HENGIST--HORSA--ROWENA AND VORTIGERN.
"They bargained for Thanet with Hengist and Horsa,
Their aggrandizement was to us disgraceful,
After the destroying secret with the slaves at the confluent stream,
Conceive the intoxication at the great banquet of Mead,
Conceive the deaths in the great hour of necessity;
Conceive the fierce wounds--the tears of the women--
The grief that was excited by the weak chief (Vortigern);
Conceive the sadness that will be revolving to us,
When the brawlers of Thanet shall be our princes."
ANCIENT WELSH POEM--SEVENTH CENTURY.
We have no account of the preliminary arrangements between the British
king, and the Saxon chiefs, when the latter arrived with three ships,
and landed at Ebbs-fleet, a spot which now lies far inland, though at
that period the Wanstum was navigable for large vessels, and formed a
broad barrier between the Island of Thanet and the mainland of Kent.
Vortigern and his chieftains were assembled in council when the Saxons
appeared, and Hengist and Horsa were summoned before them. The Saxon
ships, which contained about three hundred soldiers, were drawn up
beside the shore, where the adventurers anxiously awaited the issue
of the interview between their leaders and the British king. Such
a meeting as this could scarcely result from chance; the time of
landing--the assembled council--the attendance of Hengist and Horsa,
all bear evidence of some previous understanding between the parties,
similar to what we have before alluded to. Vortigern first interrogated
the Saxons as to the nature of their creed; Hengist enumerated the
names of the gods they worshipped, and further added, that they also
dedicated the fourth and sixth days in the week to Woden and Frea.
Inference might be drawn from the reply of Vortigern, that the Britons
were already Christians, though such a conclusion ought, doubtless, to
be limited in its application to the inhabitants of our island, for we
have evidence that all were not.
It was agreed that the Saxons were to assist the Britons, to drive the
Scots and Picts out of the island--that for such service they were to
receive food and clothing, and when not engaged in war they were to be
stationed in Ruithina, for by that name was the Isle of Thanet called
by the ancient Britons. There is no evidence that Vortigern intended to
give up this island, at that period, to the Saxons; the arrangement he
made had nothing new in it. Centuries before, the Britons had crossed
the sea, and fought in the wars of the Gauls; they had also aided the
Romans: it was a common custom for one nation to hire the assistance
of another; when the time of service was over, the soldiers either
returned to their own country, or settled down amongst the native
tribes, whom they had defended, as in Britain, many of the Romans and
Gauls had done before-time. In this case, however, the result proved
very different, though it would have been difficult for any one endowed
with the keenest penetration to have foreseen that three small ships,
probably containing in all not more than three hundred men, and these
willing to render assistance on very humble terms, should point out
a way over the waves, by which their companions in arms should come,
and conquer, and take possession of a country which it had cost the
Romans so many years of hard warfare to subjugate. The Saxons appear
to have done their duty; fighting was their every-day trade: their
robust natures had received no touch of Roman refinement, they earned
their bread with the points of their swords, and the blows of their
heavy battle-axes; they drove back the northern hordes beyond the
Roman walls, and they soon grew into great favour with the Britons.
