30
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book i..
rival of Augustine, except a late assertion of the
military preeminence of Ælli among the Saxon
chieftains. The events of Wessex are somewhat
better detailed ; we learn that in 495 two nobles,
Cerdic and Cyneric, came to England, and landed
at Cerdices ora, where on the same day they fought
a battle: that in 501 they Werefollowed by a noble
named Port, who with his two sons Bieda and
Mægla made a forcible landing at Portsmouth :
and that in 508 they gained a great battle over a,
British king, whom they slew together with five
thousand of his people. In 514 Stuff and Wihtgar,
their nephews, brought them a reinforcement of
three ships ; in 519 they again defeated the Britons,
and established the kingdom of Wessex. In 527 a
new victory is recorded: in 530, the Isle of Wight
was subdued and given to Wihtgar; and in 534,
Cerdic died, and was succeeded by Cyneric, who
reigned twenty-six years1. In 544 Wihtgar died.
A victory of Cyneric in 552 and 556, and Ceawlin’s
accession to the throne of Wessex are next recorded.
Wars of the AVestsaxon kings are noted in 568,
571, 577, 584. From 590 to 595 a king of that
race named Ceol is mentioned : in 591 we learn
the expulsion of Ceawlin from power : in 593 the
deaths of Ceawlin, Cwichelm and Crida are men-
tioned, and in 597, the year of Augustine’s arrival,
we learn that Ceolwulf ascended the throne of
AVessex.
Meagre as these details are, they far exceed what
1 Cerdic and Cyneric landed in 495, after forty years Cerdic dies,
and Cyneric reigns twenty-six more !
сн. I.]
SAXON AND λVELSII TRADITIONS.
31
is related of Northumberland, Essex or East-
∙tn"lia. In 547 we are told that Ida began to reign
in the first of these kingdoms ; and that he was suc-
ceeded in 560 by Ælli : that after a reign of thirty
years1, he died in 588 and was-succeeded by Æ8el-
ric, who again in 593 was succeeded by 2Eδelfr⅛.
This is all we learn of Northumbria ; of Mercia,
Essex, Eastanglia, and the innumerable kingdoms
that must have been comprised under these general
appellations, we hear not a single word.
If this be all that we can now recover of events,
a great number of which must have fallen within
the lives of those to whom Augustine preached,
what credit shall we give to the inconsistent ac-
counts of earlier actions 1 IIow shall we supply
the almost total want of information respecting the
first settlements 1 What explanation have we to
give of the alliance between Jutes, Angles and
Saxons which preceded the invasions of England ?
What knowledge will these records supply of the
real number and quality of the chieftains, the lan-
guage and blood of the populations who gradually
spread themselves from the Atlantic to the Frith
of Forth ; of the remains of Roman cultivation, or
the amount of British power with which they had
to contend 1 of the vicissitudes of good and evil for-
tune which visited the independent principalities,
before they were swallowed up in the kingdoms of
The chronology is inconsistent throughout, and it is inconceivable
that it should have been otherwise. Beda himself assigns different
ates to the arrival of the Saxons, though it is the æra from -which he
frequently reckons.