545 
ENGL 
and their fiiccefs; and they claimed the honour of fixing 
a perpetual name on the country, of which they occupied 
the mod ample portion. Each intrepid chieftain, accord¬ 
ing to the mealure 6f his fame and fortunes, afl'embled 
his followers; equipped a fleet of veil'd s; cHofe the 
place of the attack ; and conducted his fubfequent ope¬ 
rations according to the events of the war, and the dic¬ 
tates cf his private intereft. In the invafion of Britain 
many heroes were vanquifhed and fell ; but only feven 
victorious leaders afltmied, or at lead Maintained, the ti¬ 
tle of kings. Seven independent thrones, the Saxon hep¬ 
tarchy, were founded by the conquerors; a,nd feven fa¬ 
milies, one of which has been continued, by female fuc- 
ceflion, to our prefent fovereign, derived their equal and 
facred lineage! from Woden, their provincial god of war. 
It has been pretended, that this republic of kings was 
moderated by a general council and a fupreme magidrate. 
But fucli an artificial fchetr.e of policy is repugnant to 
the rude and.turbulent fpirit of the Saxons: their laws 
are filent ; and their imperfeft annals afford only a dark 
and bloody pcofpeCt of intedine difcor-?. 
Hidorians have drangely disfigured the date of Britain 
at the time of its reparation from the Roman empire. 
Gildas defcribes in florid language the improvements of 
agriculture, the foreign trade which Oowed witli every 
tide into the Thames and the Severn, the folid and lofty 
condruftion of public and private edifices: he accufes 
the finfui luxury of the Britifh people ; of a people, ac¬ 
cording to the fame writer, ignorant of the mod fimple 
arts, and incapable, without the aid of the Romans, 
of providing walls of done, or of making weapons of 
iron for the defence of their native land! But the fa ft' 
is, that under the long dominion of the emperors, Britain 
had been infenfibly moulded into the elegant and fervile 
form of a Roman province, whofe fafety was entruded to 
a foreign power. The fubjefts of Honorius contemplated 
their new freedom with furprife and terror; they were 
left deftitute of any civil or military conditution ; and 
their uncertain rulers wanted either (kill, or courage, or 
authority, to direft the public force againd the common 
enemy. So averfe were the Britons., or fo completely 
edranged, from the enjoyment of their ancient liberty, 
that Honorius exprefled his furprife at being obliged to 
compel the reludtant province to accept a privilege, which 
it ought mod ardently to have folicited. Indead of which, 
the Britons feem to have regarded the gift of a free con¬ 
ditution a's the lad and mod cruel evil that could befal 
thenj! In fucli a date of things, the inlrodtiftiQii of ihe 
Saxons betrayed their- weakness, and degraded the cha¬ 
racter botli of the prince and people. Their conflerna- 
tion magnified the danger; the want of union di mini died 
their refources; and the madnefs of civil factions was 
more felicitous to accufe, than to remedy, the evils, 
which they imputed to the mifeonduft of their adversa¬ 
ries. Yet the Britons were furely not ignorant; they 
could not be ignorant of the manufacture or the ufe of 
arms : the fucc-eflive and dilo'rderly attacks of the Saxons 
allowed them to recover from their amazement, and the 
profperous or adverfe events of the war added dilcipline 
and experience to their native valour. 
While the continent of Europe and Africa yielded, 
without refiftance, to the barbarians, the Britifli ifland, 
alone and unaided, maintained a long, a vigorous, though 
an unfuccefsful, druggie, againd the formidable pirates, 
who, almod at the fame indant, alfaultCd the northern, 
the ealiern, and the fouthern, coads. .The cities which 
had been fortified with fk.il!, were defended witli refol.u- 
tion ; the advantages of ground, hills, foreds, and rno- 
raffes, were diligently improved by the inhabitants; the 
conqued of each di drift was purchafCd with blood ; and 
the defeats of the Saxons are drongly atteded by the diff 
creet lilence of their own annalid. Hengid might liope 
to acliieve the conqued of Britain; but his ambition, in 
an active reign of thirty-five' years, was confined only to 
the poUeflion of Kent; and the numerous colony which 
Vol. VI. No. 371. 