All this was very natural to a nation now making rapid progress in
civilization, and one wealthy enough to pay others for fighting its
battles--it was a much easier life to sit comfortably in their walled
cities, to follow the chase, and enjoy the luxury of the bath, than
to be chasing the Picts and Scots from one county to another, through
forests and morasses, and over hills and dales, day after day; but to
do this securely more aid was required. Hengist and Horsa had left
numbers of their countrymen behind, who would willingly fight on the
same terms which they had accepted. Vortigern agreed to the proposition
they made, and more Saxons were speedily sent for. Seventeen ships
soon arrived, and on the deck of one of these vessels, from the stern
of which the banner of the white horse waved, stood a conqueror whose
long silken locks blew out in the breeze, unencumbered by either helmet
or crest, who bore neither sword, spear, shield nor battle-axe, but
was armed only with a pair of beautiful blue eyes, and a face of
such strange and surpassing beauty as had never before been mirrored
in our island waves: such was the Saxon Princess Rowena, destined to
win more broad acres from the Britons without striking a single blow,
than all the northern barbarians had ever gained by their numberless
invasions. On the landing of his daughter, accompanied by so many of
her countrymen, a great feast would, of course, be held to celebrate
the event, and there Vortigern and the British chiefs would, beyond
doubt, be assembled to welcome their new allies; there is nothing
remarkable in such an occurrence, nor in Rowena drinking to her
father's royal guest, nor in the island king falling at once in love
with the beautiful barbarian. Her drinking his health in a tongue to
which he was a stranger, her natural bashfulness, on first standing
in the presence of the British king--her confusion when she found her
language was not understood by him--all, doubtless, contributed to
make her look more interesting. Then above all to know that the blood
of Woden flowed in her veins, that she had descended from a hero,
whose renown in battle had raised him to the grandeur of a god, in the
idolatrous estimation of his own countrymen; all these things coupled
together had surely romance and poetry enough about them, aided by
such a beautiful countenance, to turn a calmer brain than Vortigern's,
heated as his was by love and wine. He had no peace until he married
her; her image seems to have haunted his memory, and caused him more
uneasiness until she became his wife, than all the inroads of the
northern hordes had hitherto done. Even before this period, all had
gone on smoothly and evenly between the Britons and the Saxons; but
now Love himself had landed amongst the last-comers, and received the
warmest welcome of them all. Who could dream that he but heralded the
way for slaughter, conquest, and death to follow in, or that the beauty
he accompanied should be the cause of bloodshed between the Saxons and
the Britons?--yet so it was.
[Illustration: _Vortigern and Rowena._]
The Saxons were, shortly after, the sole possessors of the isle of
Thanet, and the influence of Vortigern's pretty pagan wife was soon
visible to the jealous eyes of the Britons. Hengist and Horsa began
to demand more liberal supplies, and to cast a longing glance upon
Kent; but the Britons had spirit enough to resist such a concession,
and here we for a time lose sight of Vortigern and Rowena, though it
is highly probable that they retreated into the isle of Thanet, then
held by the Saxons, from the coming storm. Vortimer and Catigern, the
two sons of Vortigern by a former marriage, now took the command of
the Britons, with whom the Roman settlers in the island appear to have
joined; all resolved to make head in one common cause, and to drive the
Saxons out of Britain. Hengist and Horsa, to strengthen their force,
formed a league with their old brothers in plunder, the Scots and
Picts, and war once more broke out in the land, more terrible in its
results than it had ever been in the struggles between the Britons and
the Romans. What few fragments we find in the old Welsh bards, alluding
to these ancient battles, are filled with dreadful descriptions, and
awful images of slaughter. We are borne onward, from the shout of the
onset, to the mighty shock when the opposing ranks close in battle,
when blade clashes against blade, when dark frowning men sink with
gory seams on their foreheads, and tall chieftains rock and struggle
together in the combat, and as each knee is brought to the ground, it
rests upon a bed of gore, while battle-axes, as they are uplifted,
and glitter a moment in the air, shed down crimson drops. Then gloomy
biers pass by, on which "red-men" are borne; and ravens come sweeping
through the dim twilight which settles over that ancient battle-field,
to prey upon the fallen warriors. Such wailings as these must have
caused the heart of Vortigern to have beat painfully, even when the
fair head of Rowena was pillowed upon it, and to have made him sigh,
and regret that such beauty had been purchased at so great a sacrifice.
