CHAPTER I.

Transcriber's Note:

Like much 18th and 19th century publishing, the edition of

David Hume's "History of England" from which this text was

prepared makes extensive use of both footnotes and marginal

notes. Since this e-text format does not allow use of the

original superscripts to denote the lettered footnotes, they

are indicated by the relevant letter within brackets, thus

"[a]", and the footnotes themselves are reproduced within

brackets and preceded by "FN" at the end of the PARAGRAPH to

which they relate; since some of Hume's paragraphs are

considerably longer than is normal in 21st century American or

British writing, you may have to scroll some distance to find

the text of the footnote. All footnotes are reproduced

exactly as in the printed text.

More discretion has been exercised regarding marginal notes.

Those which simply repeat chapter numbers and dates already

given in the text are omitted as non-essential clutter. The

remainder are reproduced within brackets and preceded by "MN".

Those marginal notes which appear to correspond to sub-chapter

headings are reproduced as the first line of the paragraph to

which they relate. Other marginal notes are reproduced within

the text of the paragraph. Some apparently incomplete

marginal notes ending or beginning with ellipses are due to

cases where what is logically a single marginal note has been

broken into two or more pieces separated by a considerable

vertical distance.

THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, VOLUME I

From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688

by

DAVID HUME, ESQ.

With the Author's Last Corrections and Improvements, to which is

prefixed a Short Account of His Life Written by Himself

COMPLETE IN SIX VOLUMES

MY OWN LIFE.

It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity;

therefore I shall be short. It may be thought an instance of vanity

that I pretend at all to write my life; but this narrative shall

contain little more than the history of my writings; as, indeed,

almost all my life has been spent in literary pursuits and

occupations. The first success of most of my writings was not such as

to be an object of vanity.

I was born the 26th of April, 1711, old style, at Edinburgh. I was of

a good family, both by father and mother: my father's family is a

branch of the Earl of Home's, or Hume's; and my ancestors had been

proprietors of the estate which my brother possesses, for several

generations. My mother was daughter of Sir David Falconer, President

of the College of Justice: the title of Lord Halkerton came by

succession to her brother.

My family, however, was not rich; and being myself a younger brother,

my patrimony, according to the mode of my country, was of course very

slender. My father, who passed for a man of parts, died when I was an

infant, leaving me, with an elder brother and a sister, under the care

of our mother, a woman of singular merit, who, though young and

handsome, devoted herself entirely to the rearing and educating of her

children. I passed through the ordinary course of education with

success, and was seized very early with a passion for literature,

which has been the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of

my enjoyments. My studious disposition, my sobriety, and my industry,

gave my family a notion that the law was a proper profession for me;

but I found an unsurmountable aversion to every thing but the pursuits

of philosophy and general learning; and while they fancied I was

poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which

I was secretly devouring.

My very slender fortune, however, being unsuitable to this plan of

life, and my health being a little broken by my ardent application, I

was tempted, or rather forced, to make a very feeble trial for

entering into a more active scene of life. In 1734 I went to Bristol,

with some recommendations to several merchants; but in a few months

found that scene totally unsuitable to me. I went over to France with

a view of prosecuting my studies in a country retreat; and I there

laid that plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued.

I resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of

fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every

object as contemptible, except the improvement of my talents in

literature.

During my retreat in France, first at Rheims but chiefly at La Fleche,

in Anjou, I composed my Treatise of Human Nature. After passing three

years very agreeably in that country, I came over to London in 1737.

In the end of 1738 I published my Treatise, and immediately went down

to my mother and my brother, who lived at his country-house, and

employed himself very judiciously and successfully in the improvement

of his fortune.

Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human

Nature. It fell DEAD-BORN FROM THE PRESS, without reaching such

distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots. But being

naturally of a cheerful and sanguine temper, I very soon recovered the

blow, and prosecuted with great ardour my studies in the country. In

1742 I printed at Edinburgh the first part of my Essays: the work was

favourably received, and soon made me entirely forget my former

disappointment. I continued with my mother and brother in the

country, and in that time recovered the knowledge of the Greek

language, which I had too much neglected in my early youth.

In 1745 I received a letter from the Marquis of Annandale, inviting me

to come and live with him in England; I found, also, that the friends

and family of that young nobleman were desirous of putting him under

my care and direction, for the state of his mind and health required

it.--I lived with him a twelve-month. My appointments during that

time made a considerable accession to my small fortune. I then

received an invitation from General St. Clair to attend him as a

secretary to his expedition, which was at first meant against Canada,

but ended in an incursion on the coast of France. Next year, to wit,

1747, I received an invitation from the general to attend him in the

same station in his military embassy to the courts of Vienna and

Turin. I then wore the uniform of an officer, and was introduced at

these courts as aide-de-camp to the general, along with Sir Harry

Erskine and Captain Grant, now General Grant. These two years were

almost the only interruptions which my studies have received during

the course of my life: I passed them agreeably and in good company;

and my appointments, with my frugality, had made me reach a fortune

which I called independent, though most of my friends were inclined to

smile when I said so: in short, I was now master of near a thousand

pounds.

I had always entertained a notion, that my want of success in

publishing the Treatise of Human Nature, had proceeded more from the

manner than the matter, and that I had been guilty of a very usual

indiscretion, in going to the press too early. I therefore cast the

first part of that work anew in the Enquiry concerning Human

Understanding, which was published while I was at Turin. But this

piece was at first little more successful than the Treatise of Human

Nature. On my return from Italy, I had the mortification to find all

England in a ferment, on account of Dr. Middleton's Free Enquiry,

while my performance was entirely over-looked and neglected. A new

edition which had been published in London, of my Essays, moral and

political, met not with a much better reception.

Such is the force of natural temper, that these disappointments made

little or no impression on me. I went down in 1749, and lived two

years with my brother at his country-house, for my mother was now

dead. I there composed the second part of my Essay, which I called

Political Discourses, and also my Enquiry concerning the Principles of

Morals, which is another part of my treatise that I cast anew.

Meanwhile my bookseller, A. Miller, informed me that my former

publications (all but the unfortunate Treatise) were beginning to be

the subject of conversation; that the sale of them was gradually

increasing; and that new editions were demanded. Answers by Reverends

and Right Reverends came out two or three in a year; and I found, by

Dr. Warburton's railing, that the books were beginning to be esteemed

in good company. However, I had a fixed resolution, which I

inflexibly maintained, never to reply to any body; and not being very

irascible in my temper, I have easily kept myself clear of all

literary squabbles. These symptoms of a rising reputation gave me

encouragement, as I was ever more disposed to see the favourable than

the unfavourable side of things; a turn of mind which it is more happy

to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year.

In 1751 I removed from the country to the town, the true scene for a

man of letters. In 1752 were published at Edinburgh, where I then

lived, my Political Discourses, the only work of mine that was

successful on the first publication. It was well received at home and

abroad. In the same year was published, in London, my Enquiry

concerning the Principles of Morals; which, in my own opinion, (who

ought not to judge on that subject,) is of all my writings,

historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best. It

came unnoticed and unobserved into the world.

In 1752 the Faculty of Advocates chose me their librarian; an office

from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the

command of a large library. I then formed the plan of writing the

History of England; but being frightened with the notion of continuing

a narrative through a period of one thousand seven hundred years, I

commenced with the accession of the house of Stuart, an epoch when, I

thought, the misrepresentations of faction began chiefly to take

place. I was, I own, sanguine in my expectations of the success of

this work. I thought that I was the only historian that had at once

neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of

popular prejudices; and as the subject was suited to every capacity,

I expected proportional applause. But miserable was my

disappointment: I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation,

and even detestation; English, Scotch, and Irish, whig and tory,

churchman and sectary, freethinker and religionist, patriot and

courtier, united in their rage against the man who had presumed to

shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of

Strafford; and after the first ebullitions of their fury were over,

what was still more mortifying, the book seemed to sink into oblivion.

Mr. Miller told me, that in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five

copies of it. I scarcely, indeed, heard of one man in the three

kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the

book. I must only except the primate of England, Dr. Herring, and the

primate of Ireland, Dr. Stone, which seem two odd exceptions. These

dignified prelates separately sent me a message not to be discouraged.

I was, however, I confess, discouraged; and had not the war at that

time been breaking out between France and England, I had certainly

retired to some provincial town of the former kingdom, have changed my

name, and never more have returned to my native country. But as this

scheme was not now practicable, and the subsequent volume was

considerably advanced, I resolved to pick up courage and to persevere.

In this interval I published at London my Natural History of Religion,

along with some other small pieces: its public entry was rather

obscure, except only that Dr. Hurd wrote a pamphlet against it, with

all the illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility, which

distinguish the Warburtonian school. This pamphlet gave me some

consolation for the otherwise indifferent reception of my performance.

In 1756, two years after the fall of the first volume, was published

the second volume of my History, containing the period from the death

of Charles I. till the Revolution. This performance happened to give

less displeasure to the whigs, and was better received. It not only

rose itself, but helped to buoy up its unfortunate brother.

But though I had been taught by experience, that the whig party were

in possession of bestowing all places, both in the state and in

literature, I was so little inclined to yield to their senseless

clamour, that in above a hundred alterations, which farther study,

reading, or reflection, engaged me to make in the reigns of the two

first Stuarts, I have made all of them invariably to the tory side.

It is ridiculous to consider the English constitution before that

period as a regular plan of liberty.

In 1759 I published my History of the House of Tudor. The clamour

against this performance was almost equal to that against the History

of the two first Stuarts. The reign of Elizabeth was particularly

obnoxious. But I was now callous against the impressions of public

folly, and continued very peaceably and contentedly in my retreat in

Edinburgh, to finish, in two volumes, the more early part of the

English History, which I gave to the public in 1761, with tolerable,

and but tolerable, success.

