The dominion of the Romans in Britain had been complete. The country, as far as the Frith of Forth, had been brought under Roman civilization. But in England, as elsewhere, the continuance of that form of civilization had produced weakness; and the unconquered Britons of the North, known by the name of Picts, broke into the Romanized districts, and pushed their incursions far into the centre of the country. On all sides, the nations outside the Empire were breaking through its limits and threatening its existence. The danger which threatened the very heart of the Empire, from the advance of the Goths into Italy, compelled the Romans in 411 to withdraw their legions from Britain, and leave the inhabitants of the island to fight their own battles with the Picts. When these enemies formed an alliance with the pirates of Ireland, known by the name of the Scots, and with the German pirates of the North Sea, known as English or Saxons, the civilized Britons were unable to make head against them, and found it necessary to seek for aid among the invaders themselves They therefore made an arrangement with two Jutish chiefs or Ealdormen, Hengist and Horsa, to come to their assistance. The German rovers consisted of three nations--the Saxons, the inhabitants of Holstein, who had advanced along the coast of Friesland; to the north of them the Angles or English, who inhabited Sleswig; and still further to the north, the Jutes, whose name is still perpetuated in the promontory of Jutland.
[Sidenote: The Jutish settlement in Kent. 449.]
[Sidenote: The Saxons in Sussex. 477-495.]
[Sidenote: The Angles in East Anglia. 520.]
The first landing-place of the Jutish allies of the Britons was in the Isle of Thanet, separated at that time by a considerable inlet from the British mainland. Their aid enabled the Britons to drive back the Pictish invaders. But their success, and the settlement they had formed, enticed many of their brethren to join them, and their numbers were constantly increasing. Increase of numbers implied increased demand in the way of payment and provisions. Quarrels arose between the new-comers and their British allies. War was determined on. The inlet which divided Thanet from the mainland was passed, and at Aylesford, on the Medway, a battle was fought, which, though it cost Horsa his life, put the conquering Barbarians into possession of much of the east of Kent. The victory was followed by the extermination of the inhabitants; against the clergy especially the anger of the conquerors was directed. The country was thus cleared of the inhabitants, and the new-comers settled down, bringing with them their goods and families and national institutions. This process was repeated at every stage of the conquest of the country, which thus became not only a conquest but a re-settlement. The Jutish conquest of Kent was followed, in 477, by an invasion of the Saxons, who, under Ella, overran the south of Sussex, and captured the fortress of Anderida near Pevensey; and in 495, by a fresh Saxon invasion under Cerdic and Cymric, who passed up the Southampton water and established the kingdom of the West Saxons. A momentary check was given to the advance of the conquerors, in 520, at the battle of Mount Badon. But almost immediately fresh hordes of Angles began conquering and settling the East of England, where they established the East Anglian kingdom, with its two great divisions of Northfolk and Southfolk. Between that time and 577, the date of a victory at Deorham, in Gloucestershire, the West Saxons had overrun what are now Hampshire and Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, and the valley of the Severn, reaching almost as far as Chester; while the Angles, entering the Humber and working up the rivers, established themselves on the Trent, where they were known as Mercians or Border men, and formed two Northern kingdoms, that of Deira in Yorkshire, and that of Bernicia, extending as far as the Forth. The capital of this last-named kingdom was Bamborough, founded by Ida, and called after his wife Bebba, Bebbanburgh, or Bamborough.