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For Roman Britain see, in general, Prof. F. Haverfield, The Romanization of Roman Britain (Oxford, 1906), and his articles in the Victoria County History; also the chapter in Mommsen's Roman Provinces; and an article in the Edinburgh Review, 1899. For the wall of Hadrian see John Hodgson, History of Northumberland (1840); J.C. Bruce, Roman Wall (3rd ed., 1867); reports of excavations by Haverfield in the Cumberland Archaeological Society Transactions (1894-1904); and R.C. Bosanquet, Roman Camp at Housesteads (Newcastle, 1904). For the Scottish Excavations see Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, xx.-xl., and especially J. Macdonald, Bar Hill (reprint, Glasgow, 1906). For other forts see R.S. Ferguson, Cumberland Arch. Soc. Trans. xii., on Hardknott; and J. Ward, Roman Fort of Gellygaer (London, 1903). For the Roman occupation of Scotland see Haverfield in Antonine Wall Report (1899); J. Macdonald, Roman Stones in Hunterian Mus. (1897); and, though an older work, Stuart's Caledonia Romana (1852). For Silchester, Archaeologia (1890-1908); for Caerwent (ib. 1901-1908); for London, Charles Roach Smith, Roman London (1859); for Christianity in Roman Britain, Engl. Hist. Rev. (1896); for the villages, Gen. Pitt-Rivers' Excavations in Cranborne Chase, &c. (4 vols., 1887-1908), and Proc. Soc. of Ant. xviii. For the end of Roman Britain see Engl. Hist. Rev. (1904); Prof. Bury's Life of St Patrick (1905); Haverfield's Romanization (cited above); and P. Vinogradoff, Growth of the Manor (1905), bk. i.
(F. J. H.)
1. History.?The history of Britain after the withdrawal of the Roman troops is extremely obscure, but there can be little doubt that for many years the inhabitants of the provinces were exposed to devastating raids by the Picts and Scots. According to Gildas it was for protection against these incursions that the Britons decided to call in the Saxons. Their allies soon obtained a decisive victory; but subsequently they turned their arms against the Britons themselves, alleging that they had not received sufficient payment for their services. A somewhat different account, probably of English origin, may be traced in the Historia Brittonum, according to which the first leaders of the Saxons, Hengest and Horsa, came as exiles, seeking the protection of the British king, Vortigern. Having embraced his service they quickly succeeded in expelling the northern invaders. Eventually, however, they overcame the Britons through treachery, by inducing the king to allow them to send for large bodies of their own countrymen. It was to these adventurers, according to tradition, that the kingdom of Kent owed its origin. The story is in itself by no means improbable, while the dates assigned to the first invasion by various Welsh, Gaulish and English authorities, with one exception all fall within about a quarter of a century, viz. between the year 428 and the joint reign of Martian and Valentinian III. (450-455).
For the subsequent course of the invasion our information is of the most meagre and unsatisfactory character. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the kingdom of Sussex was founded by a certain Ella or Ælle, who landed in 477, while Wessex owed its origin to Cerdic, who arrived some eighteen years later. No value, however, can be attached to these dates; indeed, in the latter case the story itself is open to suspicion on several grounds (see Wessex). For the movements which led to the foundation of the more northern kingdoms we have no evidence worth consideration, nor do we know even approximately when they took place. But the view that the invasion was effected throughout by small bodies of adventurers acting independently of one another, and that each of the various kingdoms owes its origin to a separate enterprise, has little probability in its favour. Bede states that the invaders belonged to three different nations, Kent and southern Hampshire being occupied by Jutes (q.v.), while Essex, Sussex and Wessex were founded by the Saxons, and the remaining kingdoms by the Angli (q.v.). The peculiarities of social organization in Kent certainly tend to show that this kingdom had a different origin from the rest; but the evidence for the distinction between the Saxons and the Angli is of a much less satisfactory character (see Anglo-Saxons). The royal family of Essex may really have been of Saxon origin (see Essex), but on the other hand the West Saxon royal family claimed to be of the same stock as that of Bernicia,
