The next Saxon chieftain of any note, who effected a landing in Britain, and established himself in the country, was Ella; he came, accompanied by his three sons and the same number of ships, the latter being anchored beside the Isle of Thanet, where Hengist and Horsa, twenty-eight years before, became auxiliaries under Vortigern. From the south of Kent, a vast forest extended into Sussex and Hampshire, a huge uncultivated wilderness, called Andreade, or Andredswold, measuring above a hundred miles in length, and a long day's march in breadth, for it was full thirty miles wide, and abounded with wolves, deer, and wild boars. Near the Sussex entrance of this primeval English forest, Ella fought his first battle, and drove the Britons into the wide wooded waste. After a time, the Saxon chief received fresh reinforcements, and not until then did he venture to attack the ancient British town which was named Andredes Ceaster, and stood, strongly fortified, on the edge of the forest. While the Saxons were attempting to scale the walls, a body of the Britons rushed upon them from the wood, and, thus attacked in the rear, the invaders were compelled to turn their backs upon the town and carry the fight into the forest. Three times was the assault renewed, for no sooner were the Saxons at the foot of the wall than the Britons were upon their heels; each time Ella's loss was severe; night came, and both parties rested until the morrow, encamped within sight of each other. With sunrise, the battle was renewed, and the Saxon chief this time drove the Britons still further into the forest, but all was useless—they knew every turning and every thicket that afforded a shelter, and by the time the besiegers had again reached the town, the brave islanders were there, ready to pin the first Saxon to the wall who attempted to scale it, with the unerring javelins which they could hurl to an inch. The forces under Ella became furious; they stood between two enemies; they were attacked both from the town and the forest; whichever way they turned, the pointed spears of the Britons were presented. At length, the Saxon chief divided his army into two bodies: one he commanded to drive the Britons into the forest, and to prevent them from returning; the other, at the same time, began to break down the walls. Revenge was now the order of the day: maddened by their losses, and irritated by the long delay, the merciless Saxons put every soul within the walls to death—neither man, woman, nor child, did they leave alive; such a massacre had never before taken place. Even the walls were levelled to the earth, and, for ages after, that town stood by the gloomy forest, silent, ruined, and desolate; until even the time of Edward the First it was pointed out to the stranger; and though the long grass, and the moss, and the lichen, had grown grey upon its ruins, there were still traces of its fallen grandeur "which," in the words of the old chronicler, "showed how noble a city it had once been."
It is painful, even only in fancy, to picture the return of those British warriors from the forest; how startling must have been the very silence which reigned over those ruins, the vast dreary woodland wilderness behind, the levelled walls and the bodies of the dead before—here the remains of a beloved home which the destroying fire had blackened—on the hearth a beautiful form, with her long hair steeped in her own heart's blood, her child stretched across her arm, over which the heavy rafter had in mercy fallen, the wolf already prowling about the threshold. Even through the night of time, we can almost hear their moans—each warrior reproaching himself for having fled, and envying the unbroken sleep of the slain. How looked those British fathers and husbands when they again met the Saxon slayers in battle? Who marvels, after reading of such deeds as these, that they hung the heads of their enemies at their sides—that they found music in the gurgling of their blood—that as the foe expired they stood calmly looking on, mocking him with a solemn death-chaunt, and telling the dying man of the wife and home he would never see again—of the savage laugh, "bitter and sullen as the bursting of the sea, of the dead which in their fury they mangled—of the joy with which they hailed the flapping of the raven's wings, as they heard them descending upon the battle-field?" Such images would maddened revenge select to express its triumph in, and the only marvel is, that so many beautiful passages, expressive of grief, and sorrow, and heart-broken despair, are scattered over the wild wailings of the early British bards. Yet such scenes as we have here depicted it was theirs to deplore—such revenge as they took, when the current of battle bore them on to victory, it was theirs to exult in, and their bards, gifted with the power of song, retired to mourn like the dove, or sallied forth to destruction with the scream of the eagle. They were familiar with the images of death, were called upon every day to defend their lives, and were never certain that she, whose beautiful smile beamed love on their departure in the morning, would in the evening stand waiting upon the threshold to welcome their return. Neither the weeping mother, nor the smiling child, had, in those days, power to turn aside the edge of the Saxon sword. Thus was the second Saxon kingdom called Sussex, established, by Ella, and his three sons.
Eighteen years after, another of Woden's descendants, named Cerdric, came with his followers in five ships. Where they landed is uncertain, though it does not appear that we should be much in error if we fixed upon Yarmouth, which for centuries after was called Cerdricksand, and known by that name even in Camden's day. At the time of his landing, the Britons were in possession of the whole island, with the exception of Kent and Sussex, and the Saxons who inhabited these kingdoms appear to have aided the new-comers. Battle followed upon battle as usual, and we are thankful that only so few scanty records exist, for it would be wearisome to go over such successive bead-rolls of slaughter. Nor was Cerdric allowed to land peaceably, for, like Julius Cæsar above five centuries before, he had to fight his way from the first moment of leaving the deck of his vessel. One great battle, however, was fought, in which the British king Natanleod was slain; the two armies met at Churdfrid, and in the onset the islanders appear to have had the advantage. Natanleod commenced the attack on the right wing of the Saxons, broke through the line, bore down the standards, and compelled Cerdric to retreat. Years had passed away since the Britons had before mustered such a force; they pursued the routed foe across the field with terrible slaughter. The victory, however, was far from being complete, for while the Britons plunged forward, hot and eager in the pursuit, the forces under the command of the son of Cerdric closed upon the flank of the pursuing army and compelled them to wheel round and defend themselves. The Saxon chief also recovered from the panic, and attacked them in front; thus the Britons were hemmed in on both sides, and their centre was soon broken. All was now hurry, retreat, confusion, and slaughter; quarter was neither craved nor given, those who could not escape fought and fell, and when the battle was ended, the body of the British king lay surrounded by five thousand of his lifeless warriors. It will be readily imagined that Cerdric must have received great assistance from Kent and Sussex to have won such a victory, and it is evident that the leagued forces did not separate without extending their ravages—many a fair province was desolated, the inhabitants slaughtered, their houses burnt to the ground, and their priests mercilessly butchered; for wherever the Christian religion abounded, there the sword of the Saxon was found unsheathed.