But notwithstanding this variety of winds and seasons to which my

writings have been exposed, they had still been making such advances,

that the copy-money given me by the booksellers much exceeded any

thing formerly known in England: I retired to my native country of

Scotland, determined never more to set my foot out of it; and

retaining the satisfaction of never having preferred a request to one

great man, or even making advances of friendship to any of them. As I

was now turned of fifty, I thought of passing all the rest of my life

in this philosophical manner, when I received, in 1763, an invitation

from the Earl of Hertford, with whom I was not in the least

acquainted, to attend him on his embassy to Paris, with a near

prospect of being appointed secretary to the embassy; and, in the

meanwhile, of performing the functions of that office. This offer,

however inviting, I at first declined, both because I was reluctant to

begin connexions with the great, and because I was afraid that the

civilities and gay company of Paris would prove disagreeable to a

person of my age and humour: but on his lordship's repeating the

invitation, I accepted of it. I have every reason, both of pleasure

and interest, to think myself happy in my connexions with that

nobleman, as well as afterwards with his brother General Conway.

Those who have not seen the strange effects of modes will never

imagine the reception I met with at Paris, from men and women of all

ranks and stations. The more I resiled from their excessive

civilities, the more I was loaded with them. There is, however, a

real satisfaction in living at Paris, from the great number of

sensible, knowing, and polite company with which that city abounds

above all places in the universe. I thought once of settling there

for life.

I was appointed secretary to the embassy; and in summer, 1765, Lord

Hertford left me, being appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. I was

chargé d'affaires till the arrival of the Duke of Richmond, towards

the end of the year. In the beginning of 1766 I left Paris, and next

summer went to Edinburgh, with the same view as formerly of burying

myself in a philosophical retreat. I returned to that place, not

richer, but with much more money, and a much larger income, by means

of Lord Hertford's friendship, than I left it; and I was desirous of

trying what superfluity could produce, as I had formerly made an

experiment of a competency. But in 1767 I received from Mr. Conway an

invitation to be under-secretary; and this invitation, both the

character of the person, and my connexions with Lord Hertford,

prevented me from declining. I returned to Edinburgh in 1769, very

opulent, (for I possessed a revenue of 1000L. a year,) healthy, and,

though somewhat stricken in years, with the prospect of enjoying long

my ease, and of seeing the increase of my reputation.

In spring, 1775, I was struck with a disorder in my bowels, which at

first gave me no alarm, but has since, as I apprehend it, become

mortal and incurable. I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution. I have

suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange

have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a

moment's abatement of my spirits, inasmuch that were I to name a

period of my life which I should most choose to pass over again, I

might be tempted to point to this later period. I possess the same

ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company. I consider,

besides, that a man of sixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a few years

of infirmities; and though I see many symptoms of my literary

reputation's breaking out at last with additional lustre, I know that

I could have but few years to enjoy it. It is difficult to be more

detached from life than I am at present.

To conclude historically with my own character. I am, or rather was,

(for that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself, which

emboldens me the more to speak my sentiments)--I was, I say, a man of

mild disposition, of command of temper, of an open, social, and

cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of

enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of

literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper,

notwithstanding my frequent disappointments. My company was not

unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and

literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest

women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with

from them. In a word, though most men, anywise eminent, have found

reason to complain of calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked

by her baleful tooth; and though I wantonly exposed myself to the rage

of both civil and religious factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my

behalf of their wonted fury. My friends never had occasion to

vindicate any one circumstance of my character and conduct: not but

that the zealots, we may well suppose, would have been glad to invent

and propagate any story to my disadvantage, but they could never find

any which they thought would wear the face of probability. I cannot

say there is no vanity in making this funeral oration of myself; but I

hope it is not a misplaced one; and this is a matter of fact which is

easily cleared and ascertained.

April 18, 1776.

LETTER

FROM

ADAM SMITH. LL. D.

To

WILLIAM STRAHAN, ESQ.

Kirkaldy, Fifeshire, Nov. 9, 1776

DEAR SIR,

It is with a real, though a very melancholy pleasure, that I sit down

to give you some account of the behaviour of our late excellent

friend, Mr. Hume, during his last illness.

Though in his own judgment his disease was mortal and incurable, yet

he allowed himself to be prevailed upon, by the entreaty of his

friends, to try what might be the effects of a long journey. A few

days before he set out, he wrote that account of his own life, which,

together with his other papers, he has left to your care. My account,

therefore, shall begin where his ends.

He set out for London towards the end of April, and at Morpeth met

with Mr. John Home, and myself, who had both come down from London on

purpose to see him, expecting to have found him at Edinburgh. Mr.

Home returned with him, and attended him, during the whole of his stay

in England, with that care and attention which might be expected from

a temper so perfectly friendly and affectionate. As I had written to

my mother that she might expect me in Scotland, I was under the

necessity of continuing my journey. His disease seemed to yield to

exercise and change of air, and when he arrived in London, he was

apparently in much better health than when he left Edinburgh. He was

advised to go to Bath to drink the waters, which appeared for some

time to have so good an effect upon him, that even he himself began to

entertain, what he was not apt to do, a better opinion of his own

health. His symptoms, however, soon returned with their usual

violence, and from that moment he gave up all thoughts of recovery,

but submitted with the utmost cheerfulness, and the most perfect

complacency and resignation. Upon his return to Edinburgh, though he

found himself much weaker, yet his cheerfulness never abated, and he

continued to divert himself, as usual, with correcting his own works

for a new edition, with reading books of amusement, with the

conversation of his friends, and sometimes in the evening with a party

at his favourite game of whist. His cheerfulness was so great, and

his conversation and amusements ran so much in their usual strain,

that, notwithstanding all bad symptoms, many people could not believe

he was dying. "I shall tell your friend, Colonel Edmonstone," said

Doctor Dundas to him one day, "that I left you much better, and in a

fair way of recovery." "Doctor," said he, "as I believe you would not

choose to tell any thing but the truth, you had better tell him, that

I am dying as fast as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and as

easily and cheerfully as my best friends could desire." Colonel

Edmonstone soon afterwards came to see him, and take leave of him; and

on his way home he could not forbear writing him a letter, bidding him

once more an eternal adieu, and applying to him, as to a dying man,

the beautiful French verses in which the Abbé Chaulieu, in expectation

of his own death, laments his approaching separation from his friend

the Marquis de la Fare. Mr. Hume's magnanimity and firmness were

such, that his most affectionate friends knew that they hazarded

nothing in talking or writing to him as to a dying man, and that, so

far from being hurt by this frankness, he was rather pleased and

flattered by it. I happened to come into his room while he was

reading this letter, which he had just received, and which he

immediately showed me. I told him, that though I was sensible how

very much he was weakened, and that appearances were in many respects

very bad, yet his cheerfulness was still so great, the spirit of life

seemed still to be so very strong in him, that I could not help

entertaining some faint hopes. He answered, "Your hopes are

groundless. An habitual diarrhoea of more than a year's standing

would be a very bad disease at any age: at my age it is a mortal one.

When I lie down in the evening I feel myself weaker than when I rose

in the morning, and when I rise in the morning weaker than when I lay

down in the evening. I am sensible, besides, that some of my vital

parts are affected, so that I must soon die." "Well," said I, "if it

must be so, you have at least the satisfaction of leaving all your

friends, your brother's family in particular, in great prosperity."

He said that he felt that satisfaction so sensibly, that when he was

reading, a few days before, Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead, among all

the excuses which are alleged to Charon for not entering readily into

his boat, he could not find one that fitted him; he had no house to

finish, he had no daughter to provide for, he had no enemies upon whom

he wished to revenge himself. "I could not well imagine," said he,

"what excuse I could make to Charon in order to obtain a little

delay. I have done every thing of consequence which I ever meant to

do, and I could at no time expect to leave my relations and friends in

a better situation than that in which I am now likely to leave them: I

therefore have all reason to die contented." He then diverted himself

with inventing several jocular excuses, which he supposed he might

make to Charon, and with imagining the very surly answers which it

might suit the character of Charon to return to them. "Upon further

consideration," said he, "I thought I might say to him, 'Good Charon,

I have been correcting my works for a new edition. Allow me a little

time, that I may see how the public receives the alterations.' But

Charon would answer, 'When you have seen the effect of these, you will

be for making other alterations. There will be no end of such

excuses; so, honest friend, please step into the boat.' But I might

still urge, 'Have a little patience, good Charon, I have been

endeavouring to open the eyes of the public. If I live a few years

longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of

the prevailing systems of superstition.' But Charon would then lose

all temper and decency--'You loitering rogue, that will not happen

these many hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for

so long a term? Get into the boat this instant, you lazy, loitering

rogue.'"

But though Mr. Hume always talked of his approaching dissolution with

great cheerfulness, he never affected to make any parade of his

magnanimity. He never mentioned the subject, but when the

conversation naturally led to it, and never dwelt longer upon it than

the course of the conversation happened to require. It was a subject,

indeed, which occurred pretty frequently, in consequence of the

inquiries which his friends, who came to see him, naturally made

concerning the state of his health. The conversation which I

mentioned above, and which passed on Thursday the 8th of August, was

the last, except one, that I ever had with him. He had now become so

very weak, that the company of his most intimate friends fatigued him;

for his cheerfulness was still so great, his complaisance and social

disposition were still so entire, that when any friend was with him,

he could not help talking more, and with greater exertion, than suited

the weakness of his body. At his own desire, therefore, I agreed to

leave Edinburgh, where I was staying partly upon his account, and

returned to my mother's house here, at Kirkaldy, upon condition that

he would send for me whenever he wished to see me; the physician who

saw him most frequently, Dr. Black, undertaking in the mean time to

write me occasionally an account of the state of his health.

On the 22d of August, the doctor wrote me the following letter:

"Since my last, Mr. Hume has passed his time pretty easily, but is

much weaker. He sits up, goes down stairs once a day, and amuses

himself with reading, but seldom sees any body. He finds, that the

conversation of his most intimate friends fatigues and oppresses him;

and it is happy that he does not need it, for he is quite free from

anxiety, impatience, or low spirits, and passes his time very well

with the assistance of amusing books."

