BOOK 449. the single act of Gwrtheyrn. It was the unanimous resolution of the national council of kings and chiefs who decided for its adoption. It appeared to them to be an expedient means of protecting the coasts of the island from the maritime desolations of the Irish and Picts, that one set of barbarians should be hired to combat the others; for in the eyes of the Romanised Britons all these piratical invaders were deemed barbarians, and are so mentioned. The purposed utility of the measure was immediately attained. Hengist defeated the depredators, with a slaughter which at last ended their incursions.22 To have foreseen at the outset, that the employment of a few hundred Saxons for this purpose would have induced the whole nation of the Angli, and a large portion of the continental Saxons and Jutes, to expatriate themselves from their domestic hearths into Britain, required a power of prophetic vision, which it was no disgrace to the Britons to have wanted. No such event had at that time occurred to the island. The Saxons were not, like the Romans, a mighty and civilised empire, whose ambition had been rapaciously progressive. They had been but petty and partial depredators; active, bold, and persevering, but whom moderate exertions of military vigilance had always repelled. Hence Gwrtheyrn and the British council had no reason to anticipate the new spirit of permanent dominion and territorial conquest, with which so large a portion of the Saxon confederation became afterwards inspired and still less, their power of effectuating such ambitious resolutions. 22 W. Malm. lib. i. p. 9. THE censure to which the Britons are more justly liable is, that when these intentions began to appear, no vigorous system of union and patriotic resistance was adopted to frustrate their completion. On this point the evils of their political system, and the bad passions of Gwrtheyrn, operated to destroy the independence of the country. The chiefs pursued their conflicts with each other, which the people supported; and Gwrtheyrn projected to use the aid of Hengist against those who were jealous of his power, or had become his competitors. WHEN Hengist obtained permission to increase his forces, as the island was accessible on so many points of attack, by enemies who came by sea, and chose their own places of operation, this augmentation was necessary to the country while it continued the policy of using foreign auxiliaries. Seventeen more chiules came with his daughter Rowena 23; and afterwards forty more, with his son and kinsman, plundering the Orkneys and Scotland in their way, who were stationed off the Scottish coast, near the wall.24 FOR these services an interval of cordiality occurred between Hengist and the 25 Britons. That Hengist invited Gwrtheyrn to a feast, at which the fair and blue-eyed Rowena officiated as the cup 66 23 Nenn. c. 36. Malmsbury, p. 9., mentions her with an ut accepimus:" and H. Huntingdon with a "dicitur a quibusdam," p. 310. The Welsh Triads, c. 38., call her Ronwen, and some of the later Welsh poems allude to her; but there seems no historical authority for her existence, except the brief passages of Nennius, which Jeffry of Monmouth, and from him Wace and Layamon have so copiously expanded, and to which Malmsbury and Huntingdon seem to allude. 24 Nen. c. 37. 25 Ethelw. 833. CHAP. I. 449. III. 455. BOOK bearer, till the British king became intoxicated, both with wine and love, and at last obtained her for his wife, we must believe, if at all, on the credit of Nennius. 26 But the burthen of their remuneration diminished the gratitude of the Britons; and the martial vigour, which had produced the successes of the Saxons, alarmed those whom they had benefited. The object for which they had been engaged having been attained, the natives wished their departure but military adventurers have no proper homes; having abandoned peaceful life and its comforts for the fame and advantages of daring warfare in other countries, their new habits and gratifications are inconsistent with the quiet and content of agricultural obscurity. The SaxonJutes refused to leave their station in Thanet: they demanded larger supplies; and stated that they must plunder for their subsistence if these were refused.27 The Britons had the spirit to resent their requisition, but not the wisdom to combine to expel them; and the third class of incidents, to which we have alluded, began. THE Saxons made peace with the Picts, collected their forces, and, imitating those whom they had been employed to repress, ravaged the nearest cities and countries, from the east sea to the west.28 The desolations that followed are strongly painted. Public and private edifices destroyed, priests slain at the altars, and chieftains with their people: some part of the population flying to monasteries, others to forests and mountains, and many to foreign parts, imply the successful ravages which the first 26 Nen. c. 36. 