who had partaken of his delegated dignity may be
reasonably inferred.

The difference of races would also promote the contests for command. If
East Anglia contained a preponderance of one race of settlers, and Kent
and Sussex of another, they might well quarrel for supremacy. But when
all the settlers on the Saxon shore had lost the control and protection
of the Count who once governed them, it may also be imagined that the
more exclusively British districts would not readily cooeperate for
defence with those who were more strange to their kindred even than the
Roman. All the European Continent was in a state of political
dislocation; and we may safely conclude that when the great power was
shattered that had so long held the government of the world, the more
distant and subordinate branch of its empire would resolve itself into
some of the separate elements of authority and of imperfect obedience by
which a clan is distinguished from a nation.

Nor was the power of the Christian Church in Britain of a more united
character than that of the civil rulers. No doubt a church had been
formed and organized. There were bishops, so called, in the several
cities; but their authority was little concentrated and their tenets
were discordant. Pilgrimages were even made to the sacred places of
Palestine; and at a very early period monasteries were founded. That of
Bangor, or the Great Circle, seems to have had some relation to the
ancient Druidical worship, upon which it was probably engrafted in that
region where Druidism had long flourished. There were British versions
of the Bible. But that the church had no sustaining power at the period
when civil society was so wholly disorganized, may be inferred from
circumstances which preceded the complete overthrow of Christian rites
by Saxon heathendom.

Bede devotes several chapters of his _Ecclesiastical History_ to the
actions of St. Germanus, who came expressly to Britain to put down the
Pelagian heresy; and, amid the multitude of miraculous circumstances,
records how "the authors of the perverse notions lay hid, and, like the
evil spirits, grieved for the loss of the people that was rescued from
them. At length, after mature deliberation, they had the boldness to
enter the lists, and appeared, being conspicuous for riches, glittering
in apparel, and supported by the flatteries of many." The people,
according to Bede, were the judges of this great controversy, and gave
their voi