I received the day after a letter from Mr. Hume himself, of which the

following is an extract:

"Edinburgh, Aug. 23, 1776

"MY DEAREST FRIEND,

"I am obliged to make use of my nephew's hand in writing to you, as I

do not rise to-day. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"I go very fast to decline, and last night had a small fever, which I

hoped might put a quicker period to this tedious illness; but,

unluckily, it has in a great measure gone off. I cannot submit to

your coming over here on my account, as it is possible for me to see

you so small a part of the day; but Dr. Black can better inform you

concerning the degree of strength which may from time to time remain

with me.

"Adieu, &c."

Three days after, I received the following letter from Dr. Black:

"Edinburgh, Monday, Aug. 26, 1776.

"DEAR SIR,

"Yesterday, about four o'clock, afternoon, Mr. Hume expired. The near

approach of his death became evident in the night between Thursday and

Friday, when his disease became excessive, and soon weakened him so

much, that he could no longer rise out of his bed. He continued to

the last perfectly sensible, and free from much pain or feelings of

distress. He never dropped the smallest expression of impatience; but

when he had occasion to speak to the people about him, always did it

with affection and tenderness. I thought it improper to write to

bring you over, especially as I heard that he had dictated a letter to

you, desiring you not to come. When he became very weak, it cost him

an effort to speak, and he died in such a happy composure of mind that

nothing could exceed it."

Thus died our most excellent and never to be forgotten friend;

concerning whose philosophical opinions men will no doubt judge

variously, every one approving or condemning them, according as they

happen to coincide or disagree with his own; but concerning whose

character and conduct there can scarce be a difference of opinion.

His temper, indeed, seemed to be more happily balanced, if I may be

allowed such an expression, than that perhaps of any other man I have

ever known. Even in the lowest state of his fortune, his great and

necessary frugality never hindered him from exercising, upon proper

occasions, acts both of charity and generosity. It was a frugality

founded not upon avarice, but upon the love of independency. The

extreme gentleness of his nature never weakened either the firmness of

his mind, or the steadiness of his resolutions. His constant

pleasantry was the genuine effusion of good-nature and good-humour,

tempered with delicacy and modesty, and without even the slightest

tincture of malignity, so frequently the disagreeable source of what

is called wit in other men. It never was the meaning of his raillery

to mortify; and therefore, far from offending, it seldom failed to

please and delight even those who were the objects of it. To his

friends, who were frequently the objects of it, there was not perhaps

one of all his great and amiable qualities which contributed more to

endear his conversation. And that gaiety of temper, so agreeable in

society, but which is so often accompanied with frivolous and

superficial qualities, was in him certainly attended with the most

severe application, the most extensive learning, the greatest depth of

thought, and a capacity in every respect the most comprehensive. Upon

the whole, I have always considered him, both in his lifetime and

since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly

wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will

permit.

I ever am, dear Sir,

Most affectionately yours,

ADAM SMITH.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I

CHAPTER I.

The Britons.--Romans.--Saxons.--The Heptarchy.--The Kingdom of Kent--

of Northumberland--of East Anglia--of Mercia--of Essex--of Sussex--of

Wessex

CHAPTER II.

Egbert.--Ethelwolf.--Ethelbald and Ethelbert.--Ethered.--Alfred the

Great.--Edward the Elder.--Athelstan.--Edmund.-Edred.--Edwy.--Edgar.--

Edward the Martyr

CHAPTER III.

Ethelred.--Settlement of the Normans.--Edmund Ironside.--Canute.--

Harold Harefoot.--Hardicanute.--Edward the Confessor.--Harold

APPENDIX I.

THE ANGLO-SAXON GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.

First Saxon Government.--Succession of the Kings.--The Wittenagemot.--

The Aristocracy.--The several Orders of Men.--Courts of Justice.--

Criminal Law.--Rules of Proof.-Military Force.--Public Revenue.--Value

of Money.--Manners

CHAPTER IV.

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

Consequences of the Battle of Hastings.--Submission of the English.--

Settlement of the Government.--King's Return to Normandy.--Discontents

of the English.--Their Insurrections.--Rigours of the Norman

Government.--New Insurrections.-New Rigours of the Government.--

Introduction of the Feudal Law.--Innovation in Ecclesiastical

Government.--Insurrection of the Norman Barons.--Dispute about

Investitures.--Revolt of Prince Robert.--Domesday-Book.--The New

Forest.--War with France.--Death and Character of William the

Conqueror

CHAPTER V

WILLIAM RUFUS

Accession of William Rufus.--Conspiracy against the King.--Invasion of

Normandy.--The Crusades.--Acquisition of Normandy.--Quarrel with

Anselm, the Primate.--Death and Character of William Rufus

CHAPTER VI.

HENRY I.

The Crusades.--Accession of Henry.--Marriage of the King.--Invasion by

Duke Robert.--Accommodation with Robert.--Attack of Normandy.--

Conquest of Normandy.--Continuation of the Quarrel with Anselm, the

Primate.--Compromise with him.--Wars abroad.--Death of Prince

William.--King's second Marriage.--Death and Character of Henry

CHAPTER VII.

STEPHEN

Accession of Stephen.--War with Scotland.--Insurrection in favour of

Matilda.--Stephen taken Prisoner.--Matilda crowned.--Stephen

released.--Restored to the Crown.--Continuation of the Civil Wars.--

Compromise between the King and Prince Henry.--Death of the King

CHAPTER VIII.

HENRY II.

State of Europe--of France.--First Acts of Henry's Government.--

Disputes between the Civil and Ecclesiastical Powers.-Thomas à Becket,

Archbishop of Canterbury.--Quarrel between the King and Becket.--

Constitutions of Clarendon.--Banishment of Becket.--Compromise with

him.--His return from Banishment.-His Murder.--Grief and Submission of

the King

CHAPTER IX.

State of Ireland.--Conquest of that Island.--The King's Accommodation

with the Court of Rome.--Revolt of young Henry and his brothers.--

Wars and Insurrections.--War with Scotland.--Penance of Henry for

Becket's Murder.--William, King of Scotland, defeated and taken

Prisoner.--The King's Accommodation with his Sons.--The King's

equitable Administration.--Crusades.--Revolt of Prince Richard.--Death

and Character of Henry.--Miscellaneous Transactions of his Reign

CHAPTER X.

RICHARD I.

The King's Preparations for the Crusade.--Sets out on the Crusade.--

Transactions in Sicily.--King's Arrival in Palestine.--State of

Palestine.--Disorders in England.--The King's Heroic Actions in

Palestine.--His Return from Palestine.--Captivity in Germany.--War

with France.--The King's Delivery.--Return to England.--War with

France.--Death and Character of the King.--Miscellaneous Transactions

of this Reign

CHAPTER XI.

JOHN

Accession of the King.--His Marriage.--War with France.--Murder of

Arthur, Duke of Britany.--The King expelled the French Provinces.--The

King's Quarrel with the Court of Rome.--Cardinal Langton appointed

Archbishop of Canterbury.--Interdict of the Kingdom.--Excommunication

of the King.-The King's Submission to the Pope.--Discontents of the

Barons.--Insurrection of the Barons.--Magna Carta.--Renewal of the

Civil Wars.--Prince Lewis called over.--Death and Character of the

King

APPENDIX II.

THE FEUDAL AND ANGLO-NORMAN GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.

Origin of the Feudal Law.--Its Progress.--Feudal Government of

England.--The Feudal Parliament.--The Commons.-Judicial Power.--

Revenue of the Crown.--Commerce.--The Church.--Civil Laws.--Manners

CHAPTER XII.

HENRY III.

Settlement of the Government.--General Pacification.--Death of the

Protector.--Some Commotions.--Hubert de Burgh displaced.--The Bishop

of Winchester Minister.--King's Partiality to Foreigners.--

Grievances.--Ecclesiastical Grievances.--Earl of Cornwall elected King

of the Romans.--Discontent of the Barons--Simon de Mountfort, Earl of

Leicester.--Provisions of Oxford.--Usurpation of the Barons.--Prince

Edward.--Civil Wars of the Barons.--Reference to the King of France.--

Renewal of the Civil Wars.--Battle of Lewes.--House of Commons.--

Battle of Evesham and death of Leicester.--Settlement of the

Government.--Death and Character of the King.--Miscellaneous

Transactions of this Reign

CHAPTER I.

THE BRITONS.--ROMANS.--SAXONS.--THE HEPTARCHY.--THE KINGDOM OF KENT--

OF NORTHUMBERLAND--OF EAST ANGLIA--OF MERCIA--OF ESSEX--OF SUSSEX--OF

WESSEX

[MN The Britons.]

The curiosity, entertained by all civilized nations, of inquiring into

the exploits and adventures of their ancestors, commonly excites a

regret that the history of remote ages should always be so much

involved in obscurity, uncertainty, and contradiction. Ingenious men,

possessed of leisure, are apt to push their researches beyond the

period in which literary monuments are framed or preserved; without

reflecting that the history of past events is immediately lost or

disfigured when intrusted to memory or oral tradition; and that the

adventures of barbarous nations, even if they were recorded, could

afford little or no entertainment to men born in a more cultivated

age. The convulsions of a civilized state usually compose the most

instructive and most interesting part of its history; but the sudden,

violent, and unprepared revolutions incident to barbarians are so much

guided by caprice, and terminate so often in cruelty, that they

disgust us by the uniformity of their appearance; and it is rather

fortunate for letters that they are buried in silence and oblivion.

The only certain means by which nations can indulge their curiosity in

researches concerning their remote origin, is to consider the

language, manners, and customs of their ancestors, and to compare them

with those of the neighbouring nations. The fables which are commonly

employed to supply the place of true history ought entirely to be

disregarded; or if any exception be admitted to this general rule, it

can only be in favour of the ancient Grecian fictions, which are so

celebrated and so agreeable, that they will ever be the objects of the

attention of mankind. Neglecting, therefore, all traditions, or

rather tales, concerning the more early history of Britain, we shall

only consider the state of the inhabitants as it appeared to the

Romans on their invasion of this country: we shall briefly run over

the events which attended the conquest made by that empire, as

belonging more to Roman than British story: we shall hasten through

the obscure and uninteresting period of Saxon annals: and shall

reserve a more full narration for those times when the truth is both

so well ascertained and so complete as to promise entertainment and

instruction to the reader.