At the battle of the Ford-of-Eagles, long after called Eaglesford,
but now Aylesford, in Kent, did Horsa, the brother of Hengist, fall;
he whose banner of the white-horse had waved over many a victorious
field, and been the terror of the northern tribes, now fell to rise
no more. On the side of the Britons, also perished Catigern, and a
sore reproach must his death have been to his father, Vortigern, when
he heard the tidings! for, alas, he was wasting the hours in soft
dalliance with his blue-eyed idolater, while his sons were fighting
and falling in defence of their country. Vortimer had now the sole
command of the Britons, and, if the ancient bards are to be believed,
it was by his hand that Horsa was slain. A sad pang must such a rumour
as this have sent through the aching heart of poor Rowena, as she
gazed upon her husband, and in him beheld the father of her uncle's
murderer, the destroyer of her father's companion in arms--he who
had shared the fortunes of Hengist, from the hour when first the prow
of their ship ploughed together the sands on the British shore. One
of our old chroniclers (Roger de Wendover) states that, on a future
day, Rowena bitterly revenged the death of Horsa, by bribing one of
Vortimer's servants to poison her son-in-law, and that thus fell, in
the bloom of life, one of the noblest of the British warriors--a victim
to the vengeance of his step-mother. Whether this is true or not, it
is now impossible to decide, so much are the statements of our early
historians at variance; one thing, however, is clear, the Saxons were
defeated, and compelled to escape in their long chiules, or ships; nor
do they appear to have returned until after the death of Vortimer,
when, at the suggestion of Rowena, her father was again invited to
Britain, and this time Hengist returned with a larger force than had
hitherto landed in our island. When the Saxon landed, he made an offer
of peace to the Britons, and invited the chiefs to a feast, which he
gave on the occasion. Both parties were to come without their arms,
such was the command issued by Hengist, and enforced on the part of the
British leaders by Vortigern, who was also present. The treacherous
Saxon had, however, given orders to his followers to conceal short
swords or daggers under their garments, and when he gave the signal,
to fall upon and slaughter every Briton present, with the exception
of Vortigern. The feast commenced, the wine-cup circulated, the Saxon
and British chiefs sat side by side; those who had fought together,
face to face and hand to hand, were drinking from the same cup, for it
appears to have been so contrived that a false-friend should be placed
between every foe. Vortigern seems to have sat secure, and never once
dreamed of the treachery that surrounded him; and, perhaps, even before
the smile had well faded from Hengist's face, as he talked of the
pleasant days that were yet in store for his unsuspecting son-in-law,
he turned round and exclaimed: "_Nimed eure saxes_," "unsheath your
swords," and in a few moments after three hundred British chiefs and
nobles lay lifeless upon the ground. The motto prefixed to our present
chapter is from one of the poems of Golyddan, a Welsh bard, who lived
within a century or two after this cold-blooded massacre, a deed which
must for many a long year afterwards have rankled in the minds of the
Britons, and which their bards would never allow to slumber, whenever
they sang the deeds of their departed chieftains. Doubtless Rowena
was present at that bloody banquet, and with a cruel look confronted
"the weak chief," as he stood pale and horror-stricken, glancing from
father to daughter, and cursing the hour, as he looked into the face of
the beautiful heathen, whose blue eyes could perchance gaze, without
shrinking for a moment, upon those wan and clay-cold countenances that
were now upturned in death. Though long years have passed away, and the
hawthorns have put out their blossoms above a thousand times since the
fatal May in which this terrible tragedy took place, still the eye of
the imagination can scarcely conjure up the scene without a shiver. It
is supposed to have been near Stonehenge where this cruel butchery took
place, probably within the very circle of those Druidical monuments,
some of which still stand, though at that period the whole temple was,
doubtless, perfect. If, as we are led to believe, many of the British
chieftains were Christians, there was something in keeping with the
stern character of the Saxon pagans, in thus slaughtering their enemies
in the presence of the very altars on which the islanders had formerly
sacrificed to the gods they themselves worshipped, and such an act
might, in their eyes, hallow even this savage revenge. To slaughter all
who did not believe in their heathen creed, was with the Pagan Saxons a
religious duty; they believed such acts were acceptable to their gods.
We shudder at the very thought of such a deed--nearly fourteen
centuries have elapsed since the sands of Salisbury Plain drank in
the blood of these victims. Yet we startle to see the dead thus piled
together around the grey old stones which the footsteps of Time have
all but worn away, as if we still looked calmly on while they were
brought bleeding to our very thresholds. Still the historian of the
past might mingle his sympathy, and carry back many a deed which has
since then been done, to be rolled up and mourned over in the same
great catalogue of cruelty. The shadows that move through the old
twilight of time, bend under the weight of the "red-men" that are borne
upon the bier. The form of Hengist seems to stand leaning upon the red
pillars that mark the entrance to the Hall of Murder in Valhalla, as if
wondering "why the chariot wheels so long delayed," and the guests that
still tarried behind, hastened to the banquet of sculls, which stood
awaiting their coming, in the halls of Odin. For such a deed stamps him
as a fitting servitor in that horrible hall of slaughter.