Stuf and Wihtgar next came, both of them Cerdric's kinsmen, and it seems as if scarcely a favourable wind now blew, without wafting a fresh fleet of Saxon chiefs to the British coast. They evidently began to look upon Britain as their own; so many relations came one after the other and settled down, and never returned, that we can imagine the only topic of conversation now in Jutland was about Britain—that houses and lands were at a discount—that everybody was either purchasing or building ships—that the old crones reaped quite a harvest in standing upon the headlands and sending prayers after the vessels, for Jutes, Angles, and Saxons were now all astir; rumours had flown over the ocean that there were kingdoms for those who dare venture for them, and that, no matter how distant the descent might be, so long as the voyager had a drop of Woden's blood in his veins, there was a crown for him if he could but find followers to fight for it. Nor had the poor Britons any hope left, for as one died off there was always another ready to succeed. Cynric followed Cerdric; he passed away, and Cealwin came—killed two or three British kings, of whom we know nothing, excepting that one was called Conmail, another Condidan, and the third Farinmail—added the cities of Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bristol to his dominions—and finally established the kingdom of Wessex, which included several counties, beside the Isle of Wight. But we must not thus hurry over this stirring period, for a new champion had sprung up amongst the Britons, the king Arthur of old romance, the hero of poetry and fable, the warrior whose very existence has, to many, become a matter of doubt. What little we know of any of the British kings who existed at this period, is almost limited to the bare mention of their names. A new language had sprung up, and, excepting among the conquered, there was no one left to record the deeds of the British heroes, but the Welsh bards; for what sympathy could the worshippers of Woden have with the warriors who spoke another language, and followed a creed so different to their own? What should we have known of the earlier Britons but for Julius Cæsar? Who can doubt but that the Saxons cared only to chronicle the deeds of their own countrymen, or who can tell how many records were destroyed by the misbelieving Danes on a later day? We have more than tradition to prove the existence of Arthur: he is alluded to by the ancient bards, and mentioned by them in succession, for as one caught up and carried forward the Cymric lay of another, so did he allude to warriors of other days. The Saxons had enough to do to record their own conquests, and left the Britons to mourn over their own disasters, for what they remembered with feelings of pride would to the new-comers be a source of regret; a British victory would but afford them a theme for a dirge, and the very memory of a hero who had occasionally triumphed over them would be a source of pain. Those who furnished Gildas and Nennius with the subjects for their histories would not be such as kept a record of the bravery of the Britons, yet Arthur is mentioned by them both. These venerable chroniclers could but tell what they heard; many of the Welsh bards fought in the battles of which they sang, and even defeat, as well as victory, was alike woven into their lays. No such remains are found amongst the Saxon historians, yet they both mention the battles in which Arthur fought: he was a British king; and, though Gildas was living within twenty years after the death of Arthur, he had but little sympathy for him—nevertheless he praises his valour.
Arthur is the last British king in whose fortunes we strongly sympathize. We see his native land about to be wrested from him. In every corner of the island are strangers landing, and taking possession of the soil. In almost every battle the Britons are defeated; they who, from the first dawning of history, had been the possessors of the island, are about to be driven from it, and that, too, at a period when they were just becoming familiar to us. As we feel for and with them at this time, so do the Saxons at last interest us, and there our sympathy ends; the Normans never become so endeared to us as they have been. From their first landing we seem to dislike them, even more than we do the Saxons, whom we begin to see darkening every point of the land, for as yet they are Pagans, and just as they gather upon our favour, the Danes approach; and then we feel as much interested on the side of the Saxons as we do now on that of the Britons. For there are currents in history which bear us forward against our will—we struggle against them in vain—we are swept onward through new scenes, and whirled so rapidly amongst past events, that we no longer cling to passing objects to retard our courses; but as the wide ocean opens out before us, we gaze upon its vastness in wonderment, and are lost in the contemplation of the shifting scenes which are ever chasing each other over its surface. The forms that fall upon the pages of history, are like the sunshine and shadow pursuing each other over the face of the ocean, where the golden fades into the grey; and as each wave washes nearer to the shore, it is ever changing its hue, from gloom to brightness, until it breaks upon the beach, and is no more. Arthur leading on the Britons, with the image of the Virgin upon his shield, seems, in our eyes, only like some armed phantom, standing upon the rim of the horizon at sunset, and pointing with his sword towards the coming darkness; then he sinks behind the rounded hill, never to appear again. His twelve battles have a glorious indistinctness,—they sink one behind the other in the sunset, just as we can trace the bright armour, and the drooping banners, and the moving host, in the fading gold of the clouds,—they then melt around the dying glories of heaven. Something great and grand seems ever shaping itself before the eye; but ere we are able to seize upon any distinct feature, all is gone, never to appear again.
Arthur first appears to us checking the flight of a British prince; we see his hand on the rein, he is about to bear off the beautiful lady, but is dissuaded from it by his companions. The cavalcade passes on, and he rides moodily at the head of his followers,—then one of the dark turnings of time shuts him out from the sight.
Sword in hand, we next behold him, in hot pursuit after a British chief, who has slain some of his soldiers; the image of the Virgin is borne rapidly through the air, his teeth are clenched, and there is a frown upon his brow. A priest approaches—others come up—they tell him that there are enemies enough to slay amongst the Saxons. The angry spot fades from his forehead, and he sits calmly in his saddle—again he vanishes.
His wife is then borne away, and we meet him breathing vengeance against the king of Somersetshire, vowing that he will, ere night, leave Melva to sleep shorter by the head—he slackens his rein for a few moments beside the gate of a monastery: good and holy men are there, the hand of a venerable man is placed upon his bridle, the image of the Virgin he bears upon his shield is appealed to; he muses for a time with his eyes bent upon the ground, he allows his war-horse to be led under the grey gateway of the monastery—his wife is restored, and Melva forgiven, and the curtain again falls.
