Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/25

 short interval a mandate was issued to the Saxon leader ordering him to withdraw his army from the soil of Britain. Incensed and stimulated by such decisive action Hengist determined at once to carry out the object he had cherished from the first—the subjugation of the people and the seizure of the island. Having procured a further supply of men under his son Octa, he established them in the country of the Brigantes, and almost immediately invited the native nobles to a friendly conference with his chiefs on Salisbury plain. The Britons, who were far from suspecting his treacherous design, attended the assembly unarmed, and in that defenceless state fell an easy prey to their Saxon hosts, who in the midst of feasting and revelry, brutally massacred the whole of their guests. Successful in his cowardly and murderous stratagem, Hengist took possession of the southern counties, whilst his son Octa maintained his sway over the Brigantine province of Northumbria, in which the Fylde was included, as intimated at the beginning of the chapter.

The ancient warlike spirit of the Setantii, which had lain almost dormant for centuries, was once more thoroughly aroused in the natives of Lancashire, and a determined and valiant opposition offered by them to Octa and his army. Overborough capitulated only when its inhabitants were worn out by fatigue and famine, whilst Warrington and Manchester sustained severe and protracted sieges before they fell into the hands of the enemy. Nennius, another early historian, who was born towards the end of the sixth century, informs us that the famous King Arthur and his sixty Knights of the Round Table worsted the Saxons in twelve successive battles, four of which were fought on the banks of the Douglas, near Wigan. In those conflicts our county was well and effectively represented in the person of Paulinus, the commander of the right wing of the army, who after many brave and sanguinary struggles overthrew the hitherto unconquered Octa, and for a time, at least, delivered the Fylde and other parts of Northumbria from the rule of the Saxons. This gallant soldier was the offspring of a union between a Roman warrior and a British maiden, who had established themselves in Manchester. The chieftain Ella, however, compelled the Britons to submission, and assumed the government over part of Northumbria. Clusters of Saxon huts, soon growing into villages, now sprang up on the