At Crayford in Kent, another great battle was fought between the
Saxons and the Britons, in which the latter were defeated with great
slaughter, and so complete was the victory, that the remnant of the
British army were compelled to retreat into London. But with all his
success, Hengist was unable to keep possession of little more than the
county of Kent, and the island of Thanet, and even this, it appears,
he would have found it difficult to retain, but for the dissensions
which were ever breaking out amongst the British chiefs. The Britons
were able at this very time to send out twelve thousand armed men into
Gaul, to war against the Visigoths, so that there can be but little
doubt that, had unity reigned amongst them, they would have found no
difficulty in driving out the Saxons, as they had done before-time.
The island seems to have been so divided at this period, and under
the command of so many different chiefs or kings, that they cared not
to bring their united forces to bear upon one corner of the kingdom,
especially that where the presence of Vortigern still appears to have
been acknowledged; for it is probable that the British king, after the
death of his son, settled down in his old age, amongst the Saxons,
"a sadder and a wiser man." We even hope, in spite of his misdeeds,
and the miseries into which his love for a fair face plunged the
whole island of Britain, that there is no truth in the statements
of our early Saxon historians, who have left it on record that he
fled into Wales, where, hated alike "by slave and free-man, monk and
layman, strong and weak, small and great," he at last perished with
the fair Rowena, and all his family, in those flames which destroyed
the fortress where he had sought shelter from his enemies. Yet many
venerable names might be brought forward in support of this story of
the terrible end of an ancient British king. A dreadful fate for fair
Rowena, if true, and all the evidence is sadly in its favour, and from
our hearts, we cannot help pitying the poor girl, who with downcast
eyes, as she held the golden goblet in her hand, listened to the
promises which the island monarch poured into her ears; who stepped
from the deck of her father's galley, to share a throne, yet appears
never to have forsaken her husband in all the varied vicissitudes
of his chequered life; but through battle, flood, and fire, to have
trod the same perilous path with him, hand in hand, sometimes, it may
be, when alone, shedding tears at the remembrance of her father's
cruelties, weeping one hour, for the death of her own friends, and the
next, comforting Vortigern for the loss of those he mourned. We picture
her, as in the joyousness of her heart she left her native home to
meet her father--no mother appears to have accompanied her--and, pagan
as she was, we know not how pure and holy the feelings of that heart
might be; for, red with blood as the hands of Hengist were, they had,
doubtless, many a time parted her silken ringlets, as he stooped down
and imprinted a father's kiss upon her lips. Perhaps a tear stole down
the deep furrows which time and care had ploughed in the weather-beaten
countenance of Hengist, as he embraced her when she first landed on
our island shore, as in her pure countenance he traced the image of
her mother, whom he had once so fondly loved. Poor Rowena! she might
have moved like a ministering angel, through all the terrors of those
stormy times, her mild blue eyes beaming comfort on every woe-begone
countenance on which they glanced--now soothing the restless slumber of
her father, as he started up, dreaming of some new revenge, and by her
falling tears, and low-breathed whispers, chasing away the dark demon
from his couch; for even through the past, those gentle eyes seem to
beam upon us, and the tears by which they are dimmed quench the cruel
light, that when in anger, flashed from beneath her fringed eye-lids.
Oh, Mercy! thou wouldst not leave that beautiful Saxon mother to perish
shrieking amidst the surrounding flames! What crimes she had, sprang
from her faith; she was nursed in a cruel creed; when the grim shadow
of Odin fell not over and darkened her gentle heart, she was a fond
woman, even as our mothers have ever been. But she is dead and gone.
Hengist is now no more, and Eric, his son, reigns sole king over the
white-cliffs, and green hills, and pastoral valleys of Kent, and the
keels of other chiules are grating upon our chalky headlands. The grey
curtain of Time again drops down over the dead which in fancy stood
before us, and after the night of death is past, a new morning breaks,
that
"Laughs aside the clouds with playful scorn."