the South-Folk, founded the kingdom of East Anglia, comprising the modern counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and parts of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. Hardly anything is known of the history of East Anglia. Uffa is said to have been the first king, and his descendants were styled Uffingas, just as the race of Kentish kings were called Æscingas.

§ 10. Sixth settlement of the German invaders, about A.D. 547.— The country to the north of the Humber had been early separated into two British states, namely, Deifyr (Deora-rice), extending from the Humber to the Tyne, and Berneich (Beorna-rice), lying between the Tyne and the Forth. These names, afterwards Latinized into Deira and Bernicia, were retained till a late period. The two countries were separated by a vast forest occupying the district between the Tyne and the Tees, or the modern county of Durham. According to a tradition preserved by Nennius, Hengest sent for his son Ochta, and for Ebissa the son of Horsa, who came over in forty ships, and settled in the north of Britain, up to the confines of the Picts. It cannot be doubted that the Angles had occupied parts of Northumbria at an early period; though it was not till the conquests of ida, who fought his way southward from the Lothians, that the Angles obtained the supremacy (547). Ida became king of Bernicia, and transmitted his power to his son; and a separate Anglian kingdom was founded in Deira by Ella. These two kingdoms remained for some years in a state of hostility with one another; but they were united in the person of Æthelfrith or Ædelfrid, grandson of Ida, who had married a daughter of Ella, and who expelled her infant brother Edwin. It was not, however, till the restoration of Edwin, in 617, that the united kingdoms seem to have assumed the name of Northumbria, which was for some time the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon states.

§ 11. The country to the west of East Anglia and Deira was known by the name of the March or boundary, and was invaded by Anglian chieftains, who were for some time subject to the kings of Northumbria. It was erected into an independent state by Penda, about 626, under the name of the March or Mercia, which was subsequently extended to the Severn, and comprised the whole of the centre of England. It was divided by the Trent into North and South Mercia.

§ 12. Thus, after a century and a half, was gradually established in Britain what has been called the Heptarchy, or seven AngloSaxon kingdoms, namely Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria. The term is not strictly correct, for there were never exactly seven independent kingdoms co-existent; and, if the smaller and dependent ones are reckoned, the number

must be considerably increased. The Britons, or ancient Celtic inhabitants, driven into the western parts of the island, formed several small states. In the extreme south-west lay Damnonia, called also West Wales, the kingdom of Arthur, occupying at first the

Map of Britain, showing the Settlements of the Anglo-Saxons.

present counties of Cornwall and Devonshire, but limited at a later period, after the separation of Cernau, or Cornwall, to Dyvnaint, or Devonshire. In Somersetshire, Wiltshire, and Dorsetshire, conquered by the West Saxons at an early period, a large native population still maintained its ground. This was likewise the case

in Devonshire long after its occupation by the Saxons; whence the inhabitants of that district obtained the name of the "Welsh kind." Cambria, or Wales, was divided into several small kingdoms or principalities. The name of Welsh (Wealas) was the German term for foreigners, or those who speak another language, and Wälsch is still applied by the Germans to the Italians. The history of the Celts who dwelt in Cumbria, to the north of Wales, is involved in obscurity. Cumbria, or Cumberland, properly so called, included, besides the present county, Westmoreland and Lancashire, and extended into Northumbria, probably as far as the modern Leeds. Caerleol, or Carlisle, was its chief city. North of Cumbria, between the two Roman walls, and to the west of the kingdom of Bernicia, were situated two other British kingdoms: Reged, in the southern portion of the district, nearly identical perhaps with Annandale, in Dumfriesshire; and Strathclyde, embracing the counties of Dumbarton, Renfrew, and Dumfries, and probably also those of Peebles, Selkirk, and Lanark. These kingdoms were sometimes united under one chief, or Pendragon, called also Tyern, or tyrannus, who, like other British princes, regarded himself as the successor, and even as the descendant, of Constantine or Maximus. The Welsh called all the Angles and Saxons by the name of Saxons, as they call the English to this day.

Besides the Britons who found shelter in these western and mountainous regions from the fury of the Saxon and Anglian invaders, great numbers of them, under the conduct of their priests and chieftains, abandoned their native shores altogether, and settled in Armorica, on the western coast of France, which from them derived its subsequent name of Bretagne, or Brittany.

