Commentaries on the History of England

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: l6 THE SETTLEMENT. CHAPTER III. THE SETTLEMENT: THE HEPTARCHY. The second, third, and fourth stages of the Settlement may 500-577. be summed up in another form. In the second stage of the Teutonic movement, as in the first, the invaders still shun contact with one another, and by mutual consent employ...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: l6 THE SETTLEMENT. CHAPTER III. THE SETTLEMENT: THE HEPTARCHY. The second, third, and fourth stages of the Settlement may 500-577. be summed up in another form. In the second stage of the Teutonic movement, as in the first, the invaders still shun contact with one another, and by mutual consent employ their ferocious energy in warfare with the different British tribes amongst whom they were settling down. By the year 577 (the end of this period), the Angles have thrown themselves bodily on the east coast of Britain, and extended their conquests to the middle of the island; the West Saxons have advanced northwards from Southampton Water, on which their South-hame-town is situated, and taken possession of the Lower Severn and Upper Thames. The three great tribes then find themselves inevitably involved in a fierce struggle for boundaries with one another. That 577-613. commences the third stage, during which is formed out of the general conflict the Heptarchy or Octarchy, into which 613-829. the tribes come to be divided. In the fourth stage, these merge, as we have said, in a sort of Triarchy, which brings England a step nearer to unity; and the ecclesiastical strife, resulting from the introduction of Christianity by two distinct channels, results in the triumph of the Roman system under Archbishop Theodore, which leads the way directly to the unification of the whole body of Teutonic settlers. We have no definite account of the Angle movement in the second period till, long afterwards, Bede breaks the silence with the oracular statement: In the year 547, Ida began to reign; from him the Royal family of Northumbria had its beginning. This statement postulates a previous invasion, conquest, and settlement. Bamborough Castle was the centre of this kingdom of Brynech ...