Huel, another king of the Britons, has been tampering with the enemies of his country; he is upbraided by Arthur for his treachery, then slain by his own hand. We see him ever in the van, at the battles of Glen, Douglas, Bassas, the Wood of Caledon, Castle Gunnion, on the banks of the Rebroit, on the mountain of Cathregonian, and the battle in which the Saxons were routed on the Badon Hills, and we no longer wonder at the slow progress made by Cerdric, or that he died before the kingdom of Wessex was established. The armed troops, headed by king Arthur, stood between his advance into Wales; they remembered the hills of Bath, and the number of slain they had left upon those summits. Saving the feud with Medrawd, in which the British king received the blow by which he died, these few facts are about all that we can gather of the renowned deeds of the mighty King Arthur.
Excepting the slight mention made of him in the works of Gildas and Nennius, the former of whom, as we have before stated, was living about the period ascribed to Arthur, we find, no other record of his deeds, beyond those tradition has preserved in the lays of the Welsh bards. After the battle of Camlan, where Arthur received his death-blow, he was carried from the field, and conveyed to Glastonbury Abbey, and consigned to the care of a noble lady, named Morgan, who appears to have been a kinswoman of king Arthur's; in her charge he was left to be cured of his wounds. He, however, died, though his death was long kept a secret, and rumours were sent abroad that he had been removed into another world, but would one day again appear, and reign sole king of Britain. Ages after, this was believed in; it was a thought that often cheered the fading eyes of the dying Celt; he believed that he but left his children behind him for a time; and that Arthur, with the Virgin upon his shield, and his sword, "Caliburne," in his hand, would assuredly one day come and lead the remnant of the ancient Cymry on to victory. No historian, who has looked carefully into the few facts which we possess relating to this British king, has ever doubted the existence of such a belief; it was a coming devoutly looked for—the dreamy solace of a fallen nation, their only comfort when all beside had perished. No marvel that round his memory so many fables are woven—that miracle upon miracle was ascribed to him, and deed upon deed piled together, until even the lofty summit of high romance at last toppled down with all its giants, and monsters, and improbable accumulation of enemies slain, which in the days of Gildas amounted to hundreds, and that down with it tumbled nearly all the few facts which had swelled into such an inordinate bulk from his fair fame. How it would have astonished the true Arthur, could he but have been restored to life, and by the light of the few embers which glimmered in the British huts in the evening twilight, have heard some bard, the descendant of Llywarch the aged, who knew him well, and had looked on him, face to face, recounting his deeds at the battle of Llongberth! Yet, through the traditions of these very bards, by whom his deeds were so magnified, is his memory preserved, though above thirteen centuries have glided away. All belief in his return must, ages before this, have perished; yet his memory was not forgotten, and it is on record, that a secret had been entrusted to one who had probably descended from a long line of ancient minstrels; for the druids, who numbered bards amongst their order, had mysteries which they only confided to each other, and these were seldom revealed until the approach of death. Nor can we tell how much they were interested in keeping the death of Arthur a secret, for we must not forget that the fires upon their altars were not wholly extinguished when the British king fell beneath the fatal blow, which he received from the hand of his nephew in the field of Camlan, for that his death was kept a secret has never been disputed.
Though the discovery of the remains of king Arthur has long been a matter of doubt, yet while it is supported by such high authority as Giraldus Cambrensis and William of Malmsbury, who were living at the period it is said to have taken place, and while even Sharon Turner has admitted it into his "History of the Anglo-Saxons," we should scarcely be justified in rejecting it from our pages. The discovery is said to have originated as follows:—
Henry the Second, during his visits into Wales, freely admitted the Welsh bards into his presence; and as he numbered amongst his own household a minstrel of some celebrity, named Pierre de Vidal, there is every reason to conclude that he was a willing listener to the ancient lays which were chanted in those days in the halls of the nobles. By one of the old British bards he was told that king Arthur was interred in Glastonbury Abbey; that the spot was marked by two pyramids, or pillars; that the body was buried very deep, to prevent the Saxons from discovering it; and that, instead of a stone coffin, the remains would be found in the trunk of a hollowed oak—a form of interment, as we have before shown, very common amongst the ancient Britons. The king transmitted this information to the abbot of Glastonbury, commanding him to dig between the pillars, and endeavour to discover the body of the British king. In the cemetery of the abbey, and between the monuments which the Welsh bard had pointed out, they commenced the search, and dug, it is said, until they came to a stone, under which they found a leaden cross, and the following inscription: "Hic jacet sepultus inclytus Rex Arthurus in insula Avollonia." Though we must confess that there is something very doubtful about the inscription of a British king not being in Welsh, when the Cymry were said, at this period, to have been acquainted with letters, we will pass it by, and go on with the narrative. Sixteen feet lower, it is said, they found the outer coffin, which, as before described, was formed out of the solid stem of an oak, hollowed in the centre to contain the body. The leg-bones, we are told, were of an unusual size, being the breadth of three fingers longer than those of the tallest man present. These bones Giraldus, it is said, took in his hand, and also read the inscription, for he was present at the disinterment. The skull was large, and marked with ten wounds—nine of these had healed in the bone, the tenth was open, and probably showed where the mortal blow was struck that terminated his life. Near at hand, were found the remains of his wife; the long yellow hair which the ancient bards loved to dwell upon, in their descriptions of the fair queen, appeared perfect, until touched. The remains were removed into the abbey, and placed in a magnificent shrine, which, by the order of Edward the First, was placed before the high altar. In the year one thousand two hundred and seventy-six, nearly a hundred years after the bodies were discovered, the same king, accompanied by his queen, visited Glastonbury, and had the shrine opened to look upon the remains of the renowned warrior and his once fair consort. King Edward folded the bones of the reputed Arthur in a rich shroud, while his wife did the same with those of the yellow-haired queen; then placed them again reverentially within the shrine. The pillars which marked the spot where the bodies were discovered, long remained; and William of Malmsbury, who was living at the period when they were disinterred, has left an account of the inscription and figures upon the pillars, which were five-sided, and twenty-six feet high.3 Neither the meanings of the inscriptions, or the figures, were at the period of the discovery rightly understood. What befel them afterwards we know not, though the fate of the abbey is well known. Whether the discovery of these remains be true or not, there cannot be a doubt about the existence of king Arthur; for, were there even no allusion made to him by Gildas and Nennius, who lived near upon the period when he was waging war with Cerdric and Cealwin; or by the British bards, who knew him personally, and even fought under his command,—were there no such undeniable evidence as the above, the traditions which so long preserved his remembrance would go far to prove his existence. But these throw no light upon the achievements by which he became so renowned; it is like discovering the casket without the gem—there is evidence of the treasure, and the care with which it was preserved, but what the treasure itself was, we know not. What few facts we have thrown together, are all that can really be depended upon as the true history of king Arthur: his knights, his round table, and the deeds which are attributed to him, must ever stand amongst the thousand-and-one tales which a wonder-loving people have treasured in all ages, and some of which are found even amongst the most barbarous nations. They appear to have been such as raised Woden into a god in the darkest era of Saxon paganism; and as Roman civilization seems never to have spread far amongst the ancient Cymry in Wales, we are justified in concluding that they also loved to shed around the memory of their bravest chieftain the same mysterious reverence, and that what was wanting to make up the unnatural stature of the image of their idolatry, they piled up from old legends and time-out-of-mind fables, that "give delight, but hurt not." The discovery of king Arthur's remains is at best but doubtful history.
