It was Cealwin, the third king of Wessex, who acceded in 560, that obtained the greatest successes against the natives, and took from them more of their country than his predecessors had been able to subdue. His brother defeated the Britons at Bedford, and dispossessed them of four towns 20 ; and six years afterwards Cealwin himself obtained a great victory at Deorham, against three British kings, who fell in the battle; Conmail, Condidan, and Farinmail. The number of these kings shows that the former ruinous division of the British strength continued in the island, though its rulers had at times sufficient policy to combine their efforts. This appears to have been a conflict of some magnitude, as well from the union of the three kings, as from the important results of the victory; for three of the great cities of the Britons, Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath, submitted after it to the conqueror." Seven years afterwards, in 584, the Britons again tried the fortune of war with him at Fethanleagh: a son of Cealwin fell in the struggle, and the Saxons retreated in disorder; but their king succeeded in rallying them, and at last acquired a hard-earned and long-contested triumph. He obtained much booty and many towns; but as the Saxon chronicler remarks that he after CHAP. II. 556. 571. has preserved the particular circumstances of several of these Saxon battles. He seems to have had a military tact which led him to notice them. He had certainly other chronicles before him than those which have survived to us. 20 Lygeanburh, Ægeles-burh, Benningtun, and Egonesham. Chr. Sax. p. 22. These are supposed by Gibson to be Leighton, in Bedford shire; Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire; Bensington and Ensham, in Oxfordshire. 21 Chr. Sax. p. 22. F. Wig. 223. Ethelw. 835. Durham, in Gloucestershire, is believed to have been the site of this battle. VOL. I. T BOOK wards retired into his own district 22, the Britons were still powerful enough to prevent or discourage his advance. III.. 571. SUCH is the Saxon statement of the battles which attended the establishment and progress of the formidable kingdom of Wessex; by which we find that eighty-two years elapsed after the arrival of Cerdic, before it was extended to include Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath. Its first acquisition was Hampshire, by Cerdic. It was enlarged into Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, and Buckinghamshire, by his son; and by his grandson into Gloucestershire and part of Somersetshire. But after these successes, it was still flanked on the west by British kingdoms in Cornwall, Devonshire, and part of Somersetshire; and on the north-west by the British princes in Wales; and by British states or kingdoms on the north, from Gloucestershire to Scotland. On the south at the sea-coast it was supported by the Saxon kingdoms of Sussex and Kent. But if the nation of the Angles had not successively arrived after Cerdic's death, to over-run the east, the centre, and the country beyond the Humber, the Saxon occupation of Britain would have been a precarious tenure, or have remained, like Normandy in France, but a Saxon colonisation of our southern shores. It was the emigration of the Angles from Sleswick that ultimately wrested the island from the ancient Britons, and converted it into England. But before we narrate this great incident, which has so peculiarly affected our national fortunes and character, we will pause to consider the ancient British accounts of their conflicts with the West-Saxon invaders. 22 Gehwearf thonan to his agenum, Ch. Sax. p. 22. SAXON GENEALOGIES. As some of the Saxon poetry and MSS. allude to persons whose names do not appear in the chronicles which have come down to us, but which are mentioned among the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxon kings, it may be useful to insert some of their most authentic genealogies. These are also important for indicating Woden to have been a real personage, and for assisting us to annex a reasonable chronology to his historical existence. They furnish us also with five of Woden's ancestors. CHAP. II. |