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The Saxon Invaders

The Saxon Invaders

The story of the Roman occupation is interesting historically, but it is not important. It is a thing by itself: it bore no fruit in the future. In France and Spain, for example, the effects of the Roman occupation lasted on and have made deep marks on their history. The very language of these countries is descended from the tongue of their conquerors. But in Britain what the Romans did perished after they left. Our language and our institutions are Saxon. It is therefore with the coming of the Saxons that the continuous history of our country begins. Since that time there have been many changes but no violent break.

The Britons did not remain long unmolested. Raids of Picts from the north and Scots from Ireland grew more and more frequent, and a new terror was added by the appearance of Jute and Saxon sea rovers from the shores of Germany and Frisia. An appeal for help was made to Aetius, the Roman commander in Gaul: it bears the pathetic title of "The Groans of the Britons"; they prayed Aetius to deliver them, "for", said they, "the barbarians drive us to the sea and the sea drives us back to the barbarians ". No help, of course, came from Aetius, who had his hands full with the Huns, and the British ruler, Vortigern, in despair hired a band of Jutes to war against the Picts.

This was a copy of Roman policy, but it was an unsuccessful copy. Rome, until later days, could keep her mercenaries in order; Vortigern could not. The Jutes turned against him, and under their leaders, who, as legend says, bore the names of Hengist and Horsa, seized on the island of Thanet, from which the Britons could not expel them. The Saxon conquest had begun. More than a hundred and fifty years were to pass before it was complete.

Starting from Thanet the Jutish conquest spread along the coast of Kent. Fresh hordes came over to aid their comrades; Vortigern and the Britons were driven back; the fortified towns along the shore were starved into surrender. Twenty years saw Kent completely conquered.

A few years later a band of Saxons overran Sussex, giving the land their name; while another force, starting from Southampton, fought their way inland and occupied what is now Hampshire, but was called after them Wessex. A fourth band appeared off the mouth of the Thames and seized Essex. Another tribe - the Angles - descended on what has been called from them East Anglia (It is perhaps scarcely necessary to point out that as Sussex is the land of the South Saxons, so Essex, Wessex, and Middlesex are the lands of the East, West, and Middle Saxons, while Norfolk and Suffolk are the north and south folk of the Angles), and spread farther north over the coast of Lincolnshire to the Humber mouth.

The Saxon Invaders

Chronology