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 chap, xxxviii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 161 Winning their way by slow and painful efforts, the Saxons, the Angles, and their various confederates advanced from the North, from the East, and from the South, till their victorious banners were united in the centre of the island. Beyond the Severn the Britons still asserted their national freedom, which survived the heptarchy, and even the monarchy, of the Saxons. The bravest warriors, who preferred exile to slavery, found a secure refuge in the mountains of Wales ; the reluctant sub- mission of Cornwall was delayed for some ages ; 142 and a band of fugitives acquired a settlement in Gaul, by their own valour or the liberality of the Merovingian kings. 143 The Western angle of Armorica acquired the new appellations of Cornwall and the Lesser Britain ; and the vacant lands of the Osismii were filled by a strange people, who, under the authority of their counts and bishops, preserved the laws and language of their ancestors. To the feeble descendants of Clovis and Charlemagne, the Britons of Armorica refused the customary tribute, subdued the neighbouring dioceses of Vannes, Eennes, and Nantes, and formed a powerful, though vassal, state, which has been united to the crown of France. 144 In a century of perpetual, or at least implacable, war, much The fame courage, and some skill, must have been exerted for the defence ° Arthur of Britain. Yet, if the memory of its champions is almost buried in oblivion, we need not repine ; since every age, how- 142 Cornwall was finally subdued by Athelstan (a.d. 927-941), who planted an English colony at Exeter, and confined the Britons beyond the river Tamar. See William of Malmsbury, 1. ii. in the Scriptores post Bedam, p. 50. The spirit of the Cornish knights was degraded by servitude ; and it should seem, from the Bomance of Sir Tristram, that their cowardice was almost proverbial. 143 The establishment of the Britons in Gaul is proved in the sixth century by Procopius, Gregory of Tours, the second council of Tours (a.d. 567), and the least suspicious of their chronicles and lives of saints. The subscription of a bishop of the Britons to the first council of Tours (a.d. 461, or rather 481), the army of Riothamus, and the loose declamation of Gildas (alii transmarinas petebant regiones, c. 25, p. 8) may countenance an emigration as early as the middle of the fifth century. Beyond that asra, the Britons of Armorica can be found only in romance ; and I am surprised that Mr. Whitaker (Genuine History of the Britons, p. 214-221) should so faithfully transcribe the gross ignorance of Carte, whose venial errors he has so rigorously chastised. 144 The antiquities of Bretagne, which have been the subject even of political controversy, are illustrated by Hadrian Valesius (Notitia Galliarum, sub voce Britannia Cismarina, p. 98, 100), M. d'Anville (Notice de l'Ancienne Gaule, Corisopiti, Curiosolites, Osismii, Vorganium, p. 248, 258, 508, 720, and Etats de l'Europe, p. 76-80), Longuerue (Description de la France, torn. i. p. 84-94), and the Abb6 de Vertot (Hist. Critique de l'Etablissement des Bretons dans les Gaules, 2 vols, in 12mo. Paris, 1720). I may assume the merit of examining the original evidence which they have produced. VOL. IV.— 11