27 Bede, lib. i. c. 15. p. 53. 28 Ibid. I. assaults of Hengist and his Jutes effected, against CHAP. the unprepared and astonished natives.29 BUT these victorious depredations could not long continue. These evils aroused the Britons to wiser policy and to a courageous resistance. Self-love produced the conduct which no patriotism had suggested. A vigorous system of defence was resolved upon, and Guortemir, a son of Gwrtheyrn, was appointed to conduct it. A series of battles occurred between him and Hengist and Horsa, in which victory was alternate. It is expressly stated by Nennius, that Guortemir three times defeated and besieged Hengist and his Jutes, and at last expelled them from Thanet and from England. He adds, that for five years they were kept out of the island, till Guortemir's death.30 As Gildas asserts that the invaders at one time returned home31; and Bede, though a Saxon, admits the fact by inserting it in his history 32; as Hengist did not begin his reign in Kent till six years after his arrival in the island 33; and as there are some foreign traditions of his having founded Leyden, during his absence from England, his temporary expulsion, and the successful exertions of the Bri tons at this period, seem entitled to our belief. THE Britons who combined against Hengist were headed by two sons of Gwrtheyrn, who are named Guortemir and Categirn. On the Derwent 29 Bede, lib. i. c. 15. p. 53. 31 Gildas, c. 25. 10 Nenn. c. 45. I 32 Bede, lib. i. c. 16. p. 53. 33 See before, note 21. p. 258. 34 Usher, in his Primordia Eccl. Anglic. p. 420., extracts a passage to this effect from the Chronicon of Gerbrandus, who died 1504. do not know his authorities. Kempius, in his Rer. Frisic. lib. ii. c. 1. affirms the same. Usher adds, that "Dousa, Meursius, Hegenitius, &c. Vulgata Hollandiæ chronica sequuti," also report it, p. 420. 455. III. 455. BOOK the first struggle occurred; the next at a place called the Ford of the Eagles, now Aylesford in Kent, was distinguished by the death of Horsa on the part of the Saxons, and of Categirn among the Britons 36 ; a third battle was fought at Stonar, on the sea shore fronting France, from which the Saxons fled to their chiules. 37 Guortemir was the British chieftain who commanded in all these conflicts. But fable has obscured his title to celebrity. We may concede to him all the praise that Cambrian affection can demand, without believing that he pulled up a tree by the roots, and with the vegetating club killed Horsa, and defeated the Saxons. Courage has been always the characteristic of the Cymry, and they may disclaim, without injury to their glory, every impossible achievement. 38 GUORTEMIR dying, Hengist is stated to have returned with an augmentation of his forces, which proved ultimately irresistible; but he is described as having first regained a footing in the island, by the treacherous massacre of the British chieftains at a banquet. The account of Nennius represents him not only as soliciting a treaty of peace, which was closed by the invitation of the Britons to a friendly feast, but also as commanding his 35 Nenníus, c. 46. 36 Sax. Chron. 13. Ethelw. 834. Nennius gives the British name of the place as Sathenegabail, p. 110.; but his British names of places and persons have been badly transcribed. On Horsa's monument, see Gough's Camden, vol. 1. p. 231. 37 Nenn. c. 46, 47. Batteley thinks that the site of this battle was Stone-end, in the south corner of Kent. Ant. Rutup. p. 19. There still remains a great quantity of human bones under the church at Hythe, which imply that some great battle has been fought in its vicinity. Nennius calls the stone, from which the field was named, "The Stone of the Title." Unless this means the boundary of the kingdom or county of Kent, the subject of the allusion is lost. 39 Nenn. c. 46, 47. 38 Nenn. c. 45. |