The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12)

overnment, confirmed by opinion and long use, more efficacious than the wisest schemes for the settlement of the nation. Mere personal merit was then the only pretence t

invaded them, they fell into that disregard of religion, and those loose, disorderly manners, which are sometime

to the prosperity of a new commonwealth. However, the mere settlement, in spite of the ill administration of government, procured the Britons some internal repose, and some temporary advantages over their enemies, the Picts. But having been long habituated to defeats, neither relying on their king nor on themselves, and fatigued with the obstinate attacks of an enemy whom they sometimes checked, but could never remove, in one of their national assemblies it was resolved to call in the mercenary aid of the Saxons, a powerful nation of Germany, which had been lon

er, certain, that the Saxon nation believed themselves the descendants of those conquerors: and they had as good a title to that descent as any other of the Northern tribes; for they used the same language which then was and is still spoken, with small variation of the dialects, in all the countries which extend from the polar circle to the Danube. This people most probably derived their name, as well as their origin, from, the Sac?, a nation of the Asiatic Scythia. At the time of which we write they had seated themselves in the Cimbric Chersonesus, or Jutland, in t

was well founded; for they had the principal share in a decisive victory which was obtained over the Picts soon after their arrival, a victo

of their strength, they found it their interest to be discontented; they complained of breaches of a contract, which they construed according to their own designs; and then fell rudely upon their unprepared and feeble allies, who, as they had not been able to resist the Picts and Scots, were still less in a condition to oppose that force by which they had been protected against those enemies, when turned unexpectedly upon themselves. Hengist, with very little opposition, subdued the province of Kent, and there laid the foundation of the first Saxon k

e same time broke in upon as many different parts of the island. They came no longer as pirates, but as invaders. Whilst the Britons contended with one body of their fierce enemies, another gained ground, and filled with slaughter and desolation the whole country from sea to sea. A devouring war, a dreadful famine, a plague, the most wasteful of any recorded in our history, united to consummate the ruin of Britain. The ecclesiastical writers of that age, confounded at the view of those complicated calamities, saw nothing but the arm of God stretched out for the punishment of a sinful and disobedient nation. And truly, when we set before us in one point of view

ish race was in a manner destroyed. What is extraordinary, we find England in a very tolerable state of population in less than two centuries after the first invasion of the Saxons; and it is hard to imagine either the transplantation or the increase of that single peo

age subsisted after the conquest, and at length incorporated with that of the conquerors; whereas in England the Saxon language received little or no tincture from the Welsh; and it seems, even among the lowest people, to have continued a dialect of pure Teutonic to the time in which it was itself blended with the Norman. Secondly, that on the

were not, merely as Britons, reduced to servitude. For they are mentioned as existing in some of the earlier Saxon laws. In these laws they are allowed a compensation on the footing of the meaner kind of English; and they are even permitted, as well as the English, to emerge out of that low rank into a more liberal condition. This is degradatio

nt images of the wildest and most remote antiquity. No personage makes so conspicuous a figure in these stories as King Arthur: a prince whether of British or Roman origin, whether born on this island or in Amorica, is uncertain; but it appears that he opposed the Saxons with remarkable virtue and no small degree of success, which has rendered him and his exploits so

common zeal; and he at length found a circumstance highly favorable to it in the marriage of a daughter of Charibert, a king of the Franks, to the reigning monarc

in a foreign garb, practising several strange and unusual ceremonies, who desired to be conducted to the king's presence, declaring that they had things to communicate to him and to his people of the utmost importanc

f the same origin, and used at that time the same language. He was favorably received; and a place in the city of Canterbury, the capital of Kent, was allotted for the residence of him and his companions. They

so respected a prince, who held under his dominion or influence all the countries to the southward of the Humber, spread itself with great rapidity. Paganism, after a faint resistance, everywhere gave way. And, indeed, the chief difficulties which Christianity had to encounter did not arise so

mitted so readily a new system, which at one stroke cut off from their character its whole importance. We even find some chiefs of the Pagan priesthood amongst the foremost in submitting to the new doctrine. On the first preaching o

strongest hold upon their minds, and resisted the progress of the Christian religion with the greatest obstinacy: for we find these superstitions forbidden amongst the latest Saxon laws. A worship which stands in need of the memorial of images or books to support it may perish when these are destroyed; but when a superstition is established upon those great objects of Nature which continually solicit the senses, it is extremely difficult to turn the mind from things that in themselves are striking, and that are always present. Amongst the objects of this class must be reckoned the goddess Eostre, who, from the etymology of the name,

emarkable that a law of King Ina orders the care and education of foundlings to be regulated by their beauty.[33] They cherished their hair to a great length, and were extremely proud and jealous of this natural ornament. Some of their great men were distinguished by an appellative taken from the length of their hair.[34] To pull the hair was punishable;[35] and fo

mberland, sent to the queen of that country some stuffs with ornaments of gold, an ivory comb inlaid with the same metal, and a silver mirror. A queen's want of such fem

rk plastered with clay and thatched with rushes, where they sat with their families, their officers and domestics, round a fire made in the middle of the house. In this manner their greatest princes lived amidst

ve been since rejected with as undistinguishing a disregard. But as it is not in my design nor inclination, nor indeed in my power, either to establish or refute these stories, it is sufficient to observe, that the reality or opinion of such miracles was the principal cause of the early acceptance and rapid progress of Christianity in this island. Other causes undoubtedly concurred; and it will be more

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gurio," says Henry o

ist. Eccl. L

vel alicujus generis arborum ligna.-L. Cnut. 5.-Superstitiosus ille conventus

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31. L. Cnut. a

um largitor.-Chron. Sax. 123 B