three nations, the Frisians,
the Angles, and the Britons; and that some Angles had appeared at
Constantinople, in the train of the French ambassadors. From these
ambassadors Procopius might be informed of a singular, though not
improbable, adventure, which announces the spirit, rather than the
delicacy, of an English heroine. She had been betrothed to Radiger, king
of the Varni, a tribe of Germans who touched the ocean and the Rhine;
but the perfidious lover was tempted, by motives of policy, to prefer
his father's widow, the sister of Theodebert, king of the Franks. [162]
The forsaken princess of the Angles, instead of bewailing, revenged her
disgrace. Her warlike subjects are said to have been ignorant of the
use, and even of the form, of a horse; but she boldly sailed from
Britain to the mouth of the Rhine, with a fleet of four hundred ships,
and an army of one hundred thousand men. After the loss of a battle,
the captive Radiger implored the mercy of his victorious bride, who
generously pardoned his offence, dismissed her rival, and compelled the
king of the Varni to discharge with honor and fidelity the duties of
a husband. [163] This gallant exploit appears to be the last naval
enterprise of the Anglo-Saxons. The arts of navigation, by which they
acquired the empire of Britain and of the sea, were soon neglected
by the indolent Barbarians, who supinely renounced all the commercial
advantages of their insular situation. Seven independent kingdoms
were agitated by perpetual discord; and the British world was seldom
connected, either in peace or war, with the nations of the Continent.
[164]

[Footnote 161: See Procopius de Bell. Gothic. l. iv. c. 20, p. 620-625.
The Greek historian is himself so confounded by the wonders which he
relates, that he weakly attempts to distinguish the islands of
Britia and Britain, which he has identified by so many inseparable
circumstances.]

[Footnote 162: Theodebert, grandson of Clovis, and king of Austrasia,
was the most powerful and warlike prince of the age; and this remarkable
adventure may be placed between the years 534 and 547, the extreme
terms of his reign. His sister Theudechildis retired to Sens, where
she founded monasteries, and distributed alms, (see the notes of the
Benedictine editors, in tom. ii. p. 216.) If we may credit the praises
of Fortunatus, (l. vi. carm. 5, in tom. ii. p. 507,) Radiger was
deprived of a most valuable wife.]

[Footnote 163: Perhaps she was