South- 

 ampton Water about fifty years after the Jutish con- 

 quest of Kent. They settled in Hampshire after some 

 years' hard fighting, but more than half a century 

 elapsed before they conquered Old Sarum and occupied 

 Wiltshire. Still more slowly did they proceed across 

 Dorset and Somerset, reaching Bath after nearly a 

 century, Bradford after a century and a half, and 

 Taunton after two centuries. In these two counties 

 the proportion of Celt-Euskarian blood is very strong ; 

 in Devon, which was only finally annexed more than 

 three hundred years after the first landing, the Teutonic 

 element even now represents a mere fraction. As to 

 Cornwall, that of course retained even its Celtic 

 speech till the last century, as some parts of Devon 

 did till the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Indeed, Alfred 

 the Great in his will describes all the people of Wilts, 

 Somerset, Dorset, and Devon, as Welsh-kind. This 

 one example will show the comparatively small amount 

 of Teutonic blood that the English invasion actually 

 brought into the country. It was just the same else- 

 where. In the Severn valley, for instance, Welsh and 

 English coalesced very early, and the people of 

 Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, and 

 Cheshire, belong very largely to the dark type, while 

 those of Herefordshire and Monmouthshire are purely 

 Welsh by blood. So in the north, a great Welsh 

 kingdom of Strathclyde long held out between Glasgow 

 and the Mersey, and T7hen at last it was conquered 



