Page:The child's pictorial history of England; (IA childspictorialh00corn).pdf/32

 the Picts and Scots to retreat to their own country; and shortly afterwards they went to the Isle of Thanet, which they fortified, and many more Saxons came there to them.

17. I cannot tell you how the affairs of the Britons went on, or what became of Vortigern; but this I can tell you, that the Saxons soon began to quarrel with the people of Kent, and fought with them, and having driven most of them away, took the land for themselves, and began to live there.

18. The chief who made this conquest, was Esca, the son of Hengist, who called himself king of Kent, which, from that time, was a small Saxon kingdom, for the Britons never won it back again.

13. Then other chiefs, hearing how Esca had succeeded, got together bands of soldiers, and landed in different parts of the country, to try to gain kingdoms also; but they did not all come at once, and their conquests were made by such slow degrees, that the wars lasted more than one hundred and fifty years; so you may guess how hard the Britons fought in defence of their liberty.

20. We can learn but very little about those unhappy times, for the few histories that were