A.D. 455. Saxons.
These Picts and Caledonians, or Scots, encouraged by the departure of the Romans, do now cruelly infest and invade the Britons by sea and land: The Britons choose Vortigern for their king, who was forced to invite the Saxons (a fierce Northern people) to assist him against those barbarians. The Saxons came over, and beat the Picts in several battles; but, at last, pick quarrels with the Britons themselves; and, after a long war, drive them into the mountains of Wales and Cornwall, and establish themselves in seven kingdoms in Britain, (by them now called England). These seven kingdoms are usually styled the Saxon Heptarchy.