I.

CHAP. the whole as their prey, and attacked the northern wall with redoubled forces. The Britons, already fubdued by their own fears, found the ramparts but a weak defence for them; and deferting their station, left the country entirely open to the inroads of the barbarous enemy. The invaders carried devaftation and ruin along with them; and exerted to the utmost their native ferocity, which was not mitigated by the helpless condition and fubmiffive behaviour of the inhabitants'. The unhappy Britons had a third time recourfe to Rome, which had declared its refolution for ever to abandon them. Ætius, the patrician, fuftained, at that time, by his valour and magnanimity, the tottering ruins of the empire, and revived for a moment, among the degenerate Romans, the spirit, as well as difcipline, of their anceftors. The British ambaffadors carried to him the letter of their countrymen, which was infcribed, The Groans of the Britons. The tenor of the epistle was fuitable to its fuperfcription. The barbarians, fay they, on the one hand, chafe us into the fea; the fea, on the other, throws us back upon the barbarians; and we have only the hard choice left us, of perishing by the fword or by the waves. But Ætius, preffed by the arms of Attila, the most terrible enemy that ever affailed the empire, had no leifure to attend to the complaints of allies, whom generosity alone could induce him to affift". The Britons, thus rejected, were reduced to despair, deferted their habitations, abandoned tillage, and flying for protection to the forests and mountains, fuffered equally from hunger and from the enemy. The barbarians themfelves began to feel the preffures of famine in a country which they had ravaged; and being haraffed by the difperfed Britons, who had not dared to refift them

s Gildas, Bede, lib. 1. Ann. Beverl. p. 45. t Gildas, Bede, lib. 1. cap. 13. Malmesbury, lib. 1. cap. 1. Ann. Beverl. p. 45. Chron. Sax. p. 11. edit. 1692.

in a body, they retreated with their spoils into their CHAP. own country".

THE Britons, taking advantage of this interval, returned to their ufual occupations; and the favourable feasons, which fucceeded, feconded their industry, made them foon forget their past miferies, and restored to them great plenty of all the neceffaries of life. No more can be imagined to have been poffeffed by a people fo rude, who had not, without the affiftance of the Romans, art of masonry fufficient to raise a stone rampart for their own defence: Yet the Monkifh hiftorians, who treat of thofe events, complain of the luxury of the Britons during this period, and afcribe to that vice, not to their cowardice or improvident counfels, all their fubfequent calamities.

THE Britons, entirely occupied in the enjoyment of the prefent interval of peace, made no provifion for refifting the enemy, who, invited by their former timid behaviour, foon threatened them with a new invafion. We are not exactly informed what fpecies of civil government the Romans on their departure had left among the Britons; but it appears probable, that the great men in the different diftricts affumed a kind of regal, though precarious authority; and lived in a great measure independent of each other". To this difunion of counfels were alfo added the difputes of theology; and the difciples of Pelagius, who was himself a native of Britain, having increafed to a great multitude, gave alarm to the clergy, who feem to have been more intent on fuppreffing them, than on oppofing the public enemy. Labouring under thefe domeftic evils, and menaced with a foreign invafion, the Britons attended only to the fuggeftions of their prefent fears; and following the counfels of Vortigern, prince of Dumnonium, who, though stained

Ann. Beverl. p. 45. * Gildas, Bede, lib. 1. cap. 14. y Gildas, Ufher, Ant. Brit. p. 248. 347. z Gildas, Bede, lib. 1. cap. 17. Conftant, in vita Germ.

I.

CHAP. with every vice, poffeffed the chief authority among I. them, they fent into Germany a deputation to invite over the Saxons for their protection and af fiftance.

The SAXON S.

