ain it is, that the siege of Badon was raised by
the Britons in the year 520; and the Saxons were there discomfited in
a great battle [y]. This misfortune stopped the progress of Cerdic;
but was not sufficient to wrest from him the conquests which he had
already made. He and his son Kenric, who succeeded him, established
the kingdom of the West Saxons, or of Wessex, over the counties of
Hants, Dorset, Wilts, Berks, and the Isle of Wight, and left their
new-acquired dominions to their posterity. Cerdic died in 534, Kenric
in 560.
[FN [t] Will. Malm. lib. 1. cap. 1. p.12. Chron. Sax. p. 15. [u]
Chron. Sax. p. 17. [w] H. Hunting. lib. 2. Ethelwerd, lib. 1. Chron.
Sax. p. 17. [x] Hunting. lib. 2. [y] Gildas, Saxon Chron. H.
Hunting. lib. 2]

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 [z] 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.
[FN [z] Math. West. Huntington, lib. 2.]

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 [a], Ida,
a Saxon prince of great valour [b], who claimed a descent, as did the
other princes of that nation, from Woden, brought over a reinforcement
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, Ael