But whatever was the condition of the other parts of Europe, it is
generally agreed that the state of Britain was the worst of all.
Some writers have asserted, that except those who took refuge in the
mountains of Wales and Cornwall, or fled into Armorica, the British race
was, in a manner, destroyed. What is extraordinary, we find England in a
very tolerable state of population in less than two centuries after
the first invasion of the Saxons; and it is hard to imagine either the
transplantation, or the increase, of that single people to have been, in
so short a time, sufficient for the settlement of so great an extent of
country. Others speak of the Britons, not as extirpated, but as reduced
to a state of slavery; and here these writers fix the origin of personal
and predial servitude in England.
I shall lay fairly before the reader all I have been able to discover
concerning the existence or condition of this unhappy people. That they
were much more broken and reduced than any other nation which had fallen
under the German power, I think may be inferred from two considerations:
first, that in all other parts of Europe the ancient language subsisted
after the conquest, and at length incorporated with that of the
conquerors; whereas in England, the Saxon language received little or no
tincture from the Welsh; and it seems, even among the lowest people, to
have continued a dialect of pure Teutonic to the time in which it was
itself blended with the Norman. Secondly, that on the continent, the
Christian religion, after the northern irruptions, not only remained,
but flourished. It was very early and universally adopted by the ruling
people. In England it was so entirely extinguished, that, when Augustin
undertook his mission, it does not appear that among all the Saxons
there was a single person professing Christianity. The sudden extinction
of the ancient religion and language appears sufficient to show that
Britain must have suffered more than any of the neighbouring nations
on the continent. But it must not be concealed, that there are likewise
proofs, that the British race, though much diminished, was not wholly
extirpated; and that those who remained, were not merely as Britons
reduced to servitude; for they are mentioned as existing in some of the
earlier Saxon laws. In these laws they are allowed a compensation on the
footing of the meaner kind of English; and they are even permitted, as
well as the English, to emerge out of that low rank into a more liberal
condition. This is degradation, but not slavery. (Leges Inae 32 de
Cambrico homine agrum possidente. Id. 54.) The affairs of that whole
period are, however, covered with an obscurity not to be dissipated. The
Britons had little leisure or ability to write a just account of a war
by which they were ruined; and the Anglo-Saxons, who succeeded them,
attentive only to arms, were until their conversion, ignorant of the use
of letters.
It is on this darkened theatre that some old writers have introduced
those characters and actions, which have afforded such ample matter to
poets, and so much perplexity to historians. This is the fabulous and
heroic age of our nation. After the natural and just representations of
the Roman scene, the stage is again crowded with enchanters, giants, and
all the extravagant images of the wildest and most remote antiquity. No
personage makes so conspicuous a figure in these stories as King Arthur;
a prince, whether of British or Roman origin, whether born on this
island or in Armorica, is uncertain; but it appears that he opposed the
Saxons with remarkable virtue, and no small degree of success, which has
rendered him and his exploits so large an argument of romance, that both
are almost disclaimed by history. Light scarce begins to dawn until
the introduction of Christianity, which, bringing with it the use of
letters, and the arts of civil life, affords at once a juster account of
things and facts that are more worthy of relation; nor is there, indeed,
any revolution so remarkable in the English story.
The bishops of Rome had for sometime meditated the conversion of the
Anglo-Saxons. Pope Gregory, who is surnamed the Great, affected
that pious design with an uncommon zeal; and he at length found a
circumstance highly favourable to it in the marriage of a daughter of
Charibert, a king of the Franks, to the reining monarch of Kent. This
opportunity induced Pope Gregory to commission Augustin, a monk of
Rheims, and a man of distinguished piety, to undertake this arduous
enterprise.
It was in the year of Christ 600, and 150 years after the coming of
the first Saxon colonies into England, that Ethelbert, king of Kent,
received intelligence of the arrival in his dominions of a number of men
in a foreign garb, practising several strange and unusual ceremonies,
who desired to be conducted to the king's presence, declaring that
they had things to communicate to him and to his people of the utmost
importance to their eternal welfare. This was Augustin, with forty of
the associates of his mission, who now landed in the Isle of Thanet, the
same place by which the Saxons had before entered, when they extirpated
Christianity.