CHAPTER III.

The English Conquest and Settlement.

1. For more than a century the SAXONS and other Teuton confederations had ravaged Roman Britain, and The English lately had been taken into service by the Roman- Conquest. ized kings and princes of the Britons. They had made small settlements upon the south and east coasts, but now that the Romans were gone, seeing the "nothingness of the Britons and the goodness of the land," they came in large bodies to settle, bringing their wives and children and cattle with them in their keels, and took up their abode here for ever, slaying the chiefs and warriors of the Welsh (as they called the Britons), or driving them before them into the west.

This conquest took two hundred years, and we can see that it came about bit by bit in two stages as it were.

In the first (400-520) the invaders won the greater part of the east and south coasts of Britain, and set up small kingdoms along them.

The JUTES in Kent, Wight, and the Hants coast.

The SAXONS in Sussex, Wessex, Essex, and Middlesex. The ENGLISH (from whom the whole land was called England) in East England, Middle England, Lindesey, and in Deira, and Bernicia (the Welsh names for the country round York and Bamborough, meaning the Water-land and the Brigantians'-land).

Then there came a check, caused probably by the bravery and skill of Arthur of Cumbria, Head-King of the Britons, who seems to have had a regular army after the Roman fashion. But the growing numbers of the English, who still flocked across the North Sea to the new settlements, and the death of Arthur, brought on the second stage of conquest (520-613), when there pushed forward—

From WESSEX the Wiltsetas, Dorsetas, Somersetas, Magesetas (round Hereford), and Hwiccas (round Worcester).

From the ANGLIAN or ENGLISH kingdoms the Marchmen (Borderers), who built up a great kingdom in the Midlands.

The steps of this stage are marked by the battles. In 550 the West Saxons won Salisbury, in 571 the victory at Bedford gave them the country up to Oxford; in 577, by the famous fight at Dyrham, they also won the three great cities of Gloster, Cirencester, and Bath, cut off the Welsh of Cornwall from the Welsh of Wales, reached the Western Sea, and began to win and settle the Severn valley; finally, by the great battle at Chester, 613, the Northumbrians also reached

the Irish Channel, and divided the Cumbrian Welsh (who held the west coast from Chester to Dumbarton) from their kinsfolk in Wales. The whole of the east slope and centre valleys of Britain were now in the hands of the English, and the three Welsh kingdoms were never able to unite again to withstand them.

The chief things which weakened the Welsh and enabled the English to overcome them were a terrible famine which took place in the fifth century, the lack of many of their best soldiers, who were away in Gaul with their leaders, and did not come back to stop the invasion of their own land; but still more the selfish wickedness and never-ceasing quarrels of the Welsh princes.

The struggle was throughout very cruel and deadly, for the Welsh and English were of different tongues and faiths, and would never mix with each other as had happened in other parts of the Roman empire (for instance, in Gaul, where the conquering Franks and the conquered Gauls became one people, using the Latin tongue). Hence, too, the English kept their own tongue and ways unchanged.

All the villages and many towns in East Britain were broken down, fired, and left waste, like Anderida (Pevensey), Uiriconium (Wroxeter), and Chester; but others, like London and Winchester, were spared and settled by the English chiefly for convenience of trade, for it was not till much later that the English became a nation of townsfolk.

2. The history of these two hundred years of conquest Legends of the must be pieced together out of different sources, Conquest. for when the English became Christians they grew ashamed of their heathen forefathers, and the Welsh stories have mostly perished. But, two famous legends, that of the Conquest of Kent and the Wars of Arthur, have come down to us. The first tells how Vortigern, Duke or King of Britain, sent (after the Roman fashion of fighting barbarians by barbarian aid) to two Jute wickings [sea-rovers], Hengist and Horsa, praying them to help him against the Picts and Scots. They came and defeated his foes and then made up their minds to win part of Britain for themselves, so they sent home for help, which soon came, and wintered in the Isle of Thanet. Then Vortigern, for love of Romwen, Hengist's daughter, betrayed his country and gave them the kingdom of Kent; but Vortimer and Catigern, his valiant sons, fought four battles against them, in one of which, at Epsford, Catigern and Horsa fell in hand-to-hand fight. But at Vortimer's death the Britons fled like fire, leaving Hengist lord of Kent, and he won still more land; for having entrapped

Vortigern and the British princes to a great feast, he slew them by treachery, forcing the king to ransom himself by giving up London and a great part of his kingdom. Merlin the wizard set up the huge blocks of Stonehenge, bringing them from Ireland to Salisbury Plain to stand as a memorial over the murdered nobles. The wicked Vortigern, spurning the warnings of S. Germanus, the Gallic missionary Bishop of Auxerre, who rebuked him for his sins, was at last destroyed in his palace by fire from heaven.

