Baih during British Independence. 25 



still survived. This old Keltic speech had been for three 

 hundred and fifty years imbibing elements of Latin, and its 

 vocabulary must have been deeply romanized. When the 

 Saxons came, they designated- them Walas, the name, they 

 gave to all Latin-speaking races with which they came in 

 contact. The probability is that the speech of the poorer 

 folk in town and country was Keltic impregnated with 

 Latin, and -that it was substantially the same language as 

 that which to this day lives as the vernacular of the princi- 

 pality of Wales. 



So long as peace lasted, the well-established mechanism 

 of government would probably have gone on in its usual 

 routine even after the removal of the Legions. But they 

 were not long to enjoy that continued peace which is favour- 

 able to the stability of institutions. The absence of military 

 control let loose the elements of domestic strife, and, if we 

 know anything of the interval between the Roman and the 

 Saxon dominion, it is mingled with the distant sound of in- 

 ternal convulsion. The untamed barbarians to the north 

 of the Roman Wall were not blind to their opportunities. 

 Now opened a vent for energies long pent up ; they swarmed 

 over the barrier, and trooped southward, and luxuriated in 

 the stored abundance of a Roman province which had grown 

 rich through centuries of peace. The Picts carried war to 

 the extreme south, and their terror was spread even more 

 widely than their arms. The Scots from Hibernia infested 

 the western coasts. To these commotions may perhaps be 

 attributed the fact that, when next we hear of Aquae, it 

 appears to be under the command of a king. 



As a counterpoise against one set of barbarians 



The Saxons. ^^ Britons hired another. They brought over 



the poor and hardy Saxons of the Elbe, men who had never 



