59 
tells us that campaign was against the Brigantes. Two 
Homan camps yet remain in this neighbourhood, one on 
Sutton common, and the other on the banks of the Went 
opposite Castle Hill. 
It was also “near Eborac liand by Humber flude,” that 
Hengest the Jute (you may call him Sassenach, if you like : 
was he one ? In the poem of Beowulf — see Lappenberg, vol. 
1-27 — Hengest is expressly said to be a Jute, who had been 
sent to invade Erisia by Halfdene, a Danish king : this is 
one thing you have to unlearn) and his followers were settled 
as an advanced guard against the Piets and Scots ; it was 
here in the North that Arthur grappled with them and over- 
came them. True, that afterwards the Anglo-Saxons held 
rule for a time, but soon the Northmen evicted or enslaved 
them, and themselves divided and colonised and tilled the 
lands : not Saxon, but Scandinavian, are we. Ethelward’s 
Chronicle — “ Halfdene settled in Northumbria and portioned 
out the lands.” Book of Hyde — “ York, the inhabitants had 
had much intercourse with the Danes and become like them 
in speech.” Gaimar, a.d. 870 — “ No Dane had rest until this 
country North of the Humber was conquered.” It is to 
these Norsemen we owe our free institutions and love of 
liberty, it is Norse blood that flows in our veins, the Norse 
language that lingers in our talk ! 
When Tosti was ejected, the reason given was (William of 
Malmesbury), that they were “free born and free educated.” 
It was here that free institutions took deep root, the gradual 
adoption of which have made England what it is. It was 
not the Witenagemot nominated by the King, but the 
meeting of the Thing-men, “udal born,” which contained 
the germs of a people’s Parliament. It was the democratic, 
and not the monarchical, which was the leading element. 
Wessex is but as of yesterday, as compared with Northum- 
bria ; and London became great amongst the Southrons only 
