orth. Henry of
Huntingdon, a historian of the twelfth century, who had access, however,
to several valuable and original sources of information now lost, tells
us that many chieftains came from Germany, occupied Mercia and East
Anglia, and often fought with one another for the supremacy. In fact,
the petty kingdoms of the eighth century were themselves the result of a
consolidation of many forgotten principalities founded by the first
conquerors.

Thus the earliest England with which we are historically acquainted
consisted of a mere long strip or borderland of Teutonic coast, divided
into tiny chieftainships, and girding round half of the eastern and
southern shores of a still Celtic Britain. Its area was discontinuous,
and its inland boundaries towards the back country were vaguely defined.
As Massachusetts and Connecticut stood off from Virginia and Georgia--as
New South Wales and Victoria stand off from South Australia and
Queensland--so Northumbria stood off from East Anglia, and Kent from
Sussex. Each colony represented a little English nucleus along the coast
or up the mouths of the greater rivers, such as the Thames and Humber,
where the pirates could easily drive in their light craft. From such a
nucleus, perched at first on some steep promontory like Bamborough, some
separate island like Thanet, Wight, and Selsey, or some long spit of
land like Holderness and Hurst Castle, the barbarians could extend their
dominions on every side, till they reached some natural line of
demarcation in the direction of their nearest Teutonic neighbours, which
formed their necessary mark. Inland they spread as far as they could
conquer; but coastwise the rivers and fens were their limits against one
another. Thus this oldest insular England is marked off into at least
eight separate colonies by the Forth, the Tyne, the Humber, the Wash,
the Harwich Marshes, the Thames, the Weald Forest, and the Chichester
tidal swamp region. As to how the pirates settled down along this wide
stretch of coast, we know practically nothing; of their westward advance
we know a little, and as time proceeds, that knowledge becomes more and
more.

CHAPTER V.

THE ENGLISH IN THEIR NEW HOMES.

If any trust at all can be placed in the legends, a lull in the conquest
followed the first settlement, and for some fifty years the English--or
at least the West Saxons--were engaged in consolidating their own
dominions, without making any further atta