During the period in which the events occurred that are narrated in the opening pages of our last chapter, another body of Saxons had arrived in Britain, and settled down in Essex, where under Erkenwin they laid the foundation of that kingdom or state, which eventually extended into Middlesex, and included London—then a town of considerable note, though bearing no marks of its high destiny, as its few houses heaved up and overlooked the Thames. Little did the fisherman dream, as he turned back to gaze upon his humble home, where the morning sunbeams fell, that the hut in which he had left his children asleep, stood where a city would one day rise, that should become the metropolis of England, and the envy of surrounding nations. Still less did those ancient Saxons, as they landed in the marshes of Essex, ever imagine that they were marching onward towards a town, whose renown would one day spread to the uttermost ends of the earth, a city which would at last arrest the gaze of the whole wide world, whose grandeur would only be eclipsed by its greatness, and stand the sun of the earth, defying all eyes to point out, amid the blaze of its splendour, where its brightness began or where it ended. But while the tide which bore on a new population was thus setting in, and the kingdom of East Anglia was formed by a portion of the Saxon tribe, who have left no other names behind than those given to the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk, the most formidable force that had hitherto arrived in Britain, since the time of the Romans, landed between the Tweed and the Firth of Forth. Forty ships were at once anchored near the mouths of these rivers, and from them stepped on shore, Ida and his twelve sons, with a number of nameless chiefs, who belonged to the tribe of Angles, and a long train of Saxon followers, all of whom had sworn to acknowledge Ida as their king, for he also claimed descent from the inexhaustible stock of Woden. Between the Clyde and the Humber, the country was divided amongst many of the British tribes, all of whom had their separate king, or chief, and were ever doing their utmost, unconsciously, to aid the conquest of the Saxons, by waging war with each other. Bernicia and Deira, as they were afterwards called, were at the time of Ida's landing governed by the following kings or chiefs, for it is difficult to distinguish their proper titles, named Gall, Dyvedel, Ysgwnell, Urien, the patron of Taliesin the bard, Rhydderc the generous, Gwallog, Aneurin, himself a poet, together with other sovereigns whose very names have perished, and who all appear to have, for once, united, and made a bold stand against the advance of Ida.
We have now the light of these ancient bards to guide us through this remote period, and some of them fought in the battles of which they have left us descriptions. Chief amongst these British warriors appears to have been Urien; Taliesin calls him the "shield of heroes, the thunderbolt of the Cymry," and compares his onset to "the rushing of mighty waves, and fiery meteors blazing athwart the heavens." Ida, they designated the flame-man, or flame-bearer, so terrible was the devastation which he made. Many battles were fought between these renowned chieftains. It was on the night which ushers in the Sabbath, when the "Flame-bearer" approached, with his forces divided into four companies, to surround Goddeu and Reged, provinces over which Urien governed. Ida spread out his forces from Argoedd to Arfynnydd, and having assumed this threatening position, he daringly demanded submission and hostages from the Britons. Urien indignantly spurned the proposition, and turning to his brother chieftains, exclaimed: "Let us raise our banners where the mountain winds blow—let us dash onward with our forces over the border—let each warrior lift his spear above his head, and rush upon the destroyer, in the midst of his army, and slay him, together with his followers." Taliesin, who was present, and fought under the banner of Urien, thus describes the "Battle of the Pleasant Valley:" "When the shouts of the Britons ascended, louder than the roaring of the waves upon the storm-tossed shore, neither field nor forest afforded safety to the foe: I saw the warriors in their brave array, I saw them after the morning's strife—oh, how altered! I saw the conflict between the perishing hosts, the blood that gushed forward and soaked into the red ground:—the valley which was defended by a rampart was no longer green. Wan, weary men, pale with affright, and stained with blood, dropped their arms and staggered across the ford; I saw Urien, with his red brow—his sword fell on the bucklers of his enemies with deadly force—he rushed upon them like an eagle enraged." In this battle, the Britons appear to have been victorious—others followed in which they were defeated, for the "flame-bearing man" spread terror wherever he trod. He, however, at last fell by Owen the son of Urien, one of the poets, who also perished by the hand of one of his own countrymen, and his death was bemoaned by the British bard Llywarch, in such a plaintive strain that there are few compositions which excel this ancient elegy, for its beautiful pathos and wild, mournful images; some of these are as follows: "I bear a head from the mountains; the body will ere night be buried under the cairn of stones and earth! Where is he that supported and feasted me? Euryddiel will be joyless to-night. Whom shall I praise, now Urien is no more? The hall is stricken into ruins,—the floor desolate, where many a hound and hawk were trained for the chase. Nettles and weeds will grow over that hearth, which, when Urien lived, was ever open to the tread of the needy; the shout of the warriors as they uplifted the mead cups, no more will be heard rioting. The decaying green will cover it, the mouldering lichen will conceal it, the thorn will above it grow; the cauldron will become rusted that seethed the deer, the sword of the warrior will no longer clank over it, no sound of harmony will again be heard there; where once the blazing torches flashed, and the deep drinking horn went round, the swine will root, and the black ants swarm, for Urien is no more!" Such were the immortal echoes that floated around our island, nearly a thousand years before Shakspere "struck the golden lyre."