All ancient writers agree in representing the first inhabitants of

Britain as a tribe of the Gauls or Celtae, who peopled that island

from the neighbouring continent. Their language was the same; their

manners, their government, their superstition, varied only by those

small differences which time or communication with the bordering

nations must necessarily introduce. The inhabitants of Gaul,

especially in those parts which lie contiguous to Italy, had acquired,

from a commerce with their southern neighbours, some refinement in the

arts, which gradually diffused themselves northwards, and spread but a

very faint light over this island. The Greek and Roman navigators or

merchants (for there were scarcely any other travellers in those ages)

brought back the most shocking accounts of the ferocity of the people,

which they magnified, as usual, in order to excite the admiration of

their countrymen. The south-east parts, however, of Britain had

already, before the age of Caesar, made the first, and most requisite

step towards a civil settlement; and the Britons, by tillage and

agriculture, had there increased to a great multitude [a]. The other

inhabitants of the island still maintained themselves by pasture:

they were clothed with skins of beasts. They dwelt in huts, which they

reared in the forests and marshes, with which the country was covered:

they shifted easily their habitation, when actuated either by the

hopes of plunder, or the fear of an enemy: the convenience of feeding

their cattle was even a sufficient motive for removing their seats:

and as they were ignorant of all the refinements of life, their wants

and their possessions were equally scanty and limited.

[FN [a] Caesar. lib. 4.]

The Britons were divided into many small nations or tribes; and being

a military people, whose sole property was their arms and their

cattle, it was impossible, after they had acquired a relish for

liberty, for their princes or chieftains to establish any despotic

authority over them. Their governments, though monarchical [b], were

free, as well as those of all the Celtic nations; and the common

people seem even to have enjoyed more liberty among them [c] than

among the nations of Gaul [d], from which they were descended. Each

state was divided into factions within itself [e]: it was agitated

with jealousy or animosity against the neighbouring states: and while

the arts of peace were yet unknown, wars were the chief occupation,

and formed the chief object of ambition among the people.

[FN [b] Diod. Sic. lib. 4. Mela, lib. 3. cap. 6. Strabo, lib. 4.

[c] Dion. Cassius, lib. 75 [d] Caesar. lib. 6. [e] Tacit. Agr.]

The religion of the Britons was one of the most considerable parts of

their government; and the Druids, who were their priests, possessed

great authority among them. Besides ministering at the altar, and

directing all religious duties, they presided over the education of

youth; they enjoyed an immunity from wars and taxes; they possessed

both the civil and criminal jurisdiction; they decided all

controversies among states as well as among private persons, and

whoever refused to submit to their decree was exposed to the most

severe penalties. The sentence of excommunication was pronounced

against him: he was forbidden access to the sacrifices or public

worship: he was debarred all intercourse with his fellow-citizens,

even in the common affairs of life: his company was universally

shunned, as profane and dangerous. He was refused the protection of

law [f]; and death itself became an acceptable relief from the misery

and infamy to which he was exposed. Thus, the bands of government,

which were naturally loose among that rude and turbulent people, were

happily corroborated by the terrors of their superstition.

[FN [f] Caesar, lib. 6. Strabo, lib. 4.]

No species of superstition was ever more terrible than that of the

Druids. Besides the severe penalties, which it was in the power of

the ecclesiastics to inflict in this world, they inculcated the

eternal transmigration of souls; and thereby extended their authority

as far as the fears of their timorous votaries. They practised their

rites in dark groves or other secret recesses [g]; and in order to

throw a greater mystery over their religion, they communicated their

doctrines only to the initiated, and strictly forbad the committing of

them to writing, lest they should at any time be exposed to the

examination of the profane vulgar. Human sacrifices were practised

among them: the spoils of war were often devoted to their divinities;

and they punished with the severest tortures whoever dared to secrete

any part of the consecrated offering; these treasures they kept in

woods and forests, secured by no other guard than the terrors of their

religion [h]; and this steady conquest over human avidity may be

regarded as more signal than their prompting men to the most

extraordinary and most violent efforts. No idolatrous worship ever

attained such an ascendant over mankind as that of the ancient Gauls

and Britons; and the Romans, after their conquest, finding it

impossible to reconcile those nations to the law and institutions of

their masters, while it maintained its authority, were at last obliged

to abolish it by penal statutes; a violence which had never, in any

other instance, been practised by those tolerating conquerors [i].

[FN [g] Plin. lib. 12. cap. 1. [h] Caesar, lib. 6. [i] Sueton. in

vita Claudii.]

[MN The Romans.]

The Britons had long remained in this rude but independent state, when

Caesar, having overrun all Gaul by his victories, first cast his eye

on their island. He was not allured either by its riches or its

renown; but being ambitious of carrying the Roman arms into a new

world, then mostly unknown, he took advantage of a short interval in

his Gaulic wars, and made an invasion on Britain. The natives,

informed of his intention, were sensible of the unequal contest, and

endeavoured to appease him by submissions, which, however, retarded

not the execution of his design. After some resistance, he landed, as

is supposed, at Deal; [MN Anno Ante C. 55.] and having obtained

several advantages over the Britons, and obliged them to promise

hostages for their future obedience, he was constrained, by the

necessity of his affairs, and the approach of winter, to withdraw his

forces into Gaul. The Britons, relieved from the terror of his arms,

neglected the performance of their stipulations; and that haughty

conqueror resolved next summer to chastise them for this breach of

treaty. He landed with a greater force; and though he found a more

regular resistance from the Britons, who had united under

Cassivelaunus, one of their petty princes, he discomfited them in

every action. He advanced into the country; passed the Thames in the

face of the enemy; took and burned the capital of Cassivelaunus;

established his ally, Mandubratius, in the sovereignty of the

Trinobantes; and having obliged the inhabitants to make him new

submissions, he again returned with his army into Gaul, and left the

authority of the Romans more nominal than real in this island.

The civil wars which ensued, and which prepared the way for the

establishment of monarchy in Rome, saved the Britons from that yoke

which was ready to be imposed upon them. Augustus, the successor of

Caesar, content with the victory obtained over the liberties of his

own country, was little ambitious of acquiring fame by foreign wars;

and being apprehensive lest the same unlimited extent of dominion,

which had subverted the republic, might also overwhelm the empire, he

recommended it to his successors never to enlarge the territories of

the Romans. Tiberius, jealous of the fame which might be acquired by

his generals, made this advice of Augustus a pretence for his

inactivity [k]. The mad sallies of Caligula, in which he menaced

Britain with an invasion, served only to expose himself and the empire

to ridicule: and the Britons had now, during almost a century, enjoyed

their liberty unmolested; when the Romans, in the reign of Claudius

began to think seriously of reducing them under their dominion.

Without seeking any more justifiable reasons of hostility than were

employed by the late Europeans in subjugating the Africans and

Americans, [MN A.D. 43.] they sent over an army under the command of

Plautius, an able general, who gained some victories, and made a

considerable progress in subduing the inhabitants. Claudius himself,

finding matters sufficiently prepared for his reception, made a

journey into Britain, and received the submission of several British

states, the Cantii, Atrebates, Regni, and Trinobantes, who inhabited

the south-east part of the island, and whom their possessions and more

cultivated manner of life rendered willing to purchase peace at the

expense of their liberty. The other Britons, under the command of

Caractacus, still maintained an obstinate resistance, and the Romans

made little progress against them, till Ostorius Scapula was sent over

to command their armies. This general advanced the Roman conquests

over the Britons; [MN A.D. 50.] pierced into the country of the

Silures, a warlike nation who inhabited the banks of the Severn;

defeated Caractacus in a great battle; took him prisoner, and sent him

to Rome, where his magnanimous behaviour procured him better treatment

than those conquerors usually bestowed on captive princes [l].

[FN [k] Tacit. Agr. [l] Tacit. Ann. lib. 12.]

Notwithstanding these misfortunes, the Britons were not subdued; and

this island was regarded by the ambitious Romans as a field in which

military honour might still be acquired. [MN A.D. 59.] Under the

reign of Nero, Suetonius Paulinus was invested with the command, and

prepared to signalize his name by victories over those barbarians.

Finding that the island of Mona, now Anglesey, was the chief seat of

the Druids, he resolved to attack it, and to subject a place which was

the centre of their superstition, and which afforded protection to all

their baffled forces. The Britons endeavoured to obstruct his landing

on this sacred island, both by the force of their arms and the terrors

of their religion. The women and priests were intermingled with the

soldiers upon the shore; and running about with flaming torches in

their hands, and tossing their dishevelled hair, they struck greater

terror into the astonished Romans by their howlings, cries, and

execrations, than the real danger from the armed forces was able to

inspire. But Suetonius, exhorting his troops to despise the menaces

of a superstition which they despised, impelled them to the attack,

drove the Britons off the field, burned the Druids in the same fires

which those priests had prepared for their captive enemies, destroyed

all the consecrated groves and altars; and, having thus triumphed over

the religion of the Britons, he thought his future progress would be

easy in reducing the people to subjection. But he was disappointed in

his expectations. The Britons, taking advantage of his absence, were

all in arms; and headed by Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, who had been

treated in the most ignominious manner by the Roman tribunes, had

already attacked with success several settlements of their insulting

conquerors. Suetonius hastened to the protection of London, which was

already a flourishing Roman colony; but he found, on his arrival, that

it would be requisite for the general safety to abandon that place to

the merciless fury of the enemy. London was reduced to ashes; such of

the inhabitants as remained in it were cruelly massacred; the Romans

and all strangers, to the number of 70,000, were every where put to

the sword without distinction; and the Britons, by rendering the war

thus bloody, seemed determined to cut off all hopes of peace or com-

position with the enemy. But this cruelty was revenged by Suetonius

in a great and decisive battle, where 80,000 of the Britons are said

to have .perished; and Boadicea herself; rather than fall into the

hands of the enraged victor, put an end to her own life by poison [m].

