While
the kingdom of the Franks and Visigoths were
established in Gaul and Spain, the Saxons achieved
the conquest of Britain, the third great diocese of
the Præfecture of the West. Since Britain was
already separated from the Roman empire, I might,
without reproach, decline a story familiar to the
most illiterate, and obscure to the most learned, of
my readers. The Saxons, who excelled in the use of
the oar, or the battle- axe, were ignorant of the art
which could alone perpetuate the fame of their
exploits; the Provincials, relapsing into barbarism,
neglected to describe the ruin of their country; and
the doubtful tradition was almost extinguished,
before the missionaries of Rome restored the light of
science and Christianity. The declamations of Gildas,
the fragments, or fables, of Nennius, the obscure
hints of the Saxon laws and chronicles, and the
ecclesiastical tales of the venerable Bede, have been
illustrated by the diligence, and sometimes
embellished by the fancy, of succeeding writers,
whose works I am not ambitious either to censure or
to transcribe. Yet the historian of the empire may be
tempted to pursue the revolutions of a Roman
province, till it vanishes from his sight; and an
Englishman may curiously trace the establishment of
the Barbarians, from whom he derives his name, his
laws, and perhaps his origin.
About
forty years after the dissolution of the Roman
government, Vortigern appears to have obtained the
supreme, though precarious command of the princes and
cities of Britain. That unfortunate monarch has been
almost unanimously condemned for the weak and
mischievous policy of inviting a formidable stranger,
to repel the vexatious inroads of a domestic foe. His
ambassadors are despatched, by the gravest
historians, to the coast of Germany: they address a
pathetic oration to the general assembly of the
Saxons, and those warlike Barbarians resolve to
assist with a fleet and army the suppliants of a
distant and unknown island. If Britain had indeed
been unknown to the Saxons, the measure of its
calamities would have been less complete. But the
strength of the Roman government could not always
guard the maritime province against the pirates of
Germany; the independent and divided states were
exposed to their attacks; and the Saxons might
sometimes join the Scots and the Picts, in a tacit,
or express, confederacy of rapine and destruction. Vortigern could only balance the
various perils, which assaulted on every side his
throne and his people; and his policy may deserve
either praise or excuse, if he preferred the alliance
of those Barbarians, whose naval power
rendered them the most dangerous enemies and the most
serviceable allies. Hengist and Horsa, as they ranged
along the Eastern coast with three ships, were
engaged, by the promise of an ample stipend, to
embrace the defence of Britain; and their intrepid
valor soon delivered the country from the Caledonian
invaders. The Isle of Thanet, a secure and fertile
district, was allotted for the residence of these
German auxiliaries, and they were supplied, according
to the treaty, with a plentiful allowance of clothing
and provisions. This favorable reception encouraged
five thousand warriors to embark with their families
in seventeen vessels, and the infant power of Hengist
was fortified by this strong and seasonable
reenforcement. The crafty Barbarian suggested to Vortigern the obvious advantage of
fixing, in the neighborhood of the Picts, a colony of
faithful allies: a third fleet of forty ships, under
the command of his son and nephew, sailed from
Germany, ravaged the Orkneys, and disembarked a new
army on the coast of Northumberland, or Lothian, at
the opposite extremity of the devoted land. It was
easy to foresee, but it was impossible to prevent,
the impending evils. The two nations were soon
divided and exasperated by mutual jealousies. The
Saxons magnified all that they had done and suffered
in the cause of an ungrateful people; while the
Britons regretted the liberal rewards which could not
satisfy the avarice of those haughty mercenaries. The
causes of fear and hatred were inflamed into an
irreconcilable quarrel. The Saxons flew to arms; and
if they perpetrated a treacherous massacre during the
security of a feast, they destroyed the reciprocal
confidence which sustains the intercourse of peace
and war.
Hengist,
who boldly aspired to the conquest of Britain,
exhorted his countrymen to embrace the glorious
opportunity: he painted in lively colors the
fertility of the soil, the wealth of the cities, the
pusillanimous temper of the natives, and the
convenient situation of a spacious solitary island,
accessible on all sides to the Saxon fleets. The
successive colonies which issued, in the period of a
century, from the mouths of the Elbe, the Weser, and
the Rhine, were principally composed of three valiant
tribes or nations of Germany; the Jutes, the
old Saxons, and the Angles. The
Jutes, who fought under the peculiar banner of
Hengist, assumed the merit of leading their
countrymen in the paths of glory, and of erecting, in
Kent, the first independent kingdom. The fame of the
enterprise was attributed to the primitive Saxons;
and the common laws and language of the conquerors
are described by the national appellation of a
people, which, at the end of four hundred years,
produced the first monarchs of South Britain. The
Angles were distinguished by their numbers and their
success; and they claimed the honor of fixing a
perpetual name on the country, of which they occupied
the most ample portion. The Barbarians, who followed
the hopes of rapine either on the land or sea, were
insensibly blended with this triple confederacy; the Frisians,
who had been tempted by their vicinity to the British
shores, might balance, during a short space, the
strength and reputation of the native Saxons; the Danes,
the Prussians, the Rugians, are
faintly described; and some adventurous Huns,
who had wandered as far as the Baltic, might embark
on board the German vessels, for the conquest of a
new world. But this arduous achievement was not
prepared or executed by the union of national powers.
