Series 1 > History of Greater Britain, as well England as Scotland

CHAP, m.]
OF GREATER BRITAIN
71
Engist then they gave heed, and there fell through Saxon
treachery upon that hill ten hundred and sixty noble men
among the Britons. Vortiger, the king, was taken, and that
he might escape with his life, he handed over to the Saxons his
strong places, cities, and all munition of war, and with the
Britons fled into Wales,—where to this day may be found the
true Britons and the British tongue.
This done, the pagan Engist destroys and tramples in the
dust clergy, churches, all that pertained to divine worship, and
commands, under the severest penalty, that thenceforth no man
shall call the country ‘ Britain ’, but only 4 Engist’s land \ On
seven of the chief men among the Saxons he bestowed seven
kingdoms. In Kent he himself continued to abide as over¬
king. The kingdom of Kent has one boundary in the eastern The kingdom
sea, and extends along the river Thames. The second king kingdoms hT6”
was Suuthsaxon; this is the kingdom of the southern Saxons. England.
It was bounded in the east by the kingdom of Kent, in the
south by the ocean1 and the Isle of Wight, in the west by
Hampshire, in the north by Surrey. The third kingdom was
formerly that of the eastern Saxons, bounded in the east by
the sea, in the west by London, in the south by the Thames,
in the north by Suffolk. The fourth kingdom was that of the
eastern English. Norfolk and Suffolk are contained therein,
and for its boundaries it has, on the east, the sea; on the north,
Cantibrigia or Cambridgeshire, in which the chief town is
Cambridge; on the west, the fosse of Saint Edmund and
Hertfordshire; and on the south, Essex. The fifth kingdom
was that of the western Saxons, which has on its eastern limit
the southern Saxons; to the north, the Thames; to the west
and south, the ocean. The sixth kingdom, that of the
Mercians, was the largest of all; the river Dee, near
Chester, and the Severn near Shrewsbury, and as far as
Bristol, formed its western boundary ; the eastern boundary
was the eastern sea; on the south it touched the Thames at
London; its northern limit was the river Humber. In some parts The river
to the west you have the river Mersey as far as the angle Verbal2; Humber’
1 mare Oceanum.
2 i.e. Wirral, the point of land between the Mersey and the Dee.