Nero soon after recalled Suetonius from a government, where, by

suffering and inflicting so many severities, he was judged improper

for composing the angry and alarmed minds of the inhabitants. After

some interval, Cerealis received the command from Vespasian, and by

his bravery propagated the terror of the Roman arms. Julius Frontinus

succeeded Cerealis both in authority and in reputation: but the

general who finally established the dominion of the Romans in this

island was Julius Agricola, who governed it in the reigns of

Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, and distinguished himself in that

scene of action.

[FN [m] Tacit. Ann. lib. 14]

This great commander formed a regular plan for subduing Britain, and

rendering the acquisition useful to the conquerors. He carried his

victorious arms northwards, defeated the Britons in every encounter,

pierced into the inaccessible forests and mountains of Caledonia,

reduced every state to subjection in the southern part of the island,

and chased before him all the men of fiercer and more intractable

spirits, who deemed war and death itself less intolerable than

servitude under the victors. He even defeated them in a decisive

action, which they fought under Galgacus, their leader; and having

fixed a chain of garrisons between the firths of Clyde and Forth, he

thereby cut off the ruder and more barren parts of the island, and

secured the Roman province from the incursions of the barbarous

inhabitants [n].

[FN [n] Tacit Agr.]

During these military enterprises, he neglected not the arts of peace.

He introduced laws and civility among the Britons, taught them to

desire and raise all the conveniences of life, reconciled them to the

Roman language and manners, instructed them in letters and science,

and employed every expedient to render those chains which he had

forged both easy and agreeable to them [o]. The inhabitants, having

experienced how unequal their own force was to resist that of the

Romans, acquiesced in the dominion of their masters, and were

gradually incorporated as a part of that mighty empire.

[FN [o] Ibid.]

This was the last durable conquest made by the Romans; and Britain,

once subdued, gave no farther inquietude to the victor. Caledonia

alone, defended by its barren mountains, and by the contempt which the

Romans entertained for it, sometimes infested the more cultivated

parts of the island by the incursions of its inhabitants. The better

to secure the frontiers of the empire, Adrian, who visited this

island, built a rampart between the river Tyne and the firth of

Solway: Lollius Urbicus, under Antoninus Pius, erected one in the

place where Agricola had formerly established his garrisons: Severus,

who made an expedition into Britain, and carried his arms to the more

northern extremity of it, added new fortifications to the walls of

Adrian; and, during the reigns of all the Roman emperors, such a

profound tranquillity prevailed in Britain, that little mention is

made of the affairs of that island by any historian. The only

incidents which occur are some seditions or rebellions of the Roman

legions quartered there, and some usurpations of the Imperial dignity

by the Roman governors. The natives, disarmed, dispirited, and

submissive, had lost all desire, and even idea of their former liberty

and independence.

But the period was now come when that enormous fabric of the Roman

empire, which had diffused slavery and oppression, together with peace

and civility, over so considerable a part of the globe, was

approaching towards it final dissolution. Italy and the centre of the

empire, removed, during so many ages, from all concern in the wars,

had entirely lost the military spirit, and were peopled by an

enervated race, equally disposed to submit to a foreign yoke, or to

the tyranny of their own rulers. The emperors found themselves

obliged to recruit their legions from the frontier provinces, where

the genius of war, though languishing, was not totally extinct; and

these mercenary forces, careless of laws, and civil institutions,

established a military government, no less dangerous to the sovereign

than to the people. The further progress of the same disorders

introduced the bordering barbarians into the service of the Romans;

and those fierce nations, having now added discipline to their native

bravery, could no longer be restrained by the impotent policy of the

emperors, who were accustomed to employ one in the destruction of the

others. Sensible of their own force, and allured by the prospect of

so rich a prize, the northern barbarians, in the reign of Arcadius and

Honorius, assailed at once all the frontiers of the Roman empire; and

having first satiated their avidity by plunder, began to think of

fixing a settlement in the wasted provinces. The more distant

barbarians, who occupied the deserted habitations of the former,

advanced in their acquisitions, and pressed with their incumbent

weight the Roman state, already unequal to the load which it

sustained. Instead of arming the people in their own defence, the

emperors recalled all the distant legions, in whom alone they could

repose confidence; and collected the whole military force for the

defence of the capital and centre of the empire. The necessity of

self-preservation had superseded the ambition of power; and the

ancient point of honour never to contract the limits of the empire

could no longer be attended to in this desperate extremity.

Britain by its situation was removed from the fury of these barbarous

incursions; and being also a remote province, not much valued by the

Romans, the legions which defended it were carried over to the

protection of Italy and Gaul. But that province, though secured by

the sea against the inroads of the greater tribes of barbarians, found

enemies on its frontiers, who took advantage of its present

defenceless situation. The Picts and Scots, who dwelt in the northern

parts, beyond the wall of Antoninus, made incursions upon their

peaceable and effeminate neighbours; and besides the temporary

depredations which they committed, these combined nations threatened

the whole province with subjection, or what the inhabitants more

dreaded, with plunder and devastation. The Picts seem to have been a

tribe of the native British race, who, having been chased into the

northern parts by the conquest of Agricola, had there intermingled

with the ancient inhabitants: the Scots were derived from the same

Celtic origin, had first been established in Ireland, had migrated to

the north-west coasts of this island, and had long been accustomed, as

well from their old as their new seats, to infest the Roman province

by piracy and rapine [p]. These tribes, finding their more opulent

neighbours exposed to invasion, soon broke over the Roman wall, no

longer defended by the Roman arms; and, though a contemptible enemy in

themselves, met with no resistance from the unwarlike inhabitants.

The Britons, accustomed to have recourse to the emperors for defence

as well as government, made supplications to Rome; and one legion was

sent over for their protection. This force was an overmatch for the

barbarians, repelled their invasion, routed them in every engagement,

and having chased them into their ancient limits, returned in triumph

to the defence of the southern provinces of the empire [q]. Their

retreat brought on a new invasion of the enemy. The Britons made

again an application to Rome, and again obtained the assistance of a

legion, which proved effectual for their relief: but the Romans,

reduced to extremities at home, and fatigued with those distant

expeditions, informed the Britons that they must no longer look to

them for succour, exhorted them to arm in their own defence, and urged

that, as they were now their own masters, it became them to protect by

their valour that independence which their ancient lords had conferred

upon them [r]. That they might leave the island with the better

grace, the Romans assisted them in erecting anew the wall of Severus,

which was built entirely of stone, and which the Britons had not at

that time artificers skilful enough to repair [s]. And having done

this last good office to the inhabitants, they bid a final adieu to

Britain, about the year 448; after being masters of the more

considerable part of it during the course of near four centuries.

[FN [p] See note [A] at the end of the volume. [q] Gildas. Bede,

lib. 1. cap. 12. Paul. Diacon. [r] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 12 [s] Ibid.]

[MN The Britons.]

The abject Britons. regarded this present of liberty as fatal to

them; and were in no condition to put in practice the prudent counsel

given them by the Romans to arm in their own defence. Unaccustomed

both to the perils of war and to the cares of civil government, they

found themselves incapable of forming or executing any measures for

resisting the incursions of the barbarians. Gratian also and

Constantine, two Romans who had a little before assumed the purple in

Britain, had carried over to the continent the flower of the British

youth; and having perished in their unsuccessful attempts on the

imperial throne, had despoiled the island of those who, in this

desperate extremity, were best able to defend it. The Picts and

Scots, finding that the Romans had finally relinquished Britain, now

regarded the whole as their prey, and attacked the northern wall with

redoubled forces. The Britons already subdued by their own fears,

found the ramparts but a weak defence for them; and deserting their

station, left the country entirely open to the inroads of the

barbarous enemy. The invaders carried devastation and ruin along with

them; and exerted to the utmost their native ferocity, which was not

mitigated by the helpless condition and submissive behaviour of the

inhabitants [t]. The unhappy Britons had a third time recourse to

Rome, which had declared its resolution for ever to abandon them.

Aëtius, the patrician, sustained at that time, by his valour and

magnanimity, the tottering ruins of the empire, and revived for a

moment, among the degenerate Romans, the spirit as well as discipline

of their ancestors. The British ambassador carried to him the letter

of their countrymen, which was inscribed, THE GROANS OF THE BRITONS.

The tenor of the epistle was suitable to its superscription. THE

BARBARIANS, say they, ON THE ONE HAND, CHASE US INTO THE SEA; THE SEA,

ON THE OTHER, THROWS US BACK UPON THE BARBARIANS; AND WE HAVE ONLY THE

HARD CHOICE LEFT US, OF PERISHING BY THE SWORD OR BY THE WAVES [u].

But Aëtius, pressed by the arms of Attila, the most terrible enemy

that ever assailed the empire, had no leisure to attend to the

complaints of allies, whom generosity alone could induce him to assist

[v]. The Britons thus rejected were reduced to despair, deserted

their habitations, abandoned tillage, and flying for protection to the

forests and mountains, suffered equally from hunger and from the

enemy. The barbarians themselves began to feel the pressure of famine

in a country which they had ravaged; and being harassed by the

dispersed Britons, who had not dared to resist them in a body, they

retreated with their spoils into their own country [w].

[FN [t] Gildas. Bede, lib. 1. Ann. Beverl. p. 45. [u] Gildas.

Bede, lib. 1. cap. 13. Malmesbury, lib. 1. cap. 1. Ann. Beverl. p.

45. [v] Chron. Sax. p. 11 edit. 1692. [w] Ann. Beverl. p. 45.]

