With the victory of Deorham the conquest of the bulk of Britain was
complete. Eastward of a line which may be roughly drawn along the
moorlands of Northumberland and Yorkshire through Derbyshire and the
Forest of Arden to the Lower Severn, and thence by Mendip to the sea,
the island had passed into English hands. Britain had in the main become
England. And within this new England a Teutonic society was settled on
the wreck of Rome. So far as the conquest had yet gone it had been
complete. Not a Briton remained as subject or slave on English ground.
Sullenly, inch by inch, the beaten men drew back from the land which
their conquerors had won; and eastward of the border line which the
English sword had drawn all was now purely English.

CHARLES KNIGHT

"They" [the Romans], says Bede, "resided within the rampart that Severus
made across the island, on the south side of it; as the cities, temples,
bridges, and paved ways do testify to this day." On the north of the
wall were the nations that no severity had reduced to subjection, and no
resistance could restrain from plunder. At the extreme west of England
were the people of Cornwall, or little Wales, as it was called; having
the most intimate relations with the people of Britannia Secunda, or
Wales; and both connected with the colony of Armorica. The inhabitants
of Cornwall and Wales, we may assume, were almost exclusively of the old
British stock. The abandonment of the country by the Romans had affected
them far less than that change affected the more cultivated country,
that had been the earliest subdued, and for nearly four centuries had
received the Roman institutions and adopted the Roman customs.

But in the chief portion of the island, from the southern and eastern
coasts to the Tyne and the Solway, there was a mixed population, among
whom it would be difficult to trace that common bond which would
constitute nationality. The British families of the interior had become
mingled with the settlers of Rome and its tributaries to whom grants of
land had been assigned as the rewards of military service; and the
coasts from the Humber to the Exe had been here and there peopled with
northern settlers, who had gradually planted themselves among the
Romanized British; and were, we may well believe, among the most active
of those who carried forward the commercial intercourse of Britain with
Gaul and Italy.

When, therefore, we approach the period of what is termed the S