F all the barbarous nations, known either in ancient or modern times, the Germans feem to have been the most diftinguished both by their manners and political inftitutions, and to have carried to the highest pitch the virtues of valour and love of liberty; the only virtues which can have place among an uncivilized people, where juftice and humanity are commonly neglected. Kingly government, even when eftablifhed among the Germans (for it was not univerfal), poffeffed a very limited authority; and though the fovereign was ufually chofen from among the royal family, he was directed in every measure by the common confent of the nation over whom he prefided. When any important affairs were tranfacted, all the warriors niet in arms; the men of greatest authority employed perfuafion to engage their confent; the people expreffed their approbation by rattling their armour, or their diffent by murmurs; there was no neceffity for a nice scrutiny of votes among a multitude, who were usually carried with a ftrong current to one fide or the other; and the measure, thus fuddenly chofen by general agreement, was executed with alacrity, and profecuted with vigour. Even in war, the princes governed more by example than by authority: But in peace, the civil union was in a great measure diffolved, and the inferior leaders adminiftered juftice after an independent manner, each in his particular diftrict. These were elected by the votes of the people in their great councils;

a Gildas, Gul. Malm. p. 8.

and

P

1.

and though regard was paid to nobility in the choice, CHA P. their perfonal qualities, chiefly their valour, procured them, from the fuffrages of their fellow-citizens, that honourable but dangerous diftinction. The warriors of each tribe attached themfelves to their leader with the most devoted affection and most unfhaken conftancy. They attended him as his ornament in peace, as his defence in war, as his council in the adminiftration of juftice. Their conftant emulation in military renown diffolved not that inviolable friendship which they profeffed to their chieftain and to each other. To die for the honour of their band, was their chief ambition: To furvive its difgrace, or the death of their leader, was infamous. They even carried into the field their women and children, who adopted all the martial fentiments of the men: And being thus impelled by every human motive, they were invincible; where they were not oppofed either by the fimilar manners and inftitutions of the neighbouring Germans, or by the fuperior difcipline, arms, and numbers of the Romans ".

THE leaders and their military companions were maintained by the labour of their flaves, or by that of the weaker and lefs warlike part of the community whom they defended. The contributions which they levied went not beyond a bare fubfiftence; and the honours, acquired by a fuperior rank, were the only reward of their fuperior dangers and fatigues. All the refined arts of life were unknown among the Germans: Tillage itfelf was almoft wholly neglected: They even feem to have been anxious to prevent any improvements of that nature; and the leaders, by annually diftributing anew all the land among the inhabitants of each village, kept them from attaching themfelves to particular poffeffions, or making fuch progrefs in agriculture as might

VOL. I.

b Cæfar, lib. 6. Tacit. de Mor. Germ.

C

divert

CHAP. divert their attention from military expeditions, the chief occupation of the community.

I.

THE Saxons had been for fome time regarded as one of the most warlike tribes of this fierce people, and had become the terror of the neighbouring nations. They had diffused themfelves from the northern parts of Germany and the Cimbrian Cherfonefus, and had taken poffeffion of all the fea-coaft from the mouth of the Rhine to Jutland; whence they had long infested by their piracies all the eaftern and fouthern parts of Britain, and the northern of Gaul. In order to oppofe their inroads, the Romans had established an officer, whom they called Count of the Saxon fhore; and as the naval arts can flourish among a civilized people alone, they feem to have been more fuccefsful in repelling the Saxons, than any of the other barbarians by whom they were invaded. The diffolution of the Roman power invited them to renew their inroads; and it was an acceptable circumftance, that the deputies of the Britons appeared among them, and prompted them to undertake an enterprize, to which they were of themselves fufficiently inclined.

HENGIST and Horfa, two brothers, poffeffed great credit among the Saxons, and were much celebrated both for their valour and nobility. They were reputed, as most of the Saxon princes, to be fprung from Woden, who was worshipped as a god among thofe nations, and they are faid to be his great grandfons; a circumftance which added much to their authority. We fhall not attempt to trace any higher the origin of thofe princes and nations. It is evident what fruitlefs labour it must be to fearch, in thofe barbarous and illiterate ages, for the

Cæfar, lib. 6. Tacit. ibid. d Amm. Marcell. lib. 28. Orofius. e Amm. Marcell. lib. 27. cap. 7. lib: 28. cap. 7. f Will. Malm. p. 8.

Nennius, cap. 28.

8 Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15. Saxon Chron. p. 13.

annals