After the death of Urien, another severe battle was fought in the north between the Britons and Angles, who accompanied Ida. Aneurin, who was in the fight, has composed the longest poem which has descended to us descriptive of those ancient conflicts; it is called the "Gododin," and was held in such reverence by the Welsh bards, that they entitled him their king. It is frequently alluded to by the minstrels of the period. The poem descriptive of the battle of Cattraeth, from which Aneurin escaped, when three hundred and three score British nobles, all wearing the "golden torque," fell, contains nearly a thousand lines. Only three renowned warriors survived this awful combat; the bard was amongst the number. The British chieftains had been drinking the pale mead by "the light of rushes" all night long; with the first streak of dawn, they set out to attack the Saxons; when they came in sight of the enemy, they "hastened swift, all running together—short were their lives." Like the melancholy chorus in a dirge is this "pale mead" banquet ever repeated throughout the poem; its effects are sadly deplored, it is ever turning up and coming in upon the end of some sorrowful reflection; "pleasant was its taste, long its woe—it had been their feast, and was their poison—it was a banquet for which they paid the price of their lives." Hear Aneurin's own words: "The warriors that went to Cattraeth were furious—pale golden wine and mead had they drank; they were three hundred and three score and three, all wearing golden torques, who hastened to battle after the banquet. From the edges of the keen-slaying swords, only three escaped the war-dogs, Aeron and Dayarawd, and I, from the flowing blood were saved. The reward of my protecting muse." The battle appears to have been fought in the morning of one of their festive days; and in the grey dawn, the intoxicated chiefs ran upon the enemy all together, probably having boasted over their cups that one would outstrip the other, and be the first to dye his sword in Saxon blood. The scene of the battle cannot now be ascertained; that it was in the north we have proof, from the men of Bernicia and Deiri being present.
After these events, the kingdom called Mercia was established; it appears to have extended over our present midland counties, occupying the most important space which stretches from the Severn to the Humber, and even pushing its frontier upon the borders of Wales. This formed the eighth kingdom, state, or colony, established by the Saxons since the day when Hengist and Horsa first entered the service of Vortigern—a period occupying but little more than one hundred years, and during that time there was scarcely an interval in which the Saxons had not either to defend their hard-won possessions, or aid their countrymen when they were close pressed. The Britons had still their own kingdoms in Wales, Cornwall, a portion of Devonshire, and the district of Strathclyde; and some of these they maintained even after the death of Alfred.
We will now take a rapid glance at the eight kingdoms established by the Saxons, for although Bernicia and Deiri are frequently classed together as one state, and called Northumbria, and were occasionally under the sway of one sovereign, they were, nevertheless, distinct kingdoms for a time. Thus an octarchy was established, formed of the following eight distinct states.
First, the Jutes, who had gained Kent, where Hengist first established himself, and to which his followers added the Isle of Wight, and a portion of the opposite coast of Hampshire. This formed the kingdom of Kent.
Second, the South Saxons, who landed under Ella, and, after many a severe combat with the Britons, founded the kingdom of Sussex.
Third, the East Saxons, who, under the command of Erkenwin, gradually spread over the counties of Essex, Middlesex, and the southern portion of Hertfordshire, which afterwards became known as the kingdom of Essex.
Fourth, the West Saxons, who, headed by Cerdric, conquered the inhabitants of Surrey, part of Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Somerset, a portion of Devonshire and Cornwall, (though long after this period) and finally, founded the kingdom of Wessex.
Fifth, East Anglia, containing Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, the Isle of Ely, and some portion of Bedfordshire, all included in the state or kingdom of East Anglia.
Sixth, Deiri, which included the counties of Lancaster, York, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Durham.
Seventh, Bernicia, where Ida first landed, and which extended from Northumberland into Scotland, somewhere between the rivers Forth and Tweed.
Eighth, and last, Mercia, which swallowed up the chief portion of the midland counties, and was divided into the north and south by the river Trent, though all were within the limits of the dominion of Mercia. Such were the kingdoms that formed the Saxon Octarchy, and which were no sooner established, than one state began to wage war against the other, in which they were occasionally aided by the Britons.
Hitherto we have had to feel our way cautiously along the shores which skirt the dark sea of History, and have been compelled to put into many a creek and harbour at a venture, as abler mariners have done before us; but, in no instance have we stirred, without consulting the compass and carefully examining the chart which Gildas, Nennius, and Bede, those ancient voyagers, have drawn up as a guide, and which Turner and Mac Cabe4 have carefully examined, and marked anew every point that is dark and doubtful.