The Britons, taking advantage of this interval, returned to their

usual occupations; and the favourable seasons which succeeded seconded

their industry, made them soon forget their past miseries, and

restored to them great plenty of all the necessaries of life. No more

can be imagined to have been possessed by a people so rude, who had

not, without the assistance of the Romans, art of masonry sufficient

to raise a stone rampart for their own defence; yet the Monkish

historians [x], who treat of those events, complain of the luxury of

the Britons during this period, and ascribe to that vice, not to their

cowardice or improvident counsels, all their subsequent calamities.

[FN [x] Gildas. Bede, lib. 1. cap. 14.]

The Britons, entirely occupied in the enjoyment of the present

interval of peace, made no provision for resisting the enemy, who,

invited by their former timid behaviour, soon threatened them with a

new invasion. We are not exactly informed what species of civil

government the Romans on their departure had left among the Britons;

but it appears probable, that the great men in, the different

districts assumed a kind of regal though precarious authority; and

lived in a great measure independent of each other [y]. To this

disunion of counsels were also added the disputes of theology; and the

disciples of Pelagius, who was himself a native of Britain, having

increased to a great multitude, gave alarm to the clergy, who seem to

have been more intent on suppressing them, than on opposing the public

enemy [z]. Labouring under these domestic evils, and menaced with a

foreign invasion, the Britons attended only to the suggestions of

their present fears; and following the counsels of Vortigern, Prince

of Dumnonium, who, though stained with every vice, possessed the chief

authority among them [a], they sent into Germany a deputation to

invite over the Saxons for their protection and assistance.

[FN [y] Gildas. Usher, Ant. Brit. p. 248, 347. [z] Gildas. Bede,

lib. 1. cap. 17. Constant. in vita Germ. [a] Gildas. Gul. Malm. p

8.]

[MN The Saxons.]

Of all the barbarous nations, known either in ancient or modern times,

the Germans seem to have been the most distinguished both by their

manners and political institutions, and to have carried to the highest

pitch the virtues of valour and love of liberty; the only virtues

which can have place among an uncivilized people, where justice and

humanity are commonly neglected. Kingly government, even when

established among the Germans, (for it was not universal,) possessed a

very limited authority; and though the sovereign was usually chosen

from among the royal family, he was directed in every measure by the

common consent of the nation over whom he presided. When any

important affairs were transacted, all the warriors met in arms; the

men of greatest authority employed persuasion to engage their consent;

the people expressed their approbation by rattling their armour, or

their dissent by murmurs; there was no necessity for a nice scrutiny

of votes among a multitude, who were usually carried with a strong

current to one side or the other; and the measure thus suddenly chosen

by general agreement, was executed with alacrity and prosecuted with

vigour. Even in war, the princes governed more by example than by

authority; but in peace the civil union was in a great measure

dissolved, and the inferior leaders administered justice after an

independent manner, each in his particular district. These were

elected by the votes of the people in their great councils; and though

regard was paid to nobility in the choice, their personal qualities,

chiefly their valour, procured them, from the suffrages of their

fellow-citizens, that honourable but dangerous distinction. The

warriors of each tribe attached themselves to their leader with the

most devoted affection and most unshaken constancy. They attended him

as his ornament in peace, as his defence in war, as his council in the

administration of justice. Their constant emulation in military

renown dissolved not that inviolable friendship which they professed

to their chieftain and to each other: to die for the honour of their

band was their chief ambition: to survive its disgrace, or the death

of their leader, was infamous. They even carried into the field their

women and children, who adopted all the martial sentiments of the men:

and being thus impelled by every human motive, they were invincible;

where they were not opposed either by the similar manners and

institutions of the neighbouring Germans, or by the superior

discipline, arms, and numbers of the Romans [b].

[FN [b] Caesar, lib. 6. Tacit. de Mor. Germ.]

The leaders and their military companions were maintained by the

labour of their slaves, or by that of the weaker and less warlike part

of the community, whom they defended. The contributions which they

levied went not beyond a bare subsistence; and the honours, acquired

by a superior rank, were the only reward of their superior dangers and

fatigues. All the refined arts of life were unknown among the

Germans: tillage itself was almost wholly neglected: they even seem to

have been anxious to prevent any improvements of that nature; and the

leaders, by annually distributing anew all the land among the

inhabitants of each village, kept them from attaching themselves to

particular possessions, or making such progress in agriculture as

might divert their attention from military expeditions, the chief

occupation of the community [c].

[FN [c] Caesar, lib. 6. Tacit. de Mor. Germ.]

The Saxons had been for some time regarded as one of the most warlike

tribes of this fierce people, and had become the terror of the

neighbouring nations [d]. They had diffused themselves from the

northern parts of Germany and the Cimbrian Chersonesus, and had taken

possession of all the sea-coast from the mouth of the Rhine to

Jutland; whence they had long infested by their piracies all the

eastern and southern parts of Britain, and the northern of Gaul [e].

In order to oppose their inroads, the Romans had established an

officer, whom they called COUNT OF THE SAXON SHORE; and as the naval

arts can flourish among a civilized people alone, they seem to have

been more successful in repelling the Saxons, than any of the other

barbarians by whom they were invaded. The dissolution of the Roman

power invited them to renew their inroads; and it was an acceptable

circumstance, that the deputies of the Britons appeared among them,

and prompted them to undertake an enterprise, to which they were of

themselves sufficiently inclined [f].

[FN d Amm. Marcell. lib. 28. Orosius. [e] Marcell. lib. 27. cap. 7.

lib. 28. cap. 7. [f] Will. Malm. p. 8.]

Hengist and Horsa, two brothers, possessed great credit among the

Saxons, and were much celebrated both for their valour and nobility.

They were reputed, as most of the Saxon princes, to be sprung from

Woden, who was worshipped as a god among those nations, and they are

said to be his great grandsons [g]; a circumstance which added much to

their authority. We shall not attempt to trace any higher the origin

of those princes and nations. It is evident what fruitless labour it

must be to search, in those barbarous and illiterate ages, for the

annals of a people, when their first leaders, known in any true

history, were believed by them to be the fourth in descent from a

fabulous deity, or from a man exalted by ignorance into that

character. The dark industry of antiquaries, led by imaginary

analogies of names, or by uncertain traditions, would in vain attempt

to pierce into that deep obscurity which covers the remote history of

those nations.

[FN [g] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15. Saxon Chron. p. 13. Nennius, cap.

28.]

These two brothers, observing the other provinces of Germany to be

occupied by a warlike and necessitous people, and the rich provinces

of Gaul already conquered or overrun by other German tribes, found it

easy to persuade their countrymen to embrace the sole enterprise which

promised a favourable opportunity of displaying their valour and

gratifying their avidity. They embarked their troops in three

vessels, and about the year 449 or 450 [h], carried over 1600 men, who

landed in the Isle of Thanet, and immediately marched to the defence

of the Britons against the northern invaders. The Scots and Picts

were unable to resist the valour of these auxiliaries; and the

Britons, applauding their own wisdom in calling over the Saxons, hoped

thenceforth to enjoy peace and security under the powerful protection

of that warlike people.

[FN [h] Saxon Chronicle, p. 12. Gul. Malm. p. 11. Huntington, lib.

2. p. 309. Ethelwerd. Brompton, p. 728.]

But Hengist and Horsa perceiving, from their easy victory over the

Scots and Picts, with what facility they might subdue the Britons

themselves, who had not been able to resist those feeble invaders,

were determined to conquer and fight for their own grandeur, not for

the defence of their degenerate allies. They sent intelligence to

Saxony of the fertility and riches of Britain; and represented as

certain the subjection of a people so long disused to arms, who, being

now cut off from the Roman empire, of which they had been a province

during so many ages, had not yet acquired any union among themselves,

and were destitute of all affection to their new liberties and of all

national attachments and regards [i]. The vices and pusillanimity of

Vortigern, the British leader, were a new ground of hope; and the

Saxons in Germany, following such agreeable prospects, soon reinforced

Hengist and Horsa with 5000 men, who came over in seventeen vessels.

The Britons now began to entertain apprehensions of their allies,

whose numbers they found continually augmenting; but thought of no

remedy, except a passive submission and connivance. This weak

expedient soon failed them. The Saxons sought a quarrel, by

complaining that their subsidies were ill paid, and their provisions

withdrawn [k]; and immediately taking off the mask, they formed an

alliance with the Picts and Scots, and proceeded to open hostility

against the Britons.

[FN [i] Chron. Sax. p. 12. Ann. Beverl. p. 42. [k] Bede, lib. 1.

cap. 15. Nennius, cap. 35. Gildas, Sec. 23.]

The Britons, impelled by these violent extremities, and roused to

indignation against their treacherous auxiliaries, were necessitated

to take arms; and having deposed Vortigern, who had become odious from

his vices, and from the bad event of his rash counsels, they put

themselves under the command of his son, Vortimer. They fought many

battles with their enemies; and though the victories in these actions

be disputed between the British and Saxon annalists, the progress

still made by the Saxons proves that the advantage was commonly on

their side. In one battle, however, fought at Eaglesford, now

Ailsford, Horsa, the Saxon general, was slain, and left the sole

command over his countrymen in the hands of Hengist. This active

general, continually reinforced by fresh numbers from Germany, carried

devastation into the most remote corners of Britain; and being chiefly

anxious to spread the terror of his arms, he spared neither age, nor

sex, nor condition, wherever he marched with his victorious forces.

The private and public edifices of the Britons were reduced to ashes:

the priests were slaughtered on the altars by those idolatrous

ravagers: the bishops and nobility shared the fate of the vulgar: the

people, flying to the mountains and deserts, were intercepted and

butchered in heaps: some were glad to accept of life and servitude

under their victors: others, deserting their native country, took

shelter in the province of Armorica; where, being charitably received

by a people of the same language and manners, they settled in great

numbers, and gave the country the name of Britany [l].

[FN [l] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15. Usher, p.226. Gildas, Sec. 24.]

