Little opposition, subdued the province of Kent, and there laid the foundation of the first Saxon kingdom. Every battle the Britains fought only prepared them for a new defeat, by weakening their strength, and displaying the inferiority of their courage. Vortigern, instead of a steady and regular resistance, opposed a mixture of timid war and unable negotiation. In one of their meetings, wherein the business, according to the German mode, was carried on amidst feasting and riot, Vortigern was struck with the beauty of a Saxon virgin, a kinswoman of Hengist, and entirely under his influence. Having married her, he delivered himself over to her councils.

His people, harassed by their enemies, betrayed by their prince, and indignant at the feeble tyranny that oppressed them, deposed him, and set his son Vortimer in his place. But the change of the king proved no remedy for the exhausted state of the nation, and the constitutional infirmity of the government. For even if the Britains could have supported themselves against the superior abilities and efforts of Hengist, it might have added to their honour, but would have contributed little to their safety. The news of his success had roused all Saxony. Five great bodies of that adventurous people, under different and independent commanders, very nearly at the same time broke in upon as many different parts of the island. They came no longer as pirates, but as invaders. Whilst the Britains contended with one body of their fierce enemies, another gained ground, and filled with slaughter and desolation the whole country from sea to sea. A devouring war, a dreadful famine, a plague, the most wasteful of any recorded in our history, united to consummate the ruin of Britain. The ecclesiastical writers of that age, confounded at the view of those complicated calamities, saw nothing but the arm of God stretched out for the punishment of a sinful and disobedient nation. And truly, when we set before us in one point of view the condition of almost all the parts which had lately composed the western empire, of Britain, of Gaul, of Italy, of Spain, of Africa, at once overwhelmed by a resistless inundation of most cruel barbarians, whose inhuman method of war made but a small part of the miseries with which these nations were afflicted, we are almost driven out of the circle of political inquiry: we are in a manner compelled to acknowledge the hand of God in those immense revolutions, by which, at certain periods, he so signally asserts his supreme dominion, and brings about that great system of change.

which is perhaps as necessary to the moral as it is found to be in the natural world.

But whatever was the condition of the other parts of Europe, it is generally agreed, that the state of Britain was the worst of all. Some writers have asserted, that, except those who took refuge in the mountains of Wales and in Cornwall, or fled into Armorica, the British race was in a manner destroyed. What is extraordinary, we find England in a very tolerable state of population, in less than two centuries after the first invasion of the Saxons; and it is hard to imagine either the transplantation or the increase of that single people to have been, in so short a time, sufficient for the settlement of so great an extent of country. Others speak of the Britains not as extirpated, but as reduced to a state of slavery; and here these writers fix the origin of personal and predia! servitude in England.

I shall lay fairly before the reader all I have been able to discover concerning the existence or condition of this unhappy people. That they were much more broken and reduced than any other nation, which had fallen under the German power, I think may be inferred from two considerations: First, that in all other parts of Europe the antient language subsisted after the conquest, and at length incorporated with that of the conquerours: whereas, in England, the Saxon language received little or no tincture from the Welsh; and it seems, even among the lowest people, to have continued a dialect of pure Teutonic to the time in which it was itself blended with the Nor man. Secondly, that on the continent the Christian religion, after the northern irrup tions, not only remained, but flourished. It was very early and universally adopted by the ruling people. In England it was so entirely extinguished, that, when Augustin undertook his mission, it does not appear that among all the Saxons there was a single person professing Christianity.

The sudden extinction of the antient religion and language appear sufficient to show that Britain must have suffered more than any of the neighbouring nations on the continent. But it must not be concealed that there are likewise proofs, that the British race, though much diminished, was not wholly extirpated; and that those who remained were not, merely as Britains, reduced to servitude. For they are mentioned as existing in some of the earlier Saxon laws. In these laws they are allowed a compensation on the footing of the meaner kind of English; and they are even permitted, as well as the English, to emerge

out of that low rank into a more liberal condition. This is degradation, but not slavery.* The affairs of that whole period are, how ever, covered with an obscurity not to be dissipated. The Britains had little leisure, or ability, to write a just account of a war, by which they were ruined. And the AngloSaxons, who succeeded them, attentive on.y to arms, were, until their conversion, ignorant of the use of letters.

