posterity. Cerdic died in 534, Kenric in 560.

While the Saxons made this progress in the south, their countrymen were
not less active in other quarters. In the year 527, a great tribe of
adventurers, under several leaders, landed on the east coast of Britain;
and after fighting many battles, of which history has preserved no
particular account, they established three new kingdoms in this island.
Uffa assumed the title of king of the East Angles in 575; Crida, that of
Mercia in 585;[***] and Erkenwin, that of East Saxony, or Essex, nearly
about the same time; but the year is uncertain. This latter kingdom was
dismembered from that of Kent, and comprehended Essex, Middlesex,
and part of Hertfordshire; that of the East Angles, the counties of
Cambridge, Suffolk, and Norfolk: Mercia was extended over all the middle
counties from the banks of the Severn to the frontiers of these two
kingdoms.

[* H. Hunting, lib. ii.]

[** Gildas, Chron. Sax. H. Hunting, lib. ii.]

[*** M. West. H. Hunting, lib. ii.]

The Saxons, soon after the landing of Hengist, had been planted in
Northumberland; but as they met with an obstinate resistance, and made
but small progress in subduing the inhabitants, their affairs were in
so unsettled a condition, that none of their princes for a long time
assumed the appellation of king. At last, in 547,[*] Ida, a Saxon prince
of great valor,[**] who claimed a descent, as did all the other princes
of that nation, from Woden, brought over a reenforcement from Germany,
and enabled the Northumbrians to carry on their conquests over the
Britons. He entirely subdued the county now called Northumberland,
the bishopric of Durham, as well as some of the south-east counties of
Scotland; and he assumed the crown under the title of king of Bernicia.
Nearly about the same time, AElla, another Saxon prince, having conquered
Lancashire and the greater part of Yorkshire, received the appellation
of king of Deiri.[***] These two kingdoms were united in the person of
Ethelfrid, grandson of Ida, who married Acca, the daughter of AElla; and
expelling her brother Edwin, established one of the most powerful of the
Saxon kingdoms, by the title of Northumberland. How far his dominions
extended into the country now called Scotland is uncertain: but it
cannot be doubted, that all the lowlands, especially the east coast of
that country, were peopled in a great measure from Germany; though the
expeditions, mad