[* Gildas, Bede, lib. i. cap. 14.]
The Britons, entirely occupied in the enjoyment of the present interval
of peace, made no provision for resisting the enemy, who, invited by
their former timid behavior, soon threatened them with a new invasion.
We are not exactly informed what species of civil government the Romans,
on their departure, had left among the Britons, but it appears probable
that the great men in the different districts assumed a kind of regal,
though precarious authority, and lived in a great measure independent of
each other.[*]
[* Gildas, Usher, Ant. Brit. p. 248, 347.]
To this disunion of counsels were also added the disputes of theology;
and the disciples of Pelagius, who was himself a native of Britain,
having increased to a great multitude, gave alarm to the clergy, who
seem to have been more intent on suppressing them, than on opposing the
public enemy.[*]
[* Gildas, Bede, lib. i. cap. 17. Constant, in Vita Germ.]
Laboring under these domestic evils, and menaced with a foreign
invasion, the Britons attended only to the suggestions of their present
fears, and following the counsels of Vortigern, prince of Dumnonium,
who, though stained with every vice, possessed the chief authority among
them,[*] they sent into Germany a deputation to invite over the Saxons
for their protection and assistance.
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