It is on this darkened theatre that some old writers have introduced those characters and actions, which have afforded such ample matter to poets, and so much perplexity to historians. This is the fabulous and heroic age of our nation. After the natural and just representations of the Roman scene, the stage is again crowded with enchanters, giants, and all the extravagant images of the wildest and most remote antiquity. No personage makes so conspicuous a figure in these stories as King Arthur; a prince whether of British or Roman origin, whether born on this island or in Armorica, is uncertain; but it appears that he opposed the Saxons with remarkable virtue, and no small degree of success, which has rendered him and his exploits so large an argument of romance, that both are almost disclaimed by history. Light scarce begins to dawn until the introduction of Christianity; which, bringing with it the use of letters, and the arts of civil life, affords at once a juster account of things and facts, that are more worthy of relation nor is there indeed any revolution so remarkable in the English history.

The bishops of Rome had for some time meditated the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. Pope Gregory, who is surnamed the Great, effected that pious design with an uncommon zeal: and he at length found a circumstance highly favourable to it, in the marriage of a daughter of Charibert, a king of the Franks, to the reigning monarch of Kent. This opportunity induced Pope Gregory to commission Augustin, a monk of Rheims, and a man of distinguished piety, to undertake this ar duous enterprize.

It was in the year of Christ 600, and 150 years after the coming of the first Saxon colonies into England, that Ethelbert, king of Kent, received intelligence of the arrival in his dominions of a number of men in a foreign garo, practising several strange and unusual ceremonies, who desired to be conducted to the King's presence, declaring that they had

*Leges Inc 32 de cambrico homine agrum possidente. Idem 54.

things to communicate to him and to his people of the utmost importance to their eternal weł fare. This was Augustin, with forty of the associates of his mission, who now landed in the isle of Thanet, the same place, by which the Saxons had before entered when they extirpated Christianity.

The king heard them in the open air, in order to defeat,* upon a principle of druidical superstition, the effects of their enchantments. Augustin spoke by a Frankish interpreter. The Franks and Saxons were of the same origin, and used at that time the same language. He was favourably received; and a place in the city of Canterbury, the capital of Kent, was allotted for the residence of him and his companions. They entered Canterbury in procession, preceded by two persons, who bore a silver cross and the figure of Christ painted on a board; singing as they went litanies to avert the wrath of God from that city and people.

The king was among their first converts. The principal of his nobility, as usual, followed that example; moved, as it is related, by many signal miracles, but undoubtedly by the extraordinary zeal of the missionaries, and the pious austerity of their lives. The new religion, by the protection of so respected a prince, who held under his dominion or influence all the countries to the southward of the Humber, spread itself with great rapidity. Paganism, after a faint resistance, every where gave way. And indeed the chief difficulties which Christianity had to encounter, did not arise so much from the struggles of opposite religious prejudices, as from the gross and licentious manners of a barbarous people. One of the Saxon princes expelled the Christians from his territory, because the priest refused to give him some of that white bread which he saw distributed to his congregation.

It is probable that the order of Druids either did not at all subsist among the Anglo-Saxons, or that at this time it had declined not a little from its antient authority and reputation; else it is not easy to conceive how they admitted so readily a new system, which at one stroke cut off from their character its whole importance. We even find some chiefs of the Pagan priesthood among the foremost in submitting to the new doctrine. On the first preaching of the gospel in Northumberland, the heathen pontiff of that territory immediately mounted an horse which to those of his order was unlawful, and

* Veteri usus augurio, says Henry d Huntingdon, p. 321.

breaking into the sacred inclosure, hewed to pieces the idol he had so long served.*