The British writers assign one cause which facilitated the entrance of

the Saxons into this island; the love with which Vortigern was at

first seized for Rovena, the daughter of Hengist, and which that

artful warrior made use of to blind the eyes of the imprudent monarch

[m]. The same historians add, that Vortimer died; and that Vortigern,

being restored to the throne, accepted of a banquet from Hengist, at

Stonehenge, where 300 of his nobility were treacherously slaughtered,

and himself detained captive [n]. But these stories seem to have been

invented by the Welsh authors, in order to palliate the weak

resistance made at first by their countrymen, anal to account for the

rapid progress and licentious devastations of the Saxons [o].

[FN [m] Nennius, Galfr. lib. 6. cap. 12. [n] Nennius, cap. 47.

Galfr. [o] Stillingfleet's Orig. Brit. p. 324, 325.]

After the death of Vortimer, Ambrosius, a Briton, though of Roman

descent, invested with the command over his countrymen, and

endeavoured, not without success, to unite them in their resistance

against the Saxons. Those contests increased the animosity between the

two nations, and roused the military spirit of the ancient

inhabitants, which had before been sunk into a fatal lethargy.

Hengist, however, notwithstanding their opposition, still maintained

his ground in Britain; and in order to divide the forces and attention

of the natives, he called over a new tribe of Saxons, under the

command of his brother Octa, and of Ebissa, the son of Octa; and he

settled them in Northumberland. He himself remained in the southern

parts of the island, and laid the foundation of the kingdom of Kent,

comprehending the county of that name, Middlesex, Essex, and part of

Surrey. He fixed his royal seat at Canterbury; where he governed

about forty years, and he died in or near the year 488; leaving his

new-acquired dominions to his posterity.

The success of Hengist excited the avidity of the other northern

Germans; and at different times, and under different leaders, they

flocked over in multitudes to the invasion of this island. These

conquerors were chiefly composed of three tribes, the Saxons, Angles,

and Jutes [p], who all passed under the common appellation, sometimes

of Saxons, sometimes of Angles; and speaking the same language, and

being governed by the same institutions, they were naturally led, from

these causes, as well as from their common interest, to unite

themselves against the ancient inhabitants. The resistance, however,

though unequal, was still maintained by the Britons; but became every

day more feeble; and their calamities admitted of few intervals, till

they were driven into Cornwall and Wales, and received protection from

the remote situation or inaccessible mountains of those countries.

[FN [p] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 15. Ethelwerd, p. 833. edit. Camdeni.

Chron. Sax. p. 12. Ann. Beverl. p. 78. The inhabitants of Kent, and

the Isle of Wight were Jutes. Essex, Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex, and

all the southern counties to Cornwall, were peopled by Saxons: Mercia,

and other parts of the kingdom, were inhabited by Angles.]

The first Saxon state, after that of Kent, which was established in

Britain, was the kingdom of South Saxony. In the year 477 [q], Aella,

a Saxon chief, brought over an army from Germany; and landing on the

southern coast, proceeded to take possession of the neighbouring

territory. The Britons, now armed, did not tamely abandon their

possessions; nor were they expelled, till defeated in many battles by

their warlike invaders. The most memorable action, mentioned by

historians, is that of Meacredes Burn [r]; where, though the Saxons

seem to have obtained the victory, they suffered so considerable a

loss, as somewhat retarded the progress of their conquests. But

Aella, reinforced by fresh numbers of his countrymen, again took the

field against the Britons, and laid siege to Andred-Ceaster, which was

defended by the garrison and inhabitants with desperate valour [s].

The Saxons, enraged by this resistance, and by the fatigues and

dangers which they had sustained, redoubled their efforts against the

place, and when masters of it, put all their enemies to the sword

without distinction. This decisive advantage secured the conquests of

Aella, who assumed the name of king, and extended his dominion over

Sussex and a great part of Surrey. He was stopped in his progress to

the east by the kingdom of Kent: in that to the west by another tribe

of Saxons, who had taken possession of that territory.

[FN [q] Chron. Sax. p.14. Ann. Beverl. p. 81. [r] Saxon Chron. A.D.

485. Flor. Wigorn. [s] Hen. Hunting. lib. 2.]

These Saxons, from the situation of the country in which they settled,

were called the West Saxons, and landed in the year 495, under the

command of Cerdic, and of his son Kenric [t]. The Britons were, by

past experience, so much on their guard, and so well prepared to

receive the enemy, that they gave battle to Cerdic the very day of his

landing; and though vanquished, still defended, for some time, their

liberties against the invaders. None of the other tribes of Saxons

met with such vigorous resistance, or exerted such valour and

perseverance in pushing their conquests. Cerdic was even obliged to

call for the assistance of his countrymen from the kingdoms of Kent

and Sussex, as well as from Germany, and he was thence joined by a

fresh army under the command of Porte, and of his sons Bleda, and

Megla [u]. Strengthened by these succours, he fought in the year 508,

a desperate battle with the Britons, commanded by Nazan-Leod, who was

victorious in the beginning of the action, and routed the wing in

which Cerdic himself commanded; but Kenric, who had prevailed in the

other wing, brought timely assistance to his father, and restored the

battle, which ended in a complete victory gained by the Saxons [w].

Nazan-Leod perished with 5000 of his army; but left the Britons more

weakened than discouraged by his death. The war still continued,

though the success was commonly on the side of the Saxons, whose short

swords, and close manner of fighting, gave them great advantage over

the missile weapons of the Britons. Cerdic was not wanting to his

good fortune; and in order to extend his conquests, he laid siege to

Mount Badon or Banesdowne, near Bath, whither the most obstinate of

the discomfited Britons had retired. The southern Britons, in this

extremity, applied for assistance to Arthur, Prince of the Silures,

whose heroic valour now sustained the declining fate of his country

[x]. This is that Arthur so much celebrated in the songs of

Thaliessin, and the other British bards, and whose military

achievements have been blended with so many fables, as even to give

occasion for entertaining a doubt of his real existence. But poets,

though they disfigure the most certain history by their fictions, and

use strange liberties with truth where they are the sole historians,

as among the Britons, have commonly some foundation for their wildest

exaggerations. Certain it is, that the siege of Badon was raised by

the Britons in the year 520; and the Saxons were there discomfited in

a great battle [y]. This misfortune stopped the progress of Cerdic;

but was not sufficient to wrest from him the conquests which he had

already made. He and his son Kenric, who succeeded him, established

the kingdom of the West Saxons, or of Wessex, over the counties of

Hants, Dorset, Wilts, Berks, and the Isle of Wight, and left their

new-acquired dominions to their posterity. Cerdic died in 534, Kenric

in 560.

[FN [t] Will. Malm. lib. 1. cap. 1. p.12. Chron. Sax. p. 15. [u]

Chron. Sax. p. 17. [w] H. Hunting. lib. 2. Ethelwerd, lib. 1. Chron.

Sax. p. 17. [x] Hunting. lib. 2. [y] Gildas, Saxon Chron. H.

Hunting. lib. 2]

While the Saxons made this progress in the south, their countrymen

were not less active in other quarters. In the year 527, a great

tribe of adventurers, under several leaders, landed on the east coast

of Britain; and after fighting many battles, of which history has

preserved no particular account, they established three new kingdoms

in this island. Uffa assumed the title of King of the East Angles in

575; Crida that of Mercia in 585 [z] and Erkenwin that of East Saxony,

or Essex, nearly about the same time, but the year is uncertain. This

latter kingdom was dismembered from that of Kent, and comprehended

Essex, Middlesex, and part of Hertfordshire. That of the East Angles,

the counties of Cambridge, Suffolk, and Norfolk; Mercia was extended

over all the middle counties, from the banks of the Severn to the

frontiers of these two kingdoms.

[FN [z] Math. West. Huntington, lib. 2.]

The Saxons, soon after the landing of Hengist, had been planted in

Northumberland; but, as they met with an obstinate resistance, and

made but small progress in subduing the inhabitants, their affairs

were in so unsettled a condition, that none of their princes for a

long time assumed the appellation of king. At last, in 547 [a], Ida,

a Saxon prince of great valour [b], who claimed a descent, as did the

other princes of that nation, from Woden, brought over a reinforcement

from Germany, and enabled the Northumbrians to carry on their

conquests over the Britons. He entirely subdued the county now called

Northumberland, the bishopric of Durham, as well as some of the south-

east counties of Scotland; and he assumed the crown under the title of

King of Bernicia. Nearly about the same time, Aella, another Saxon

prince, having conquered Lancashire, and the greater part of

Yorkshire, received the appellation of King of Deiri [c]. These two

kingdoms were united in the person of Ethilfrid, grandson of Ida, who

married Acca, the daughter of Aella; and expelling her brother Edwin,

established one of the most powerful of the Saxon kingdoms, by the

title of Northumberland. How far his dominions extended into the

country now called Scotland, is uncertain; but it cannot be doubted,

that all the lowlands, especially the east coast of that country, were

peopled in a great measure from Germany; though the expeditions made

by the several Saxon adventurers have escaped the records of history.

The language spoken in those countries, which is purely Saxon, is a

stronger proof of this event than can be opposed by the imperfect, or

rather fabulous, annals which are obtruded on us by the Scottish

historians.

[FN [a] Chron. Sax. p 19. [b] Will. Malmes. p. 19. [c] Ann. Beverl.

p. 78.]

[MN The Heptarcy.]

Thus was established, after a violent contest of near a hundred and

fifty years, the Heptarchy, or seven Saxon kingdoms in Britain; and

the whole southern part of the island, except Wales and Cornwall, had

totally changed its inhabitants, language, customs, and political

institutions. The Britons, under the Roman dominion, had made such

advances towards arts and civil manners, that they had built twenty-

eight considerable cities within their province, besides a great

number of villages and country seats [d]. But the fierce conquerors,

by whom they were now subdued, threw every thing back into ancient

barbarity, and those few natives who were not either massacred or

expelled their habitations, were reduced to the most abject slavery.

