te
amongst themselves if they were to overpower the united resistance of
the Kymry.

CHAPTER III.

THE STRIFE OF THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS.

LEADING DATES

Augustine's mission 597
AEthelfrith's victory at Chester 613
Penda defeats Eadwine at Heathfield 633
Penda's defeat at Winwaed 655
Theodore Archbishop of Canterbury 668
Offa defeats the West Saxons at Bensington 779
Ecgberht returns to England 800
Death of Ecgberht 839

1. =England and the Continent.=--Whatever may be the exact truth about
the numbers of Britons saved alive by the English conquerors, there
can be no doubt that English speech and English customs prevailed
wherever the English settled. In Gaul, where the German Franks made
themselves masters of the country, a different state of things
prevailed. Roman officials continued to govern the country under
Frankish kings, Roman bishops converted the conquerors to
Christianity, and Roman cities maintained, as far as they could, the
old standard of civilisation. All commercial intercourse between Gaul,
still comparatively rich and prosperous, and Britain was for some time
cut off by the irruption of the English, who were at first too rude
and too much engaged in fighting to need the products of a more
advanced race. Gradually, however, as the English settled down into
peaceful industry along the south-eastern shores of the island, trade
again sprang up, as it had sprung up in the wild times preceding the
landing of Caesar. The Gaulish merchants who crossed the straits found
themselves in Kent, and during the years in which the West Saxon
Ceawlin was struggling with the Britons the communications between
Kent and the Continent had become so friendly that in =584=, or a
little later, AEthelberht, king of Kent, took to wife Bertha, the
daughter of a Frankish king, Charibert. Bertha was a Christian, and
brought with her a Christian bishop. She begged of her husband a
forsaken Roman church for her own use. This church, now known as St.
Martin's, stood outside the walls of the deserted city of Durovernum,
the buildings of which were in ruins, except where a group of rude
dwellings rose in a corner of the old for