If the order of the Druids did not subsist among the Saxons, yet the chief objects of their religion appear to have been derived from that fountain. They indeed worshipped several idols under various forms of men and beasts; and those Gods, to whom they dedicated the days of the week, bore in their attributes, and in the particular days, that were consecrated to them, though not in their names, a near resemblance to the divinities of antient Rome. But still the great and capital objects of their worship were taken from druidism; trees, stones, the elements, and the heavenly bodies. These were their principal devotions, laid the strongest hold upon their minds, and resisted the progress of the Christian religion with the greatest obstinacy. For we find these superstitions forbidden among the latest Saxon laws. A worship which stands in need of the memorial of images or books to support it, may perish when these are destroyed. But when a superstition is established upon those great objects of nature, which continually solicit the sense, , it is extremely difficult to turn the mind from things, that in themselves are striking, and that are always present. Among the objects of this class must be reckoned tho goddess Eostre, who from the etymology of the name, as well as from the season sacred to her, was probably that beautiful planet, which the Greeks and Romans worshipped under the names of Lucifer and Venus. It is from this goddess that in England the Paschal Festival nas been called Easter. To these they joined the reverence of various subordinate genii, or demons, fairies, and goblins; fantastical ideas, which in a state of uninstructed nature grow spontaneously out of the wild fancies or fears of men. Thus they worshipped a sort of goddess, whom they called Mara, formed from those frightful appearances, that oppress men in their sleep; and the name is still retained among us.§

As to the manners of the Anglo-Saxons, they were such as might be expected in a rude people; fierce, and of a gross simplicity. Their clothes were short. As all barbarians

*Bed. Hist. Eccl. 1. ii. c. 13.

Gentiles Deos: et solem vel lunam; ignem vel fluvium; torrentem vel sara; vel alicujus generis arborum ligna. L. Cnut. 5. Superstitiosus ille conventus, qui Frithgear dicitur, circa lapidem, arborem, fontem. Leg. Presb. Northumb.

Spelman's Glossary, Tit. eod.
The Night-mare.

are much taken with exteriour form, and the advantages and distinctions which are conferred by nature, the Saxons set an high value on comeliness of person, and studied much to improve it. It is remarkable, that a law of King Ina orders the care and education of foundlings to be regulated by their beauty.* They cherished their hair to a great length, and were extremely proud and jealous of this natural ornament. Some of their great men were distinguished by an appellative taken from the length of their hair. To pull the hair was punishable; and forcibly to cut or injure it was considered in the same criminal light with cutting off the nose or thrusting out the eyes. In the same design of barbarous ornament, their faces were generally painted and scarred. They were so fond of chains and bracelets that they have given a surname to some of their kings from their generosity in bestowing such marks of favour.§

Few things discover the state of the arts among people more certainly than the presents that are made to them by foreigners. The pope, on his first mission into Northumberland, sent to the queen of that country some stuffs, with ornaments of gold; an ivory comb inlaid with the same metal, and a silver mirrour. A queen's want of such female ornaments and utensils shows that the arts were at this time little cultivated among the Saxons. These are the sort of presents commonly sent to a barbarous people.

Thus ignorant in sciences and arts, and unpractised in trade or manufacture, military exercises, war, and the preparation for war, was their employment, hunting their pleasure. They dwelt in cottages of wicker work, plastered with clay, and thatched with rushes, where they sat with their families, their officers and domestics, round a fire made in the middle of the house. In this manner their greatest princes living amidst the ruins of Roman magnificence. But the introduction of Christianity, which, under whatever form, always confers such inestimable benefits on mankind, soon made a sensible change in these rudo and fierce manners.

It is by no means impossible, that, for an end so worthy, providence, on some occasions, might directly have interposed. The books

of their doctrine, which was able to produce such extraordinary effects upon persons, over whom religion has commonly the slightest influence.

