f by English history we mean the history of Englishmen in the land
which from that time they made their own, it is with this landing of
Hengist's war band that English history begins. They landed on the
shores of the Isle of Thanet at a spot known since as Ebbsfleet. No spot
can be so sacred to Englishmen as the spot which first felt the tread of
English feet. There is little to catch the eye in Ebbsfleet itself, a
mere lift of ground with a few gray cottages dotted over it, cut off
nowadays from the sea by a reclaimed meadow and a sea-wall.

But taken as a whole the scene has a wild beauty of its own. To the
right the white curve of Ramsgate cliffs looks down on the crescent of
Pegwell Bay; far away to the left across gray marsh levels where smoke
wreaths mark the site of Richborough and Sandwich the coast line trends
dimly toward Deal. Everything in the character of the spot confirms the
national tradition which fixed here the landing-place of our fathers;
for the physical changes of the country since the fifth century have
told little on its main features. At the time of Hengist's landing a
broad inlet of sea parted Thanet from the mainland of Britain; and
through this inlet the pirate boats would naturally come sailing with a
fair wind to what was then the gravel spit of Ebbsfleet.

The work for which the mercenaries had been hired was quickly done; and
the Picts are said to have been scattered to the winds in a battle
fought on the eastern coast of Britain. But danger from the Pict was
hardly over when danger came from the jutes themselves. Their
fellow-pirates must have flocked from the channel to their settlement in
Thanet; the inlet between Thanet and the mainland was crossed, and the
Englishmen won their first victory over the Britons in forcing their
passage of the Medway at the village of Aylesford.

A second defeat at the passage of the Cray drove the British forces in
terror upon London; but the ground was soon won back again, and it was
not till 465 that a series of petty conflicts which had gone on along
the shores of Thanet made way for a decisive struggle at Wippedsfleet.
Here however the overthrow was so terrible that from this moment all
hope of saving northern Kent seems to have been abandoned, and it was
only on its southern shore that the Britons held their ground. Ten years
later, in 475, the long contest was over, and with the fall of Lymne,
whose broken walls look from the slope to which they c