Each intrepid chieftain, according to the measure of
his fame and fortunes, assembled his followers;
equipped a fleet of three, or perhaps of sixty,
vessels; chose the place of the attack; and conducted
his subsequent operations according to the events of
the war, and the dictates of his private interest. In
the invasion of Britain many heroes vanquished and
fell; but only seven victorious leaders assumed, or
at least maintained, the title of kings. Seven
independent thrones, the Saxon Heptarchy, * were
founded by the conquerors, and seven families, one of
which has been continued, by female succession, to
our present sovereign, derived their equal and sacred
lineage from Woden, the god of war. It has been
pretended, that this republic of kings was moderated
by a general council and a supreme magistrate. But
such an artificial scheme of policy is repugnant to
the rude and turbulent spirit of the Saxons: their
laws are silent; and their imperfect annals afford
only a dark and bloody prospect of intestine discord.
A monk,
who, in the profound ignorance of human life, has
presumed to exercise the office of historian,
strangely disfigures the state of Britain at the time
of its separation from the Western empire. Gildas
describes in florid language the improvements of
agriculture, the foreign trade which flowed with
every tide into the Thames and the Severn the solid
and lofty construction of public and private
edifices; he accuses the sinful luxury of the British
people; of a people, according to the same writer,
ignorant of the most simple arts, and incapable,
without the aid of the Romans, of providing walls of
stone, or weapons of iron, for the defence of their
native land. Under the long dominion of the emperors,
Britain had been insensibly moulded into the elegant
and servile form of a Roman province, whose safety
was intrusted to a foreign power. The subjects of
Honorius contemplated their new freedom with surprise
and terror; they were left destitute of any civil or
military constitution; and their uncertain rulers
wanted either skill, or courage, or authority, to
direct the public force against the common enemy. The
introduction of the Saxons betrayed their internal
weakness, and degraded the character both of the
prince and people. Their consternation magnified the
danger; the want of union diminished their resources;
and the madness of civil factions was more solicitous
to accuse, than to remedy, the evils, which they
imputed to the misconduct of their adversaries. Yet
the Britons were not ignorant, they could not be
ignorant, of the manufacture or the use of arms; the
successive and disorderly attacks of the Saxons
allowed them to recover from their amazement, and the
prosperous or adverse events of the war added
discipline and experience to their native valor.
While
the continent of Europe and Africa yielded, without
resistance, to the Barbarians, the British island,
alone and unaided, maintained a long, a vigorous,
though an unsuccessful, struggle, against the
formidable pirates, who, almost at the same instant,
assaulted the Northern, the Eastern, and the Southern
coasts. The cities which had been fortified with
skill, were defended with resolution; the advantages
of ground, hills, forests, and morasses, were
diligently improved by the inhabitants; the conquest
of each district was purchased with blood; and the
defeats of the Saxons are strongly attested by the
discreet silence of their annalist. Hengist might
hope to achieve the conquest of Britain; but his
ambition, in an active reign of thirty-five years,
was confined to the possession of Kent; and the
numerous colony which he had planted in the North,
was extirpated by the sword of the Britons. The
monarchy of the West Saxons was laboriously founded
by the persevering efforts of three martial
generations. The life of Cerdic, one of the bravest
of the children of Woden, was consumed in the
conquest of Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight; and the
loss which he sustained in the battle of Mount Badon,
reduced him to a state of inglorious repose. Kenric,
his valiant son, advanced into Wiltshire; besieged
Salisbury, at that time seated on a commanding
eminence; and vanquished an army which advanced to
the relief of the city. In the subsequent battle of
Marlborough, his British enemies displayed their
military science. Their troops were formed in three
lines; each line consisted of three distinct bodies,
and the cavalry, the archers, and the pikemen, were
distributed according to the principles of Roman
tactics. The Saxons charged in one weighty column,
boldly encountered with their short swords the long
lances of the Britons, and maintained an equal
conflict till the approach of night. Two decisive
victories, the death of three British kings, and the
reduction of Cirencester, Bath, and Gloucester,
established the fame and power of Ceaulin, the
grandson of Cerdic, who carried his victorious arms
to the banks of the Severn.
After a
war of a hundred years, the independent Britons still
occupied the whole extent of the Western coast, from
the wall of Antoninus to the extreme promontory of
Cornwall; and the principal cities of the inland
country still opposed the arms of the Barbarians.
Resistance became more languid, as the number and
boldness of the assailants continually increased.
Winning their way by slow and painful efforts, the
Saxons, the Angles, and their various confederates,
advanced from the North, from the East, and from the
South, till their victorious banners were united in
the centre of the island. Beyond the Severn the
Britons still asserted their national freedom, which
survived the heptarchy, and even the monarchy, of the
Saxons. The bravest warriors, who preferred exile to
slavery, found a secure refuge in the mountains of
Wales: the reluctant submission of Cornwall was
delayed for some ages; and a band of fugitives
acquired a settlement in Gaul, by their own valor, or
the liberality of the Merovingian kings. The Western
angle of Armorica acquired the new appellations of Cornwall,
and the Lesser Britain; and the vacant lands
of the Osismii were filled by a strange people, who,
under the authority of their counts and bishops,
preserved the laws and language of their ancestors.
To the feeble descendants of Clovis and Charlemagne,
the Britons of Armorica refused the customary
tribute, subdued the neighboring dioceses of Vannes,
Rennes, and Nantes, and formed a powerful, though
vassal, state, which has been united to the crown of
France.
Chapter XXXVIII - Part V: Reign of Clovis.
In a
century of perpetual, or at least implacable, war,
much courage, and some skill, must have been exerted
for the defence of Britain. Yet if the memory of its
champions is almost buried in oblivion, we need not
repine; since every age, however destitute of science
or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of blood
and military renown. The tomb of Vortimer, the son of
Vortigern, was erected on the margin
of the sea-shore, as a landmark formidable to the
Saxons, whom he had thrice vanquished in the fields
of Kent. Ambrosius Aurelian was descended from a
noble family of Romans; his modesty was equal to his
valor, and his valor, till the last fatal action, was
crowned with splendid success.
