III. 560. BOOK flat; the waters sometimes were terrible to it; fields were often burst, and carried off to another spot, leaving to their owner a watery lake. Fertility followed the inundation. The people were fierce, active, disdaining heavy armour, and expert with their missile weapons. The settle ments of the Jutes and AngloSaxons. 53 It is an opinion of Usher", that these Frisians accompanied Hengist into England. To convert Hengist's Jutes into the Strandfrisii Jutes is an exertion of mere conjecture. These Frisii, as well as others from Friesland, may have joined in some of the expeditions, and this probability is all that can be admitted. THE various parts of Britain, into which the Saxons and their confederates spread themselves, may be stated from the Irish primate's commentary on Bede's brief distinction, which forms the basis of all our reasonings on the subject." THE JUTES possessed Kent, the Isle of Wight, and that part of the coast of Hampshire which fronts it. THE SAXONS were distinguished, from their situation, into South Saxons, who peopled Sussex; 53 Pontanus Chorograph. 657. Saxo Grammaticus, lib. xiv. p. 260. Ed. Steph. and his Prefatio, p. 3. Frisia Major was not unlike it, as a low marshy soil, much exposed to the fury of the ocean. Saxo, lib. viii. p. 167.; and Steph. notes, 16. 54 Usher, Primord. 397. 55 Bede has thus placed them :—' The Jutes in Kent and the Isle of Wight; the Saxons in Essex, Sussex, and Wessex; the Angles, whose native country remained in his time a desert, in East Anglia, Midland Anglia, Mercia, and all Northumbria, p. 52. Alfred, in his translation of the passage, makes no addition to this information. The people of Wessex were called Ge-wisi, in Bede's time and before, lib. iii. c. 7. IV. 560. East Saxons, who were in Essex, Middlesex, CHAP. THE ANGLES were divided into East Angles, in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, Middle Angles, in Leicestershire, which ap- The Mercians, divided by the Trent into North Mercians, in the counties of Chester, The Northumbrians, who were The Deiri, in Lancaster, York, Westmore- The Bernicians, in Northumberland, and 56 Usher, Primord. c. 12. p. 394. With this, Camden's idea may be compared; and for the sentiments of an ingenious modern on the Anglo-Saxon geography, see Dr. Whitaker's Hist. Manchester, lib. ii. c. 4. p. 88. III. 560. An oct archy established. CHAP. V. The History of the ANGLO-SAXON Octarchy, and its further Successes against the BRITONS, to the beginning of the Seventh Century. BOOK THE exertions of the British against their invaders having thus failed, eight Anglo-Saxon governments were established in the island. This state of Britain has been improperly denominated the Saxon heptarchy. When all the kingdoms were settled, they formed an octarchy. Ella, supporting his invasion in Sussex, like Hengist in Kent, made a Saxon duarchy before the year 500. When Cerdic erected the state of Wessex in 519, a triarchy appeared; East Anglia made it a tetrarchy; Essex a pentarchy. The success of Ida, after 547, having established a sovereignty of Angles in Bernicia, the island beheld a hexarchy. When the northern Ella penetrated, in 560, southward of the Tees, his kingdom of Deira produced a heptarchy. In 586, the Angles branching from Deira into the regions south of the Humber, the state of Mercia completed an Anglo 1 Although most of our ancient annalists and modern historians have retained the word heptarchy, yet one old chronicler, I perceive, has more critically said, "Provincia Britonum, quæ modo Anglia nominatur, Saxonum temporibus in octo regna divisa fuerit.” Th. Rudborne's Hist. Major. Winton. 1 Anglia Sacra, 187.-Matth. Westm. 198. as correctly states the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to have been eight. He names the eight kings who reigned in 586, p. 200. The word heptarchy came to be used from the habit of mentioning the two kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia, under the appellation of Northumbria. But though they were at times united under one sovereign, yet, as they became consolidated, Essex, Kent, or Sussex ceased to be separate and independent kingdoms; so that the term was still improper. Saxon octarchy. V. 560. As the Anglo-Saxons warred CHAP. with each other; sometimes one state was for a time absorbed by another; sometimes, after an interval, it emerged again. If that term ought to be used which expresses the complete establishment of the Anglo-Saxons, it should be an Octarchy; if not, then the denomination must vary as the tide of conquest fluctuated. If the collective governments are to be denominated from the nations who peopled them, as these were three, the general term should be triarchy; but it is obvious that Octarchy is the appellation that best suits the historical truth. It was in the slow progression which has been stated, that the Anglo-Saxons possessed themselves of the different districts of the island. The Britons, with all the faults of their mode of defence, yielded no part till it had been dearly purchased; and almost a century and a half passed away from the first arrival of Hengist to the full establishment of the octarchy. We cannot state in what year each British principality was destroyed, or each county subdued; but we have seen that, from the sea coasts where they landed, the invaders had always to fight their way with pertinacity, and difficulty, to the inland provinces. BUT the Anglo-Saxons, as they advanced, did not, as some have fancied, exterminate the Britons; though many devastations must have accompanied their progress. The fierce warriors of Germany wanted husbandmen, artisans, and menials for domestic purposes. There can be no doubt that the majority of the British population was preserved to be useful to their conquerors. But the latter imposed their own names on every district, place, III. 560. BOOK and boundary; and spread exclusively their own language in the parts which they occupied. It is however true, that some Britons disdained the Saxon yoke, and emigrated to other countries. Armorica, or Bretagne, was the refuge to many. From others, Cornwall and Wales received a large accession of population; and some are even said to have visited Holland.2 Restoration of the Britons THE most indignant of the Cymry retired into Wales. There, the bards, fugitives like the rest, predicted. consoled the expatriated Britons with the hope that the day would afterwards arrive when they should have their full revenge, by driving out the Saxon hordes. Not only Taliesin sung this animating prediction; Myrddin also promised the Britons 2 H. Cannegieter, in his Dissertation de Brittenburgo, Hag. Co. 1734, has particularly examined this point. His decision is, that Brittenberg was named from the Britons, but was built by the Romans. He prefers, to the assertion of Gerbrandus, that the Britons fled from the Saxons to Holland and built Catwych on the Rhine, the opinion of Colinus, the ancient monastical poet, who admits that they visited and ravaged it, but affirms that they did not settle. 3 A serpent with chains, From Germania ; This will overrun All Loegria and Brydon, From the land of the Lochlin sea. To the Severn. After mentioning that the Britons will be exiles and prisoners to |