ail before the
fierce and persistent attacks of a hardier race, bent on the possession
of a fairer land than their own.

We know but little of the details of the various conflicts until Britain
was finally won by these predatory tribes of barbarians. The stubborn
resistance of the Britons led to their final retreat or complete
extermination, and with their disappearance also perished what remained
of the Roman civilization. The resistance of the Britons was much more
obstinate than that of any of the other provinces of the Empire; but, as
the forces arrayed against them were comparatively small, the work of
conquest was slow. "It took thirty years to win Kent alone, and sixty
to complete the conquest of south Britain, and nearly two hundred to
subdue the whole island." But when the conquest was made it was
complete, and England was Saxon, in language, in institutions, and in
manners; while France retained much of the language, habits, and
institutions of the Romans, and even of the old Gaulish elements of
society. England became a German nation on the complete wreck of
everything Roman, whose peculiar characteristic was the freedom of those
who tilled the land or gathered around the military standard of their
chieftains. It was the gradual transfer of a whole German nation from
the Elbe and Rhine to the Thames and the Humber, with their original
village institutions, under the rule of their _eorls_, with the simple
addition of kings,--unknown in their original settlements, but brought
about by the necessities which military life and conquest produced.

After the conquest we find seven petty kings, who ruled in different
parts of the island. Jealousies, wars, and marriages soon reduced their
number to three, ruling over Wessex, Mercia, and Northumbria. All the
people of these kingdoms were Pagan, the chief deity of whom was Woden.
It was not till the middle of the seventh century that Christianity was
introduced into Wessex, although Kent and Northumbria received Christian
missionaries half-a-century earlier. The beautiful though well-known
tradition of the incidents which led to the introduction of the
Christian religion deserves a passing mention. About the middle of the
sixth century some Saxons taken in war, in one of the quarrels of rival
kings, and hence made slaves, were exposed for sale in Rome. Gregory the
Great, then simply deacon, passing by the market-place, observed their
fair faces, white bodies, blue eyes