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There is now no practical distinction between the Englishman whose forefathers landed with William, or even between the Englishman whose forefathers sought shelter from Alva or from Louis the Fourteenth, and the Englishman whose forefathers landed with Hengest.
Hengest went into the inn, where Rowenne dwelt; he caused her to be clad with excessive pride; all the clothes that she had on, they were most excellent, they were good with the best, embroidered with gold. She bare in her hand a golden bowl, filled with wine, that was one wondrous good. High-born men led her into the hall before the king, fairest of all things!
And Hengest gan to flee with all his followers, and Vortiger the king fled forth as the wind; they flew forth into Kent, and Vortimer went after them; there upon the seashore Hengest suffered pain; there they gan to halt, and fought very long; five thousand there were slain, and deprived of lifeday, of Vortiger's men, of the heathen race.
When Hengest and his son saw all the host come after them, then said Hengest, of all knights wrathest, "Will I no more flee, but now I will fight, and my son Octa, and his wed-brother Ebissa! And all my army, stir ye your weapons, and march we against them, and make we strong slaughter! And if we fell them not, then be we dead, laid on the field, and deprived of friends!"
For Hengest is hither come, he is my father, and I his son; and I have for mistress his daughter Rouwenne, and I have wedded her, and had in my bed, and afterwards I sent after Octa, and after more of his companions; how might I for shame shun them so soon, and drive from land my dear friends?"
In the five hundred years that followed the landing of Hengest Britain had become England, and its conquest had ended in the settlement of its conquerors, in their conversion to Christianity, in the birth of a national literature, of an imperfect civilization, of a rough political order.
Then was the baron Aldolf much the bolder, and heaved high his sword, and let it down swing, and smote Hengest on the hand, so that he let go his good brand; and in haste grasped him, with his grim looks, by the cuirasses hood that was on his head, and with great strength struck him down; and then he him up drew, as if he would crush him, and with arms embraced him, and forth him led.
The Saxons leapt towards him, and would kill the king, but Hengest called forth-right, "Stop, my knights, ye shall him not destroy; for us he hath had much care, and he hath for queen my daughter who is fair. But all his burghs he shall deliver to us, if he will enjoy his life, or else is sorrow given to him."
The villas that must have covered the gentle slopes towards the Wantsum fell into decay; the fortresses were destroyed; the roads ran wild; and the sea and river began slowly to slit up the central part of the great navigable backwater. A hundred and fifty years after Hengest and Horsa, if those excellent gentlemen ever really existed, another famous landing took place in Thanet.
It is no need for thee to bring with thee much folk, least our Britons eft be angry, so that sorrow eft come between you." Hengest assembled a host of many kind of land, so that he had to wit seven hundred ships, and each ship he filled with three hundred knights; in the Thames at London Hengest came to land.
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