Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/82

68 says that three very populous nations occupied Britain—the Angles, the Britons, and the Frisians. Their migrations across the North Sea certainly began at an early date. By the middle of the sixth century there were scattered colonies of Angles and Frisians occupying districts of the east coast of Britain from the Tees to the Forth, and the kingdom of Bernicia was formed by Ida, the capital, Bamburgh, being placed on a headland not far from the Tweed. The selection of such a site for the seat of government of a kingdom founded by a maritime people was characteristic. The Frisian country itself was a coast country, not extending far inland beyond easy access to and from the sea. It was natural, therefore, that the new settlements which such a people founded should be grouped so as to reproduce as much as possible facilities for communication similar to those to which they were accustomed. Their communications were kept up mainly by the sea, and the position of Bamburgh, as the seat of government for the settlers along the coast, points to this as well as to the site being chosen for defence. These were not the earliest of their race that came to Britain, and probably not the earliest settlers, for in the later Roman period we have a record of some colonies of Frisians and other German tribes introduced for military purposes.

Procopius mentions the inhabitants of Britain under the names ‘Angeloi, Phrissones, and those surnamed from the island Brittones.’ He thus calls the same people Angles and Frisians, whom Welsh authors, writing about the same date, call Saxons.

The Frisian occupancy of the coast of North Germany was probably continuous from North Holland to South Denmark, and there must be assumed to have been a fringe of them along the whole seaboard of Hanover and Holstein. They were the neighbouring nation to the