The completeness of the conquest made by the Anglo-Saxons is inferred from the fact that their language forms to this day the staple of our own; but with regard to their treatment of the conquered land, and their relations towards the natives, we are almost entirely in the dark. It is usually stated that the Saxons either exterminated the original population, or drove them into the western parts of the island; but there are good reasons for believing that this was not uniformly the case; and we may conclude from the Welsh traditions, and from the number of Celtic words still existing in the English language, that a considerable number of the Celtic inhabitants remained upon the soil as the slaves or subjects of their conquerors.*

§ 13. As it would be useless to follow the obscure and often doubtful details of the several Anglo-Saxon states, we shall content ourselves with selecting the more remarkable events that occurred *This subject is more fully discussed in the Notes and Illustrations (C).

down to the time when all the kingdoms were united under the authority of Egbert. The title of Bretwalda, or Brytenwealda, that is, supreme commander or emperor of Britain, which was given or assumed by him, is assigned in the Chronicle to seven earlier kings, whose supremacy among the Anglo-Saxon sovereigns affords some bond of connection to their histories.*

The first who held this sort of supremacy, according to Bede,† was Ella, king of the South Saxons. Ceawlin, king of the West Saxons, or Wessex, the grandson of Cerdic, was the second. The Escing, Æthelberht of Kent, disputed the supremacy with him, but was overthrown in a great battle at Wibbandun (Wimbledon), which won Surrey for Wessex (568). Ceawlin united many districts to his kingdom; but, from some unknown cause, the termination of his reign was singularly unprosperous. His own subjects, and even his own relations, with the Britons and Scots, united against him. He was defeated in a great battle at Wodesbeorg (probably Wanborough, near Swindon, in Wilts), in the year 592, and died in exile two years afterwards.

§ 14. After the expulsion of Ceawlin, Ethelberht of Kent obtained the supremacy, to which he had for so many years aspired. The most memorable event of his reign was the introduction of Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons, for the reception of which the mind of Æthelberht had been prepared through his marriage with the Christian princess Bertha, daughter of Charibert, the Frank king of Paris. But the immediate cause of its introduction was an incident which occurred at Rome. It happened that Gregory, who afterwards, under the title of the Great, occupied the papal chair, had observed in the market-place of Rome some Anglian youths exposed for sale, whom the Roman merchants, in their trading voyages to Britain, had bought of their mercenary parents. Struck with the beauty of their fair complexions and blooming countenances, Gregory asked to what country they belonged. Being told that they were Angles, he replied that they ought more properly to be denominated angels for it was a pity, he said, that the prince of darkness should enjoy so fair a prey, and that so beautiful an exterior should cover a mind destitute of internal grace and righteousness. Inquiring

*The existence of the Bretwaldas, at least in the earlier times, is disputed by Mr. Hallam and Mr. Kemble. The title itself occurs, for the first and only time, in the Chronicle, in connection with the supremacy of Egbert, "the eighth king that was Bretwalda," and then the other seven are named. The list is taken from the passage in Bede, where he names Æthelberht as the third among the kings

of the English race who held some sort of supremacy over all the provinces south of the Humber; the limitation applying of course only to the first four, not to the three Northumbrians.

ii. 5.

"Imperium hujusmodi," Bede, H. E.

Usually called Ethelbert, the corrupt form of the name.

66

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further concerning the name of their province, he was informed that it was Deira, a district of Northumbria. " 'Deira," replied he, "that is good! They are called to the mercy of God from his anger (de ira). But what is the name of the king of that province?" fie was told it was Ella, or Alla. Allelujah!" cried he; we must endeavour that the praises of God be sung in their country." Moved by these auguries, which appeared to him so happy, Gregory determined to undertake himself a mission into Britain, aud, having obtained the Pope's approbation, prepared for the journey; but his popularity at home was so great, that the Romans, unwilling to expose him to such dangers, opposed his design; and he was obliged for the present to lay aside all further thoughts of executing his pious purpose.*

After his accession to the pontificate, Gregory, anxious for the conversion of Britain, sent Augustine, a Roman monk, with forty associates, to preach the gospel in this island. Terrified with the danger of propagating the faith among so fierce a people, ‹f whose language they were ignorant the missionaries stopped some time in Gaul, and sent back Augustine to lay the hazards and difficulties of the undertaking before the pope, and crave his permission to return. But Gregory exhorted them to persevere; and Augustine, on his arrival in Kent in the year 597, found the danger much less than he had apprehended. Æthelberht, already well disposed towards the Christian faith, assigned him a habitation in the Isle of Thanet, and soon after admitted him to a conference. Encouraged by his favourable reception, and seeing now a prospect of success, Augustine proceed 1 with redoubled zeal to preach the gospel to the people of Kent. Numbers were converted and baptized, and the king himself was persuaded to submit to the same rite. Augustine was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, was endowed by Gregory with authority over all the British churches, and in token of his new dignity received the pall from Rome (601). Christianity was soon afterwards introduced into the kingdom of Essex whose sovereign, Sæberht or Sebert, was Æthelberht's nephew; and through the influence of Æthelberht, Mellitus, who had been the apostle of Christianity in Essex, was appointed to the bishopric of London, where a church dedicated to St. Paul was erected, as some say, on the site of a former temple of Diana. Sebert also erected on Thorney Island, which was formed by the branches of a small river falling into the Thames, a church dedicated to St. Peter, where West

*This celebrated story is told by Bede (ii. 1), and is copied from him, with slight variations, by other medieval writers. The names indicate that the

legend is nothing more than a monkish and poetical version of the introduction of Christianity into the North Anglian settlements of the island.