This active general, continually reenforced
oy fresh numbers from Germany, carried devastation into the most remote
corners of Britain; and being chiefly anxious to spread the terror of
his arms, he spared neither age, nor sex, nor condition, wherever he
marched with his victorious forces. The private and public edifices of
the Britons were reduced to ashes; the priests were slaughtered on the
altars by those idolatrous ravagers; the bishops and nobility shared
the fate of the vulgar; the people, flying to the mountains and deserts,
were intercepted and butchered in heaps: some were glad to accept of
life and servitude under their victors: others, deserting their
native country, took shelter in the province of Armorica; where, being
charitably received by a people of the same language and manners, they
settled in great numbers, and gave the country the name of Brittany.[*]
The British writers assign one cause which facilitated the entrance of
the Saxons into this island--the love with which Vortigern was at
first seized for Rovena, the daughter of Hengist, and which that artful
warrior made use of to blind the eyes of the imprudent monarch.
Pages:
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65