the conquerors, the band of alliance was
in a great measure dissolved among the princes of the Heptarchy. Though
one prince seems still to have been allowed, or to have assumed, an
ascendant over the whole, his authority, if it ought ever to be deemed
regular or legal, was extremely limited; and each state acted as if it
had been independent, and wholly separate from the rest Wars, therefore,
and revolutions and dissensions, were unavoidable among a turbulent and
military people; and these events, however intricate or confused, ought
now to become the objects of our attention But, added to the difficulty
of carrying on at once the history of seven independent kingdoms, there
is great discouragement to a writer, arising from the uncertainty, at
least barrenness, of the accounts transmitted to us. The monks, who were
the only annalists during those ages, lived remote from public
affairs, considered the civil transactions as entirely subordinate the
ecclesiastical, and, besides partaking of the ignorance and barbarity
which were then universal, were strongly infected with credulity, with
the love of wonder, and with a propensity to imposture; vices almost
inseparable from their profession and manner of life. The history of
that period abounds in names, but is extremely barren of events; or the
events are related so much without circumstances and causes, that the
most profound or most eloquent writer must despair of rendering them
either instructive or entertaining to the reader. Even the great
learning and vigorous imagination of Milton sunk under the weight; and
this author scruples not to declare, that the skirmishes of kites
or crows as much merited a particular narrative, as the confused
transactions and battles of the Saxon Heptarchy.[*] In order, however,
to connect the events in some tolerable measure, we shall give a
succinct account of the successions of kings, and of the more remarkable
revolutions in each particular kingdom; beginning with that of Kent,
which was the first established.

[* Milton in Kennet, p. 50]

THE KINGDOM OF KENT

Escus succeeded his father, Hengist, in the kingdom of Kent; but seems
not to have possessed the military genius of that conqueror, who first
made way for the entrance of the Saxon arms into Britain. All the
Saxons, who sought either the fame of valor, or new establishments by
arms, flocked to the standard of AElla, king of Sussex, who was carrying
on successful war