Many events transpired before the final establishment of the Saxon Octarchy, which we have hurriedly passed over as being of little importance, and which to have narrated would have carried us again over the ground already traversed. Of such are the deaths of the Saxon kings or chiefs; the contests that arose in selecting a successor, and the bickerings and breakings out, which were necessarily consequent upon the formation of so many separate states, for few of them could be called kingdoms. Nor must we suppose, that in all cases where the conquerors settled down, the ancient inhabitants fled before them—many, doubtless, remained behind, and gradually intermixed with the Saxons; of such, probably, would be those who had grown civilized under the Roman government, and were skilled in the arts and manufactures, and had still continued to improve in agriculture, ever since the time of Agricola. Men possessing this knowledge, and acquainted with these secrets, would, beyond doubt, be tempted to reside amongst the invaders; and we shall soon arrive at a period, which will show that civilization had tamed down the martial spirit of the Saxon, as it had before-time done that of the Britons, and that they were for a long season as apparently helpless under the attacks of the Danes, as the ancient inhabitants of the island were under their own repeated assaults. It would be a work of great labour, and one that would require an acute analysis, to trace, step by step, this degenerative process. Many of the Britons emigrated. We have shown that twelve thousand, under a free king, Riothamus, went out to war against the Visigoths, but it would only be carrying us into the history of other countries were we to follow their footsteps. Even the Britons that remained behind, though dispossessed of nearly the whole of their country for a long time, "bated not a jot of heart nor hope;" they clung to their old prophecies, and, through the dark night of oppression, saw the ruddy streak which they believed would ere long break into the bright morning of vengeance, when they should drive the Saxons before them triumphantly out of Britain. Strengthened by this belief, they fought many a battle which we have not recorded, and even when defeated, it was only to retire to their "stony paradise," as their bards called Wales, and there await the breaking of that bright morning which had so long been foretold. There is something wild and beautiful in the very idea of this never-to-be-realized hope; it forms a prominent feature in the character of the Welsh population to this very day, though now turned into a feeling, which arms them, better than any other, against the lesser evils of life. They are ever in the hope of seeing "better days." We can readily fancy that every rumour of the outbreak amongst the Saxon tribes, must have been received with as much acclaim in their mountain fortresses, as would the first note awakened by Aneurin or Llywarch when they struck their harps. We can picture the eagerness with which they hurried down, to aid one Saxon chief to make war upon another, scarcely caring which chief conquered, so long as they themselves escaped, and believing that the body of every enemy which they left in the field was a unit nearer to the fulfilment of their fancied Millennium. They never lacked a leader, if an attack was contemplated, and we probably err not in surmising that many an onset was made after the night had been consumed "by the light of the rushes," and while they were brimful of valour and "pale mead," and heated by the lay which some bard less renowned than Aneurin chanted. Cattraeth may not be the only instance in which the wearers of the "golden torques," the ensign of nobility, fell. Still there seems to have been a hearty faith in the ancient Cymry, which endears them to us, and in nothing was this evinced more, than in their belief of the predictions of their bards. A pale ray of light, like the lingering of a subdued smile, falls upon our page whilst we write, as we contrast the "then" with the "now." The bards of other days were kings, chiefs, and renowned warriors; their harps raised them to these dignities: the bards of the present age are bards only, and however great their fame, can only receive due honour by first passing through the gate of death. The extracts with which we have enriched this chapter show the appreciation of the beautiful, in a barbarous age, and oh! let not this sentence be forgotten. All that we know of the lives of many of those ancient British kings, who were great and renowned in their day, is what has been preserved in the lays of our early bards; but for these, their very names would have perished, and Urien himself would never again have awakened the throb of a human heart. The cold contempt of the proud and the haughty, chilled not the heart of the true minstrel; with his harp in his heart, he ever goes, making music his companion, when there is none beside to hear it; and the notes he often carelessly scatters behind him, if of the true tone, are never lost. A thousand years pass away, and they still ring as freshly about the heart as those which we have here gathered, and which Llywarch, above thirteen hundred years ago, poured forth between his sighs, when he mourned for the loss of his chieftain, for there is a sadness about the dirges which we yet feel. The monuments of brass, of iron, and marble, have ages ago decayed or mouldered away, yet the echoes which arose from that ancient harp have not yet died. Time destroyeth all things excepting the Immortality of the Mind.
It will be readily supposed that many of the early Saxon chieftains, or kings, for it matters not by which title we call them, had by this time died, and been succeeded by their sons and kinsmen. That many had also perished in the wars with the Britons we have already shown, and now when the Octarchy was established, and the ancient inhabitants of the country were either conquered or driven into one corner of the island, when it might be expected that Peace had at last alighted and taken up her abode in the land, the Saxon sovereigns began to war with each other. We have before shown that when the Saxons went out to battle, they with one consent selected a king—no matter how high might be the rank of those who had sworn to serve under him, they obeyed his commands; when the war was over, each again stepped into his former dignity, and the power thus given for a time to the war-king was at an end. Some such king was acknowledged by the Saxon sovereigns, and he was called the Bretwalda, or king of Britain, though it is not clear that the other sovereigns ever paid him any homage, and the only inference we can draw from the claim set up by Ethelbert, the young king of Kent, is, that it was conferred upon that prince who was the nearest akin to Woden. Something of the kind is shadowed forth in the claim, which is grounded alone on his descent from Hengist. Ella, king of Sussex, appears to have been the first who bore the title of Bretwalda in Britain; he died, and it seems as if some time elapsed before any other of the Saxon kings assumed the title; the next that did was Ceawlin, king of Wessex. Ethelbert of Kent rose up, and disputed the claim. Ceawlin was not a man to be moved from his high estate by the descendant of Hengist, and from this dispute sprang the first civil war between the Saxon kings. Ethelbert was but little more than sixteen, when he so daringly threw defiance in the face of the king of Wessex, and Ceawlin was at that time one of the most powerful of all the Saxon kings, and, after having defeated Ethelbert, he, on the death of Cissa, king of Sussex, annexed that kingdom to his own; nor was there a sovereign throughout the whole Saxon states bold enough to wrest the plunder from his hand. For a youth like Ethelbert to have thus bearded so powerful a king, and to have been the first to commence hostilities, and finally to have succeeded in gaining the envied title, evinces a courage and a perseverance which draw the eye anxiously forward to watch the result of his future career, nor shall we be disappointed in the issue. But, before passing to the most important event in his life, we must detail the circumstances by which it was brought on.
One day, as a monk named Gregory was passing through the market of Rome, looking, like others, on the great variety of treasures which were piled there, and for which nearly every corner of Europe had been ransacked, he was struck by a group of beautiful boys. There was something in their white naked limbs, fair complexions, and light long flowing hair, which at once arrested the eye of the kind-hearted monk. He turned to a keen-eyed merchant who was awaiting a purchaser (and who had probably many other things beside these beautiful boys to sell), and inquired from what country they had been brought? He was answered, Britain. The next question he asked was whether the inhabitants were Christians or Pagans? He was told that they were Pagans. Gregory sighed heavily when he heard this, and, as he fixed his eye with a tender and pitiful look upon these fair and beautiful slaves, he exclaimed: "Oh, grief of griefs! that the author of darkness should lay claim to beings of such fair forms—that there should be so much grace in the countenance, yet none in the soul."
