the guidance of some renowned leader. Poetry and music celebrated their heroic exploits; and in the dreary nights of winter, when the season interrupted their predatory excursions, the chief himself would celebrate in rude strains the valiant deeds of his devoted followers. Their weapons were the dagger, spear, battle-axe, and sword; and their more powerful champions frequently wielded a ponderous mace, bound and spiked with iron, against which the strongest. defensive armour afforded no protection.

From these wild warriors, described as exulting in battle, and shouting with laughter in the midst of bloodshed, Vortigern, the British king, sought assistance against the Picts. The two leaders from whom he chiefly received aid have come down to our own days with the names of Hengist and Horsa, but very little is known with truth as to their actual history. It is said that their promised reward was the small island of Thanet, at that time separated from the adjacent mainland by a strait nearly a mile in breadth. With the help of his new allies, Vortigern drove the invaders from the kingdom, and congratulated himself that by the cession of a paltry corner of his territories he had secured the co-operation of such powerful and warlike neighbours.

But this delusion soon vanished. The strangers, having obtained a footing in the country, and being joined by reinforcements of their brethren, soon manifested a determination to become its masters. The distraction caused by an irruption of the Caledonians seemed to favour their design, and after several battles with the Britons, they succeeded in speedily establishing their authority over a considerable portion of the country. For a century after their first landing, the history of South Britain is a confused account of their inroads and warlike progress, not distinct enough to be interesting. Ella seized on Sussex, Cerda on Wessex, and Ida, landing at Flamborough, established himself as master of Durham. Still, however, a protracted resistance was offered, and nearly two centuries elapsed, from the period assigned to the landing of Hengist and Horsa, till the Saxons found their way to Devonshire and Cornwall.

A.D.}

519.

2. It is usual to speak of England under the Saxons as a heptarchy, that is to say, as consisting of seven kingdoms; and they have been called Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia. There was, however, no such permanent division. Sometimes there were

eight or more states; at other times fewer than seven; while three or four occasionally entered into a temporary union. At one time nearly all England and a great part of Scotland were under the influence of one man. Towards the end of the seventh century, when the states had come into some form and compactness, they appear to have stood thus: In the extreme south-east corner of the island three kingdoms were united under the Kentish confederation, containing probably the present counties of Kent, Essex, Middlesex, Surrey, and Sussex. Immediately to the south was the kingdom of the West Saxons, bordered by the Thames on the north and the Severn on the west, and stretching to the Welsh boundaries, comprising probably the present Hampshire, with the Isle of Wight, Dorsetshire, part of Devonshire, Wiltshire, Buckinghamshire, and Berkshire, up to the Chiltern Hills. On the extreme east was East Anglia, stretching to the north and west up to the Wash and the marshes of Lincoln and Cambridge shires, comprehending Norfolk and Suffolk, and portions of Cambridge, Huntingdon, Bedford, and Hertford shires. Mercia occupied nearly all the remaining part of England east of the Severn and south of the Humber.

Nor

thumbria, sometimes divided into two kingdoms, called Deira and Bernicia, filled the district from the Humber to the neck of land between the Frith of Forth and the river Clyde in Scotland. Before they were united into one monarchy, they formed three states, Northumbria, Mereia, and Wessex, which had subverted or absorbed all the others.

Sometimes a part, at other times the whole, of the Saxon states were united under one leader, who was called the Bretwalda, and who is supposed to have exercised an authority over the other kings and their dominions like that exercised by the stadtholder of Holland over the United Provinces.

3. Much more is known about the heathen religion of these northern warriors than about the Druidism of the British. The monks who converted them do not describe it, but some ancient poems, called Sagas, have preserved it in Norway, Sweden, and Iceland, just as Homer has preserved the religion of the ancient Greeks. It is singular that the gods of the northern nations bear a great similarity to those of the Greeks and Romans; but there is something more gigantic and savage about them. The whole system is less elegant than the classic mythology; but, on the other hand, it does not exhibit such odious vices. Odin or Woden has been compared to Mer

cury. We still have curious vestiges of him in this country: the fourth day of the week was dedicated to him, and from that circumstance it is still called Wednesday. Many places in England, where he was probably worshipped, such as Woodensburgh and Wonsten in Kent, and Wansford or Wodensford in many parts of the country, were named after this deity. Thor, from whom we have Thursday, has been compared to Mars; but in some respects he was more like Hercules. He wielded the thunder, and that word is derived from his name, which was sometimes spelt Thuner. He possessed a large hammer, which it required ten men to carry on a hurdle: it was always kept red hot, and was, it may be believed, a very formidable instrument. The giants once stole the hammer when Thor was asleep, and carried it off to Giant-land, where it was buried eight miles deep. As it was very necessary that the gods should recover the hammer, they negotiated a marriage between the chief of the giants and Freya, who was their Venus, and after whom Friday is named; and it was part of the bargain that the hammer should be produced at the nuptial ceremony. Thor dressed himself like Freya. The giants wondered when the bride ate an ox and eight salmon; and when the bridegroom approached to salute her, he started back in affright at the fierce eyes that met his gaze. However, the hammer was produced, and Thor seizing it, fell upon the giants with a terrible shout and slaughtered them all. These deities had their valhalla or hall of gladness, where they caroused. We may imagine how much they could swallow from an anecdote told of Thor. The giants challenged him to drink out of their great horn. Thor could only with all his might drain it a few feet down, and he was much mortified. The giants, however, expressed their astonishment, for they afterwards confessed that they had removed the bottom of the horn and put its end in the sea, and Thor had drunk the whole ocean some feet down. It is clear, however, that with all his prowess Thor could not have possessed great discernment, if he did not know that he was drinking salt water instead of mead or wine. The same kind of religion was followed by the Danish pirates and all the other northern warriors.

