CHAPTER II.
THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH.
In the early half of the fifth century it seemed likely that Britain would become the prey of its old enemies the Picts and Scots, rather than of the more distant Saxons. But the wild tribes of the North came to plunder only, while the pirates from the Elbe and Eider had larger designs.
The conquest of Britain by the Angles and Saxons differed in every way from that of the other Western provinces of the Roman empire by the kindred tribes of the Goths, the Franks, and the Lombards. The Goths and the Franks had dwelt for two hundred years on the borders of the empire; they had traded with its merchants, served as mercenaries in its armies, and learnt to appreciate its luxuries. Many of them had accepted Christianity long before their conquest of the provinces which they turned into Teutonic kingdoms. But the Saxons were plunged in the blackest heathendom and barbarism, dwelling as they did by the Elbe and Eider, far at the back of the tribes that had any touch with or knowledge of the empire and its civilization. The Goth and the Frank came to enslave, and to enjoy; the Angle and the Saxon were bent purely on a work of destruction. Hence it came that, instead of contenting themselves with overthrowing the provincial government, and enthralling the inhabitants of the land, they swept away everything before them, and replaced the old civilization of Britain by a perfectly new social organization of their own.
Hengist and Horsa, 449.—Kingdom of Kent.
If the Welsh legends speak truly, the first settlement of the Saxons on British soil was caused by the unwisdom of the native kings. We are told that Vortigern, the monarch who ruled Kent and south-eastern Britain, was so harried by the Picts and Scots that he sent in despair to hire some German chiefs to fight his battles for him. The story may be true, for in the decaying days of the Roman empire the Cæsars themselves had often hired one barbarian to fight another, and the British king may well have followed their example. The legend then proceeds to tell how Vortigern's invitation was accepted by Hengist and Horsa, two chiefs of Jutish blood, who came with their war-bands to the aid of the Britons, and drove away the Picts and Scots. But when the king of Kent wished to pay them their due and get them out of the country, Hengist and Horsa refused to depart: they seized and fortified the Isle of Thanet, which was then separated from the mainland by a broad marshy channel, and defied the Britons to drive them away (449). Then began a long war between the two sea-kings and their late employer, which, after many vicissitudes, ended in the conquest of the whole of Kent by Hengist. Horsa had been slain in the battle of Aylesford, which gave the invaders full possession of the land between the forest of the Weald and the estuary of the Thames. Hengist was saluted as king by his victorious followers, and was the ancestor of a long line of Kentish monarchs.
We cannot be sure that the details of the story of the conquest of Kent are correct, but they are not unlikely, and it is quite probable that this kingdom was the first state which the Germans built up on British ground.
Aella, 477.—Kingdom of the South Saxons.
Hengist and Horsa's warriors were not Saxons, but members of the tribe of the Jutes, who dwelt north of the Saxons in the Danish peninsula, where a land of moors and lakes still bears the name of Jutland. But the next band of invaders who seized on part of Britain were of Saxon blood. An "alderman" or chief called Aella brought his war-band to the southern shore of Britain in 477, and landed near the great fortress of Anderida (Pevensey), one of the strongholds that had, in old days, been under the care of the Roman "count of the Saxon shore." The followers of Aella sacked this town, and slew off every living thing that was therein. They went on to conquer the narrow slip of land between the sea and the forest of the Weald, as far as Chichester and Selsea, and made the chalky downs their own. Settling down thereon, they called themselves the South Saxons, and the district got from them the name of Sussex (Suth Seaxe). There Aella reigned as king, and many of his obscure descendants after him.