When told that they were of the race of the Angles, he said they were worthily named, for their faces were angelic; and when informed that the province from which they came was called the Deiri, he paused—divided the word, dwelt upon it, then exclaimed, "De-ira Dei (from the wrath of God) they must be torn." But when he further heard that the king of the country from whence they came was named Ella, the beautiful picture which had opened before his imagination, merely conjured up from the ideas created by suggestive sound, was complete, and, in his happy enthusiasm, he exclaimed, "Hallelujah! the praise of God must yet be sung in that land." Imagine the quivering lip and tearful eye which would first show the impression of a kind-hearted man and a scholar, when told that these fair children had been dragged from their homes, and brought from a distant island, far away over the sea, and stood there huddled together, seeking to avoid the merciless eye of the unfeeling merchant, who found them the most troublesome part of the cargo he had brought, for the bales he probably sat upon required no feeding, and as a point of business he had been compelled to keep those young slaves plump and in good order, and doubtless, while showing them to the monk, he made them display themselves to the best advantage. They, struck by the kindness which must have beamed, like a glory, around the countenance of the good monk Gregory, perhaps wished that they might be purchased by so friendly-looking a master, for they would be unable to comprehend a single word he said beyond the names of their country and kings. The quivering lip and tearful eye would soon change into the lighted look of enthusiasm, as, bit by bit, the Pagan island rose before the fancy of the tender-hearted monk, as he saw their beautiful heathen mothers and fairer sisters kneeling before senseless stocks and stones; and oh! what a chill must have come over his kind heart when the pope, whom he entreated to send missionaries into that heathen land, rejected his petition. Still it prevented not good Gregory from purchasing the slaves, who had so deeply interested him. He further clothed and educated them, and would, had he not been prevented, have accompanied them on their return to Britain.
Monk Gregory, at last, became the Roman pontiff; but the splendour by which he was now surrounded altered not his gentle nature; he remembered those beautiful barbarians,—had many a time thought of their island home over the waves, and the fair mothers who looked in vain for their return; and he solicited a monk, to whom he had doubtless before-time confided this wish, which ever seems to have been nearest his heart, to undertake the journey; and Augustin was chosen to fulfil this mission. The monks who were appointed to attend Augustin in his mission had heard such rumours of the ferocity of the Saxons, that they expressed a desire to return to Rome, although they had proceeded some distance on their journey; and they so far gave way to their fears as to prevail upon Augustin to go back and solicit the pope to recall them. The pontiff, however, told them that to abandon an undertaking which they had commenced was more disgraceful than if they had not accepted it; bade them proceed in God's name, appointed Augustin abbot over them, and commanded them to obey him. Further, he gave them letters to the prelates and kings through whose countries they would have to pass.
To the daughter of Charibert, king of the Franks, Ethelbert was married; and although she was a Christian, and he a pagan, it had been no bar to their union; Bertha was to follow her own creed, Ethelbert his: he bowed before Woden, she acknowledged the existence of the true God. Vortigern and Rowena had lived together on the same terms before-time. Augustin arrived in Britain, with his train of fifty monks and interpreters, which the king of the Franks had provided, and landed in the isle of Thanet. How different the intent of his mission to that of the Saxon chiefs who had landed there a century and a half before him! They came to kill, to earn their wages by bloodshed; these came to save, and were neither armed with spear, sword, nor battle-axe; their only shield was the cross of Christ, and on their banner the figure of the Redeemer was borne. They came with no other war-cry than the Litany which they chanted as they moved gravely along. What glorious scenes illustrative of the progress of our religion yet remain to be painted! How easy to picture that ancient procession as it passed: their landing from the ship: their prayer offered up on the beach: the misbelieving Saxons looking on in wonder: some priest of Woden pouring into the ear of a listening chief a disparaging story: the countenances of children looking on with a mixture of fear and wonder: heathen mothers pitying the figure upon the banner, and wondering what he had done to be nailed upon the cross; or perhaps thinking that they had come to solicit aid against those who had been guilty of such inhuman cruelty, and their motherly hearts at once enlisted in favour of the strangers, who came to seek the means of vengeance for such an outrage. Or perhaps they pitied the poor monks who had no arms to defend themselves, and entreated their husbands to assist them. Such fancies would naturally float over their benighted minds, for at what other conclusions could they arrive from what they now saw? Doubtless the ship, when first seen out at sea, would awaken other thoughts, and many an armed figure paced the shore impatiently, and awaited the arrival of the vessel, drawing circles upon the sand with their pointed weapons, to while away the time, as they stood ready to offer up fresh victims on the altar of Odin.
Ethelbert received the tidings of their coming rather coldly, but still not unkindly; he bade them to remain where they were, supplied them with such things as their immediate wants required, and promised, in the meantime, to consider what he would do for them. The bright eyes of Bertha had had their influence; her sweet voice had made an inroad into the stony heart of Ethelbert; but for her beautiful face, he would probably have consigned the whole race of trembling monks to Neiflheim and Hela the terrible, or offered them up as a rich sacrifice to Odin. But even Bertha, great as her power appears to have been over him, could only influence him in their favour by slow degrees; he deliberated for several days before he consented to meet them, and when he did at last agree to a conference, he chose the open air,—still true to his ancient faith, for there he had been taught to believe that all magical influence was powerless. How looked he when he first beheld them?—Perhaps he clung to the fair Christian that stood by his side, and as she pressed his arm, and he felt that she also was of the same faith, the colour mounted his cheek for a moment, and, as it would appear, his heart half reproached him for having treated them so coldly, for he at once kindly commanded the missionaries to sit down. Doubtless the spot chosen for this interview was a circle surrounded with seats of turf, such as the Saxons assembled in, in the early ages, when their witena-gemots were held in the open air. Surrounded with his nobles, the king listened attentively until Augustin had made known the object of his mission. Ethelbert, who was endowed with clear judgment, waited patiently till the abbot had finished, and then answered: "Your promises are fair, but new and uncertain. I cannot abandon the rites which my people have hitherto observed; but as you have come a long way to tell us what you believe to be true, we will not only hold you harmless, but treat you hospitably. Nor will we forbid any one you can convince to join in your faith." Such was the substance of Ethelbert's answer; a more candid or a kinder one never issued from a pagan's lips; but those lips had been breathed on by the prayers of Bertha, and her own rounded roses had kissed their way into his heart; he had found the honey that hung upon them, far sweeter than the richest sacrifice that ever steamed up from the altars of Woden. Ethelbert gave them a church in Canterbury, which was built in the time of the Romans. The British Christians had there bowed to their Maker; it had been Bertha's place of worship, and was probably the only one in the wide county of Kent where prayers to the true God were offered up,—where she herself had many a time, amid hopes and fears, prayed for the day to come which had at last arrived. She, a stranger in a foreign land, far away from the home of her fathers, surrounded by pagan altars and the hideous images of rude idols, had never once despaired, as she leant, like Hope, upon her anchor, with no one near to comfort her, but even while the hymns of Odin rang upon her ear, in the midst of her devotions, had kept her eye fixed upon the star which was mirrored in the troubled waters that washed around the cold anchor, and chilled her naked feet.