The zeal of the missionaries was also much assisted by their superiority in the arts of civil life. At their first preaching in Sussex, that country was reduced to the greatest distress from a drought, which had continued for three years. The barbarous inhabitants, destitute of any means to alleviate the famine, in an epidemic transport of despair, frequently united forty and fifty in a body, and, joining their hands, precipitated themselves from the cliffs, and were either drowned or dashed to pieces on the rocks. Though a maritime people, they knew not how to fish; and this ignorance probably arose from a remnant of druidical superstition, which had forbidden the use of that sort of diet. In this calamity, Bishop Wilfrid, their first preacher, collecting nets, at the head of his attendants, plunged into the sea, and having opened this great resource of food, he reconciled the desperate people to life, and their minds to the spiritual care of those who had shown themselves so attentive to their temporal preservation.*

The same regard to the welfare of the people appeared in all their actions. The Christian kings sometimes made donations to the church of lands conquered from their heathen enemies. The clergy immediately baptized and manumitted their new vassals. Thus they endeared to all sorts of men, doctrines and teachers which could mitigate the rigorous law of conquest; and they rejoiced to see religion and liberty advancing with an equal progress. Nor were the monks of this time in any thing more worthy of praise, than in their zeal for personal freedom. In the canon, wherein they provided against the alienation of their lands, among other charitable exceptions to this restraint, they particularize the purchase of liberty. In their transactions with the great, the same point was always strenuously laboured. When they imposed Denance, they were remarkably indulgent to persons of that rank. But they always made them purchase the remission of corporal auserity by acts of beneficence. They urged their powerful penitents to the enfranchisement of their own slaves, and to the redemption of those which belonged to others; they directed them to the repair of highways, and to the construction of churches, bridges, and other works

Bed. Hist. Eccl. 1. 4. c. 13. Spelm. Concil. p. 329.

VOL. II.-33

of general utility.* They extracted the fruits of virtue even from crimes, and whenever a great man expiated his private offences, he provided in the same act for the public happiness. The monasteries were then the only bodies corporate in the kingdom; and if any persons were desirous to perpetuate their charity by a fund for the relief of the sick or indigent, there was no other way than to confide this trust to some monastery. The monks were the sole channel through which the bounty of the rich could pass in any continued stream to the poor: and the people turned their eyes towards them in ali their distresses.

We must observe, that the monks of that time, especially those of Ireland,† who had a considerable share in the conversion of all the northern parts, did not show that rapacious desire of riches, which long disgraced, and finally ruined their successors. Not only did they not seek, but seemed even to shun such donations. This prevented that alarm, which might have arisen from an early and declared avarice. At this time the most fervent and holy anchorites retired to places the furthest that could be found from human concourse and help, to the most desolate and barren situations. which even from their horrour seemed particularly adapted to men who had renounced the world. Many persons followed them in order to partake of their instructions and prayers, or to form themselves upon their example. An opinion of their miracles after their death drew still greater numbers. Establishments were gradually made. The monastic life was frugal, and the government moderate. These causes drew a constant concourse. Sanctified deserts assumed a new face; the marshes were drained and the lands cultivated. And as this revolution seemed rather the effect of the holiness of the place than of any natural causes, it increased their credit; and every improvement drew with it a new donation. In this manner the great abbies of Croyland and Glastonbury, and many others, from the most obscure beginnings, were advanced to a degree of wealth and splendour little less than royal.

Instauret etiam Dei ecclesiam ; et instauret vias publicas, pontibus super aquas profundas et super cenosas vias; et manumittat

servos suos proprios, et redimat ab aliis hominibus servos suos ad libertatem. L. Eccl. Edgari. 14.

Aidanas Finam et Colmannus mira sanctitatis fuerunt et parsimonie. Adeo enim sacerdotes erant lius temporis ab avaritia immunes, ut nec territoria, nisi coacti accipe rent. Hen. Hunting, apud. Decem .. 3. p. 333. Bed. Hist. Eccl. 1. 3. c. 26.