A N D. 
lie had planted in the north, vvas extirpated by the fword 
of the Britons. The life of Cerdic, one of the braved of 
the children of Woden, was confumed in the conqued of 
Hampfhj-re and the Ifle of Wight; and the lofs which he 
fit flamed in the,battle of Mount Badon, reduced him to 
a date of inglorious repofe.. Kenric, his valiant fon, ad¬ 
vanced into Wiltfhire ; befieged Sarum, at that time 
feuted on a commanding eminence ; and vanquilhed art 
army which advanced to .the relief of the city. In the 
fybfequent battle of Beran-birig, near Marlborough, Lis 
Britidi enemies difplayed their military fcience. Their 
troops were formed in three lines ; each line confided of 
three diltinft bodies; and the cavalry, the archers, and 
the pike-men, were didributed according to the principles 
of Roman faftics. The Saxons charged in one weighty 
column, boldly encountered with their fiiort (words the 
long lances of the. Britons, and maintained an equal con- 
fiift till the approach of night. Two decifive victories, 
the death of three Britidi kings, and the reduftion of Ci- 
renceder, Bath, and Glouceder, ellablifhed the fame and_ 
power of Ceaulin, the grandfon of Cerdic, who carried 
his victorious arms to the banks of the Severn. 
After a war of an hundred years, the independent Bri¬ 
tons dill occupied the whole extent of the vveltern coafl, 
from the wall of Antoninus to the extreme promontory 
of Cornwall; and the principal cities of the inland coun¬ 
try dill oppofed the arms of the barbarians. Refinance 
became more languid, as the number and buldnels of tlie 
alfailants continually increafed. Winning their way bv 
(low and painful efforts, the Saxons, the Angles, and 
their various confederates, advanced from the north, from 
the eafr, and from the Couth* till their victorious banners 
were united in the center of the ifland. Beyond the Se¬ 
vern the Britons dill afferted their national freedom, 
which furvived even the monarchy of the Saxons. The 
braved-warriors who preferred exile to flavery, found a 
fecure refuge in the mountains of Wales: the reluftant 
fubmidion of Cornwall was delayed for fome ages ; and 
a band of fugitives acquired a fettlement in Gaul, by 
their own valour, or the liberality of the Merovingian 
kings' The wedern angle of Armorica acquired the new 
appellations of Cornwall and the LcJJcr Britain ; and the 
vacant lands of the Ofifmii were filled by the people of 
this ifland, who, under the authority of their counts and 
bifliops, preferved the laws and language of their anceff 
tors. To the feeble defcendants of Clovis and Charle¬ 
magne, the Britons of Armorica refufed the cudomary 
tribute, fubdued the neighbouring diocefes of Vannes, 
Rennes, and Nantes, apd formed the powerful, though 
vaffal, date of Bretagne, which was not united to the 
crown of France till 1332. 
In a century of perpetual, or at lead implacable, war, 
much courage, and fome (kill, mud have been exerted 
for the defence of Britain. Yet if the memory of its 
champions is ( almoft buried in oblivion, we need'not re¬ 
pine; fince every age, however deditute of fcience or 
virtue, fufficientiy abounds with afts of blood and mili¬ 
tary renown. The tomb of Vortimer, the fon of Vorti- 
gern, was erected on the margin of the-fea fliore, as a 
landmark formidable to the Saxons, whom he had thrice 
vanquilhed in the fields of Kent. Ambrofius Aurelian 
was a Briton defeended from a noble family of Romans; 
his modefty was eqnul to his valour, and his valour, till 
the lad fatal aftion, was crowned with fplendid fuccefs. 
But every Britifli name is effaced by the illuftrious name 
of Arthur, the hereditary prince of the Silures, in South 
Wales, and the eleftive king or general of the nation. 
According to die mod rational account, he defeated, in 
twelve fucceflive battles, the Angles of the north, and 
the Saxons of the wed ; but the declining age of the hero 
was embittered by popular ingratitude and domedic miff, 
fortunes. The events of his life are lefs intereding than 
the Angular-revolutions of his fame. During a period of 
five hundred years the tradition of his exploits was pre¬ 
ferved, and rudely embellifhed, by the obfeure bards of 
6 Z Wales 
