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For when in former times Hengist had made a solemn truce with Vortigern, to meet in peace and settle terms, whereby himself and all his Saxons should depart from Britain, the Saxon soldiers carried every one of them beneath his garment a long dagger, and, at a given signal, fell upon the Britons, and slew them, to the number of nearly five hundred.
He assigns, as grounds for his religious belief, stories as absurd as that of the Cock-Lane ghost, and forgeries as rank as Ireland's Vortigern, puts faith in the lie about the Thundering Legion, is convinced that Tiberius moved the senate to admit Jesus among the gods, and pronounces the letter of Abgarus King of Edessa to be a record of great authority.
The king was amazed at these words, but commanded the pool to be forthwith drained; and surely at the bottom of it did they presently discover the two dragons, fast asleep, as Merlin had declared. But Vortigern sat upon the brink of the pool till night to see what else would happen.
The immediate payment of 300l. and a moiety of the profits for the first sixty nights, were the terms upon which Mr. Sheridan purchased the play of Vortigern from the Irelands.
Hengist, with very little opposition, subdued the province of Kent, and there laid the foundation of the first Saxon kingdom. Every battle the Britons fought only prepared them for a new defeat, by weakening their strength and displaying the inferiority of their courage. Vortigern, instead of a steady and regular resistance, opposed a mixture of timid war and unable negotiation.
The council would have ordained one of the two children to be king had it not been for Vortigern, who arose before them all. This Vortigern came from Wales, and was earl in his own land. He was a strong knight of his body, exceeding rich in goods and kin. Very courteous was he of speech; right prudent in counsel; and long since had made straight the road that he coveted to tread.
Materials were, therefore, from all parts, procured a second and third time, and again vanished as before, leaving and rendering every effort ineffectual. Vortigern inquired of his wise men the cause of this opposition to his undertaking, and of so much useless expense of labour?
It was in those early days, after the Romans in the south had left the island, and the Cymric king, Vortigern, was hard pressed by the Picts and Scots of the north. To his aid, he invited over from beyond the North Sea, or German Ocean, the tribes called the Long Knives, or Saxons, to help him. But once on the big island, these friends became enemies and would not go back.
And from Tre'r Caeri down into the rocky gloom of the seaward chasm, Nant Gwrtheyrn, with its mound upon the desolate shore, called by legend the burial-place of Vortigern. Here Mrs. Abbott spoke of the prehistoric monuments she had seen in Brittany, causing Alma to glance at her with a sudden surprise. The impulse was very significant.
The beautiful daughter of Hengist formed an alliance with Vortigern, the royal foreman of Great Britain, a plain man who was very popular in the alcoholic set and generally subject to violent lucid intervals which lasted until after breakfast; but the Saxons broke these up, it is said, and Rowena encouraged him in his efforts to become his own worst enemy, and after two or three patent-pails-full of wassail would get him to give her another county or two, until soon the Briton saw that the Saxon had a mortgage on the throne, and after it was too late, he said that immigration should have been restricted.
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