cks of barbarians nearer Rome, and announced to the Britons that
they must provide for their own defence. From this time Britain ceased
to form part of the Roman Empire.

CHAPTER II.

THE ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS.

LEADING DATES

Landing of the Jutes in Thanet A.D. 449?
The West Saxons defeated at Mount Badon 520
The West Saxons take Sorbiodunum 552
Battle of Deorham 577
The West Saxons defeated at Faddiley 584

1. =Britain after the Departure of the Romans.= =410--449=?--After the
departure of the Romans, the Picts from the north and the Scots from
Ireland continued their ravages, but though they caused terrible
misery by slaughtering or dragging into slavery the inhabitants of
many parts of the country, they did not succeed in making any
permanent conquests. The Britons were not without a government and an
armed force; and their later history shows that they were capable of
carrying on war for a long time against enemies more formidable than
the Picts and Scots. Their rulers were known by the British title
Gwledig, and probably held power in different parts of the island as
the successors of the Roman Duke of the Britains and of the Roman
Count of the Saxon Shore. Their power of resistance to the Picts and
the Scots was, however, weakened by the impossibility of turning their
undivided attention to these marauders, as at the same time that they
had, to defend the Roman Wall and the western coast against the Picts
and Scots, they were exposed on the eastern coast to the attacks of
the Saxon pirates.

2. =The Groans of the Britons.=--In their misery the thoughts of the
Britons turned to those Roman legions who had defended their fathers
so well. In =446= they appealed to Aetius, the commander of the Roman
armies, to deliver them from their destroyers. "The groans of the
Britons" was the title which they gave to their appeal to him. "The
barbarians," they wrote, "drive us to the sea; the sea drives us back
to the barbarians; between them we are exposed to two sorts of death:
we are either slain or drowned." Aetius had no men to spare, and he
sent no help to the Britons. Before long the whole of Western Europe
was overrun by barbarian tribes, the title of Emperor being retained
only by the Roman Emperor who ruled from Constantinople over the