In this ancient British church, Augustin and his monks administered the rites and ceremonies of the Christian religion unmolested,—numerous converts were soon made, and baptised, and chief amongst these was king Ethelbert. As a proof of his earnestness and sincerity, the newly converted Saxon sovereign granted the monks permission to repair all the British churches in his kingdom, which had before-time been devoted to Christian worship. The pope also conferred on Augustin the title of archbishop, and sent him over a pall, woven from the purest and whitest lamb's-wool, and chequered with purple crosses, that, when worn over his shoulders, it might remind him of Christ the good Shepherd, and of the crosses and perils he endured in bringing home the lost sheep on his shoulders, and gathering them together in the fold. But vestments for the altar, sacerdotal garments, sacred vessels, and relics of martyrs, were not all that Gregory sent over to Britain; for manuscript Bibles, copies of the Gospels, psalters, and legends of the saints and martyrs, were among the more substantial treasures which the learned pope poured into our island, and some of which our own immortal Alfred translated with his own hand in a later day. The bindings of many of these manuscripts were emblazoned with silver images of our Saviour, and glittering glories of yellow gold, from the centre of which blazed precious stones, so that when uplifted by the priest, who stood high above their heads as he expounded the holy mysteries, their eyes were dazzled by the splendour of those richly bound volumes, and their senses impressed with a solemn reverence, as they looked upon the image of their Redeemer. He also sent over other fellow-labourers, and amongst these were men distinguished for their piety and learning. Gregory was a man endowed with great discernment, possessing also those peculiar qualities which have ever marked the profoundest statesmen; in these essentials he stood high above his archbishop Augustin. The far-seeing pope knew that he had to deal with a race of idolaters, many of whom would change their creed to please their sovereign, or from other interested motives; and, conscious of the purity of his own design and the holiness of his cause, he resolved that there should be nothing startling or forbidding, or much at variance with their ancient customs, in the outward signs and ceremonies of the Christian religion. With a liberality of opinion far outstriding that of the age, he rightly concluded, that whatever was not really evil in itself, it was useless to abolish. Let them retain their sacrifices, argued Gregory; when the idols are removed, and the remembrance of them destroyed, let them slaughter their cattle, sacrifice, and feast upon the offering, and thank God for his great abundance. What mattered it if on saint-days they erected arbours of green branches around the church, feasted, and made merry within them, so long as it was done in remembrance of the saint to whom the building was dedicated? Surely this was better than holding such celebration in honour of senseless idols. Even their pagan temples he would not allow to be hurled down, conscious that if such places had been held sacred while set apart for the worship of graven images of wood or stone, they would be doubly revered when the light of the true gospel broke in glory within those ancient walls.
Pope Gregory had, doubtless, become acquainted with the principal points of their heathen faith, and had concluded that if only rapine and slaughter, and brave but brutal deeds, had been extolled within those walls, and were the sure passports that opened the envied halls of Valhalla, he might safely venture to wrestle with this pagan idol, and overthrow him upon his own ground: that the doctrines which breathed only of peace and goodwill, and love and charity, and holy faith in a dying Redeemer, would still be the same if offered up from the very altars on which Odin himself had stood. It was the substance and the spirit which dawned upon the great intellectual eye of Pope Gregory, and made him tread boldly amongst the broken idols which lay scattered at his feet, where others would have hesitated to have moved. He daringly grafted the true faith upon a heathen stock, well knowing that neither the stem nor the soil would militate against the growth of the goodly fruit with which the branches would on a future day be hung. Gregory would never have entered into that fatal controversy beneath the oak, as Augustin had done, about the celebration of Easter Sunday, and which, if it did not lead to the slaughter of the monks of Bangor, as some have believed, lessened the archbishop in the eyes of the English priests, and caused much dissension and bitter feeling amongst the Saxons. But Ethelbert, Bertha, and Augustin died; and Eadbald became king of Kent.
Eadbald took possession of his father's throne and widow at the same time; for, after the death of Bertha, Ethelbert had married another princess of the same nation as his former wife. The priests raised their voices, and denounced the marriage of Eadbald with his step-mother; he heeded them not, but turned pagan again, and a great portion of his subjects changed their religion with him. Sigebert, the king of Essex, his father's friend, who had become a Christian, also died about this time, and his sons again embraced their old heathen creed, though they still occasionally visited the Christian church. They were one day present while the bishop was administering the Eucharist: "Why dost thou not offer us that white bread which thou art giving to others," said they, "and which thou wert wont to give to our father's sib?" The bishop made answer, that if they would wash in the same font in which their father the king was baptized when he became a Christian, they might partake of the white bread. They replied, that they would not be washed in the fountain, yet they demanded the bread. The bishop refused to give it them, and the heathen chiefs drove the monks out of Essex. Some of them went into Kent, others left Britain for a time; and as the remnant were on the eve of departing, Eadbald, by a strange interposition, again renounced his pagan faith, and intreated the priests to remain behind, promising also to assist them, as his father Ethelbert had before done, in the work of conversion. Whether it was a dream, or the reproaches of his own conscience, or the penance which Laurence had inflicted upon himself, before he again appeared in the presence of Eadbald, or the working of His mighty hand "who moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform," can never be known. Suffice it that the Saxon king saw the "error of his ways" and repented.