4. It was during the reign of the Bretwalda Ethelbert that the Christian religion, almost extinct in Britain from the ravages of the pagan Saxons, revived under the protection extended to the missionaries of Gregory the Great by Queen

Bertha, daughter of Caribert, king of Paris. It is related that as Gregory, then a plain monk, was passing one day through the slave market in Rome, he was struck by the appearance of some British youths exposed for sale. On inquiring to what country they belonged, and being told they were Angles, he exclaimed:. "They would not be Angles (Angli) but Angels (Angeli), if they were but Christians." Some years afterwards, he became Pope of Rome, and not forgetting the poor captives, he sent Augustine with forty monks to convert the heathen islanders. The missionaries were well received, Ethelbert was easily converted, and 10,000 A. D. } of his subjects were baptized with him. In 604, Sebert, king of Essex, followed the bretwalda's example, and a Christian church was built in London upon the ruins of the temple of Diana. It was dedicated to Saint Paul, and a magnificent cathedral now covers the site of that humble building.

597.

A subsequent bretwalda, Redwall, king of Anglia, before receiving baptism, held a council of his wise men at Godmundham, to learn their sentiments regarding the new doctrines preached by Paulinus. All agreed in the utter inefficiency of the gods whom they worshipped, and Coifi, the pagan high priest, was the first to propose their overthrow. Casting aside his priestly garments, and springing on horseback with a spear in his hand, he rode up to the temple of the chief idol and hurled his lance within the sacred enclosure. The spell was broken, and the people, encouraged by the boldness of the priest, levelled the place to the ground. Edwin included. the isles of Anglesea and Man within his dominions, and the other Saxon kings acknowledged his authority by paying him tribute; while his influence extended far into Scotland. His nephew and successor Oswald had spent his youth at Iona, inScotland, where he imbibed the principles of Christianity, and being desirous of imparting the blessings of his new creed to his subjects, he invited many monks to labour with him in the conversion of his kingdom. By his munificence a noble monastery was founded on the bleak island of Lindisfarne, and churches and convents sprang up in other parts of his dominions.

5. It has been already said that the several kingdoms of the heptarchy, after many wars and disputed successions, merged into three, Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex. The smaller states, Kent, Sussex, Essex, and East Anglia having

sunk before them, it now remained to be seen which of the three should have the superiority over the others, and be the centre of a united state. The kingdom of Northumbria, from foreign invasion and internal discord, had become such a scene of anarchy, that of the fourteen kings who occupied the throne during a century, one only died with the crown on his head. Six were murdered by their kinsmen or rivals, five were expelled by their subjects, and two became monks. Mercia rose upon the ruins of Northumbria, and in 737, Ethelbald, its king, was monarch of the whole country south of the Humber; but five years later, Wessex recovered its independence at the battle of Burford, in Oxfordshire. Offa the Terrible, as he was called, successfully reasserted the superiority of Mercia. After subduing parts of Sussex and Kent, and wresting from Wessex all her territories on the left of the Thames, he drove the Welsh beyond the Wye, and to protect his subjects from their incursions, he caused a ditch and rampart (Offa's Dyke) to be drawn all along the country from the mouth of the Dee to the Severn, near Bristol. This work was hardly finished when the Welsh broke through it. Offa immediately marched against them, and, in a battle near Rhuddlan, their king perished with the flower of the nobility. Ten years of victory and conquest rendered him neither vain nor proud; but his ambition was insatiable, and in its gratification he perpetrated many cruel and treacherous murders. He was a munificent benefactor to the church, and not without a taste for the elegances of life. He built a palace, which was the wonder of the age, and his medals and coins are superior to any of that period. His last warlike exploit was the defeat of a body of Danes, who had already begun their desolating incursions on our coasts.

A. D.

795.

}

At the time of Offa's death the throne of Wessex was occupied by Beortric, his unsuccessful rival Egbert having taken refuge at the court of Charlemagne, where he resided. fourteen years. Beortric died by poison administered by his own wife, and Egbert, immediately returning to Wessex, was received by the people with open arms. He signalized his accession to the throne by his victories over the ancient } Britons in Devonshire and Cornwall. He next turned his arms against Bernulf, who had usurped the crown of Mercia, and had invaded Wessex with all his forces. Bernulf was defeated in 823 on the banks of the Willy, and killed in a second battle in 825. Egbert attached Mercia and all its

A. D. 800.