the Saxons. Tacitus indeed mentions the Angli, with other tribes, as dwelling in a remote and inaccessible region, but gives no particulars. Fifty years afterwards, Ptolemy speaks of them as inhabiting part of the left bank of the Elbe. Later on, we find them located in the Cimbric peninsula, between the Jutes and the Saxons. It is from this country that Bede speaks of them as migrating when they followed their neighbours to Britain, and this in such numbers that their original country was left wholly without inhabitants.2 There is still a corner of land called Angelis in Sleswick, lying a little to the north of the harbour of Kiel. But there are writers of no small authority who hold that there was no real difference. between Angles and Saxons. It is certain indeed that they were closely related; but for the purpose of the present volume it will suffice to accept the commonly received division, and to speak of the Angles as the third, and probably the strongest, of the three stocks. Of the conquest of the Angles we know little beyond the results. North of the East Saxons and south of the Wash was a region in which, as we have reason for thinking, some German settlers had already taken up their abode. This was occupied by one colony of Angles which afterwards divided itself into two portions, respectively called the North and South Folk.3 The first king of the East Angles is said to I By the "Cimbric peninsula " is meant the projecting piece of land containing Holstein, Sleswick, and Jutland. 2 It is curious to find Bede speaking of this country as vetus Anglia," Old England. We have in this a stili older England than the country which now commonly bears the name. 3 Norfolk and Suffolk. THE KINGDOM OF NORTHUMBRIA. 103 have been one Uffa, who gave his name to a line of princes known as Uffings. North of the Wash was the country once dominated by the Roman colony of Lindum.1 Lindum was no more able to hold out against the invaders than London had been. But the new-comers took their name from the stronghold which they had conquered, and called themselves Lindiswaras, a name still preserved in the Lindsey district of Lincolnshire. Separate at first, the Lindiswaras afterwards were joined to East Anglia. Between the Humber and the Forth was another region which fell by degrees, during the latter part of the fifth and the first half of the sixth century, into the hands of the Angles. The long range of unprotected coast was first occupied by them, and they gradually extended their conquests inland. Eboracum 2 shared the fate of London and Lindum. The whole of this country may be described by the general name of Northumbria. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which is commonly very sparing of all notices of the doing of the Angles, records, under 547, "in this year Ida assumed the kingdom, from whom came the royal race of Northumbrians." Northumbria was sometimes one kingdom, sometimes divided into twoDeira and Bernicia-lying, respectively, south and north of the Tyne. It is interesting to note that Bamborough is mentioned as the spot which Ida first occupied as his base of operations. "He surrounded it," said the Chronicler, "first with a ditch, and afterwards with a wall." In the latter half of the sixth century the West Saxons regained their activity, and pushed forwards the conquests which had been checked awhile by the defeat at Badon Hill. Under the year 552, the Chronicle records: "In this year Cynric fought against the British in a place which is called Searoburgh (Old Sarum), and put the Brito-Welsh to flight." Four years afterwards we find him fighting with the same enemies at Barbury Hill, some twentyfive miles to the north.1 In 560 Cynric was succeeded by his son Ceawlin, and under his rule the West Saxons made rapid progress. After a conflict with the ruler of Kent-the first instance we find on record of strife between different stocks of the conquerors-we find him in 571 fighting against the Brito-Welsh at Bedford, and taking four towns (one of which can be clearly identified as Aylesbury); and in 577, again, we read how Ceawlin and Cuthwine (a brother of the king) fought against three kings at Deorham, and took three cities from them-Gloucester and Cirencester and Bath. Frethern (in Gloucestershire) is mentioned (though we cannot be certain of the place) as the scene of another battle (584). Here "Cutha was slain, and Ceawlin took many towns, and countless booty, and returned thence wrathful to his own." This may be said to mark, for a time, the furthest advance of Wessex as against the British population. If the "Beranbarh" of the Chronicle is, as Mr. Thorpe thinks, Banbury, in the north of Oxfordshire, it would show a greater advance. Barbury is a height of the Marlborough Downs (between Swindon and Marlborough). The remains of a great British camp are still to be seen there. THE KINGDOM OF MERCIA. 105 The great victory of Deorham was the last of Ceawlin's successes. Another kingdom remains to be spoken of-Mercia, the settlement of the Angles in Central England. No part of the history of the Conquest is more obscure. The name of Mercians signifies "Men of the Marshes," and refers to their position as living on the boundaries of the British kingdoms. It must, therefore, be somewhat late in date. That the tribes who had conquered Eastern England, which was then, it must be remembered, largely occupied by marsh and fen, pushed their way to the westward, may be fairly conjectured. And it is also probable that advance parties from the West Saxons, after these had resumed their career of conquest, came northwards. Mercia, therefore, may be regarded as mainly an Anglian settlement, but with the admixture of a certain Saxon element. It has been pointed out that in history it appears as less united in feeling and action than any other of the English states. Its first king is said to have been Crida whose death is assigned to the year 600. In 577 the work of the conquerors was substantially finished. Let us see how the two races-British and Saxon (or English, as we shall hereafter call it) stood to one another; how they shared the island between them. South of the Bristol Channel the Britons still occupied Cornwall, Devonshire, and almost all Somersetshire and Dorsetshire. This region was called West Wales. North of the Bristol Channel we must imagine a |