None of the other northern conquerors, the Franks, Goths, Vandals, or

Burgundians, though they overran the southern provinces of the empire

like a mighty torrent, made such devastations in the conquered

territories, or were inflamed into so violent an animosity against the

ancient inhabitants. As the Saxons came over at intervals in separate

bodies, the Britons, however at first unwarlike, were tempted to make

resistance; and hostilities being thereby prolonged, proved more

destructive to both parties, especially to the vanquished. The first

invaders from Germany, instead of excluding other adventurers who

must share with them the spoils of the ancient inhabitants, were

obliged to solicit fresh supplies from their own country; and a total

extermination of the Britons became the sole expedient for providing a

settlement and subsistence to the new planters. Hence there have been

found in history few conquests more ruinous than that of the Saxons;

and few revolutions more violent than that which they introduced.

[FN [d] Gildas. Bede. lib. 1.]

So long as the contest was maintained with the natives, the several

Saxon princes preserved a union of counsels and interests; but after

the Britons were shut up in the barren counties of Cornwall and Wales,

and gave no farther disturbance to the conquerors, the band of

alliance was in a great measure dissolved among the princes of the

Heptarchy. Though one prince seems still to have been allowed, or to

have assumed, an ascendant over the whole, his authority, if it ought

ever to be deemed regular or legal, was extremely limited; and each

state acted as if it had been independent, and wholly separate from

the rest. Wars therefore, and revolutions and dissensions, were

unavoidable among a turbulent and military people; and these events,

however intricate or confused, ought now to become the objects of our

attention. But, added to the difficulty of carrying on at once the

history of seven independent kingdoms, there is great discouragement

to a writer, arising from the uncertainty, at least barrenness, of the

accounts transmitted to us. The monks, who were the only annalists

during those ages, lived remote from public affairs, considered the

civil transactions as entirely subordinate to the ecclesiastical, and,

besides partaking of the ignorance and barbarity which were then

universal, were strongly infected with credulity, with the love of

wonder, and with a propensity to imposture; vices almost inseparable

from their profession and manner of life. The history of that period

abounds in names, but is extremely barren of events; or the events are

related so much without circumstances and causes, that the most

profound or most eloquent writer must despair of rendering them either

instructive or entertaining to the reader. Even the great learning

and vigorous imagination of Milton sunk under the weight; and this

author scruples not to declare, that the skirmishes of kites or crows

as much merited a particular narrative, as the confused transactions

and battles of the Saxon Heptarchy [e]. In order, however, to connect

the events in some tolerable measure, we shall give a succinct account

of the succession of kings, and of the more remarkable revolutions in

each particular kingdom; beginning with that of Kent, which was the

first established.

[FN [e] Milton in Kennet, p. 50.]

[MN The Kingdom of Kent.]

Escus succeeded his father Hengist in the kingdom of Kent; but seems

not to have possessed the military genius of that conqueror, who first

made way for the entrance of the Saxon arms into Britain. All the

Saxons who sought either the fame of valour, or new establishments by

arms, flocked to the standard of Aella, King of Sussex, who was

carrying on successful war against the Britons, and laying the

foundations of a new kingdom. Escus was content to possess in

tranquillity the kingdom of Kent, which he left in 512 to his son

Octa, in whose time the East Saxons established their monarchy, and

dismembered the provinces of Essex and Middlesex from that of Kent.

His death, after a reign of twenty-two years, made room for his son

Hermenric in 534, who performed nothing memorable during a reign of

thirty-two years, except associating with him his son Ethelbert in the

government, that he might secure the succession in his family, and

prevent such revolutions as are incident to a turbulent and barbarous

monarchy.

Ethelbert revived the reputation of his family, which had languished

for some generations. The inactivity of his predecessors, and the

situation of his country, secured from all hostility with the Britons,

seem to have much enfeebled the warlike genius of the Kentish Saxons;

and Ethelbert, in his first attempt to aggrandize his country, and

distinguish his own name, was unsuccessful [f]. He was twice

discomfited in battle by Ceaulin, King of Wessex; and obliged to yield

the superiority in the Heptarchy to that ambitious monarch, who

preserved no moderation in his victory, and by reducing the kingdom of

Sussex to subjection, excited jealousy in all the other princes. An

association was formed against him; and Ethelbert, intrusted with the

command of the allies gave him battle, and obtained a decisive

victory [g ]. Ceaulin died soon after; and Ethelbert succeeded as

well to his ascendant among the Saxon states, as to his other

ambitious projects. He reduced all the princes, except the King of

Northumberland, to a strict dependence upon him; and even established

himself by force on the throne of Mercia, the most extensive of the

Saxon kingdoms. Apprehensive, however, of a dangerous league against

him, like that by which he himself had been enabled to overthrow

Ceaulin, he had the prudence to resign the kingdom of Mercia to Webba,

the rightful heir, the son of Crida, who had first founded that

monarchy. But governed still by ambition more than by justice, he

gave Webba possession of the crown on such conditions as rendered him

little better than a tributary prince under his artful benefactor.

[FN [f] Chron. Sax. p. 21. [g] H. Hunting. lib. 2.]

But the most memorable event which distinguished the reign of this

great prince, was the introduction of the Christian religion among the

English Saxons. The superstition of the Germans, particularly that of

the Saxons, was of the grossest and most barbarous kind; and being

founded on traditional tales received from their ancestors, not

reduced to any system, nor supported by political institutions, like

that of the Druids, it seems to have made little impression on its

votaries, and to have easily resigned its place to the new doctrine

promulgated to them. Woden, whom they deemed the ancestor of all

their princes, was regarded as the god of war, and, by a natural

consequence, became their supreme deity, and the chief object of their

religious worship. They believed that, if they obtained the favour of

this divinity by their valour, (for they made less account of the

other virtues,) they should be admitted after their death into his

hall; and, reposing on couches, should satiate themselves with ale

from the skulls of their enemies whom they had slain in battle.

Incited by this idea of paradise, which gratified at once the passion

of revenge and that of intemperance, the ruling inclinations of

barbarians, they despised the dangers of war, and increased their

native ferocity against the vanquished by their religious prejudices.

We know little of the other theological tenets of the Saxons: we only

learn that they were polytheists; that they worshipped the sun and

moon; that they adored the god of thunder under the name of Thor; that

they had images in their temples; that they practised sacrifices;

believed firmly in spells and enchantments; and admitted in general a

system of doctrines which they held as sacred, but which, like all

other superstitions, must carry the air of the wildest extravagance,

if propounded to those who are not familiarized to it from their

earliest infancy.

The constant hostilities which the Saxons maintained against the

Britons, would naturally indispose them for receiving the Christian

faith, when preached to them by such inveterate enemies; and perhaps

the Britons, as is objected to them by Gildas and Bede, were not over

fond of communicating to their cruel invaders the doctrine of eternal

life and salvation. But as a civilized people, however subdued by

arms, still maintain a sensible superiority over barbarous and

ignorant nations, all the other northern conquerors of Europe had been

already induced to embrace the Christian faith, which they found

established in the empire; and it was impossible but the Saxons,

informed of this event, must have regarded with some degree of

veneration a doctrine which had acquired the ascendant over all their

brethren. However limited in their views, they could not but have

perceived a degree of cultivation in the southern countries beyond

what they themselves possessed; and it was natural for them to yield

to that superior knowledge as well as zeal, by which the inhabitants

of the Christian kingdoms were even at that time distinguished.

But these causes might long have failed of producing any considerable

effect, had not a favourable incident prepared the means of

introducing Christianity into Kent. Ethelbert, in his father's

lifetime, had married Bertha, the only daughter of Caribert, King of

Paris [h], one of the descendants of Clovis, the conqueror of Gaul;

but before he was admitted to this alliance, he was obliged to

stipulate, that the princess should enjoy the free exercise of her

religion; a concession not difficult to be obtained from the

idolatrous Saxons [i]. Bertha brought over a French bishop to the

court of Canterbury; and being zealous for the propagation of her

religion, she had been very assiduous in her devotional exercises, had

supported the credit of her faith by an irreproachable conduct, and

had employed every art of insinuation and address to reconcile her

husband to her religious principles. Her popularity in the court, and

her influence over Ethelbert, had so well paved the way for the

reception of the Christian doctrine, that Gregory, surnamed the Great,

then Roman pontiff, began to entertain hopes of effecting a project,

which he himself, before he mounted the papal throne, had once

embraced, of converting the British Saxons.

[FN [h] Greg. of Tours, lib. 9. cap. 26. H. Hunting. lib. 2. [i]

Bede, lib. 1. cap. 25. Brompton, p. 729.]

It happened that this prelate, at that time in a private station, had

observed in the market-place of Rome some Saxon youth exposed to sale,

whom the Roman merchants, in their trading voyages to Britain, had

bought of their mercenary parents. Struck with the beauty of their

fair complexions and blooming countenances, Gregory asked to what

country they belonged; and being told they were ANGLES, he replied

that they ought more properly to be denominated ANGELS: it were a pity

that the prince of darkness should enjoy so fair a prey, and that so

beautiful a frontispiece should cover a mind destitute of internal

grace and righteousness. Inquiring farther concerning the name of

their province, he was informed that it was Deiri, a district of

Northumberland: DEIRI, replied he, THAT IS GOOD! THEY ARE CALLED TO

THE MERCY OF GOD FROM HIS ANGER, De ira. BUT WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE

KING OF THAT PROVINCE? He was told it was Aella or Alla: ALLELUIAH,

cried he: WE MUST ENDEAVOUR THAT THE PRAISES OF GOD BE SUNG IN THAT

COUNTRY. Moved by these allusions, which appeared to him so happy, he

determined to undertake himself a mission into Britain; and having

obtained the pope's approbation, he prepared for that perilous

journey: but his popularity at home was so great, that the Romans,

unwilling to expose him to such dangers, opposed his design; and he

was obliged, for the present, to lay aside all farther thoughts of

executing that pious purpose [k].

[FN [k] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 1. Spell. Conc. p. 91.]