Better known and grander, but mixed up with other stories so that it is difficult to get any fact out of them, are the tales of the last mighty British king, "great-hearted Arthur," who beat the English in twelve pitched battles in the north, stemming the tide of invasion by his prowess and that of his good knights Kay and Bedivere and Gawain and Owain, but perishing in the end at the hands of a traitor kinsman: in life and death alike the very type of a Keltic hero.

3. The English were a nation of franklins or freeholders, living by their land and cattle, every man in his The English own homestead. A knot of neighbouring home- people. Their steads owned by men of the same kindred government. formed a village called by the family name (Wallingford= the ford of the Wallings, Buckingham=the home of the Bockings, Billing=the Billings'). House and yard and cattle were the property of the household, but the tilth meadow and pasture of the village were held in common by all, being divided afresh every year so that each household should have its fair share. This and all other village business was settled by the village moot or meeting of the heads of households (much as in New England now) and their chosen officers, the village-reeve, the pinder, the beadle, and the like.

A number of villages were grouped into a hundred, so called because at first it was made up of one hundred and twenty households, each sending one armed man to court, council, or war. In the hundred-moot, the criminal court of the district, which met at least four times a year, disputes between man and man were settled and measures taken against crime; musters of the district fyrd or war-levy were also held. A hundred-elder presided at it. The chief court of the whole tribe, above all these, was the folk-moot or tribeparliament, which met twice a year to settle great matters, such as war and peace, law-making, choosing or putting down kings, appeals, disputes between noblemen, quarrels between different villages and hundreds, and so on. king was the head of this meeting, the nobles and gentle

The

folks spoke, but every point was carried or thrown out by the votes of the freeholders present.

Law.

Afterwards, when several smaller kingdoms were brought together under the rule of head-kings, they used to hold a meeting of the greatest men of all their under kingdoms, called Witena-gemōt or Wise Men's meeting, which dealt with matters touching their whole dominions. The folk-moot was still the chief court for each separate little kingdom, and was held by an alderman or viceroy of the head-king, who sent a shire-greeve [sheriff] as his steward to sit with him and see that the royal property was properly looked after. 4. An old English moot dealing with criminal law was like a public meeting of to-day, with its chairman, the king or alderman, who kept order, "spoke' or declared the law, and saw the wish of the meeting carried out; its committee, the sworn witnesses or grand jury chosen from the body of the meeting to accuse evil-doers, hear evidence, and say on which side the burden of proof lay; its speakers and their seconders, the plaintiff and defendant with their witnesses and bailsmen. Proof was taken by ordeal of fire or water (in which the accused had to carry a piece of red-hot iron or dip his arm in boiling water, being held guiltless if after seven days he had not suffered), or by compurgation (where a man had to get a certain number of people differing according to their rank or his offence to swear to his innocence). The courts were held in the open air, generally on a hill where all could see and hear. Offences were punished by fine or in worse cases by outlawry (when the criminal was put outside the pale of the law and might be killed like a wolf). Only murder [secret killing], witchcraft, and treason were punished by death (hanging for men, drowning for women). Slaves and vagabonds were whipped or put in the stocks.

Ranks.

5. There were three classes among the old English; two free, gentle (eorl) and simple (ceorl), and one unfree, slave (theow), each with its were-gild [man-price] payable to the kindred or master of any one who killed a man. If a gentleman was a knight of the king's (thegen) or his henchman (gesith) his were-gild was higher. Most freemen lived on their own homesteads, but some would take service as henchmen with the king or aldermen or rich gentlemen, whose pride it was to have a body of retainers about them, to guard them in peace, follow them in war, and be standing proof of their riches and bounty; for they fed, clothed, and armed them, paying them by gifts