London and the Kingdom - Volume I | Page 6

was itself threatened with an invasion of the Goths, and the
emperor had his hands too full to allow him to lend a favourable ear to
the "groans of the Britons."(11)

(M9)
Compelled to seek assistance elsewhere, the Britons invited a tribe of
warriors, ever ready to let their services for hire, from the North Sea, to
lend them their aid. The foreigners came in answer to the invitation,
they saw, they conquered; and then they refused to leave an island the
fertility of which they appreciated no less than they despised the
slothfulness of its inhabitants.(12) They turned their weapons against
their employers, and utterly routed them at Crayford, driving them to
take refuge within the walls of London.
(M10)
"A.D. 457 (456). This year Hengist and Æsc [Eric or Ash] his son
fought against the Britons at a place called Creegan-Ford [Crayford]
and there slew four thousand men, and the Britons then forsook Kent,
and in great terror fled to London."(13) So runs the Anglo-Saxon
chronicle, and this is the sole piece of information concerning London
it vouchsafes us for one hundred and fifty years following the departure
of the Romans. The information, scant as it is, serves to show that
London had not quite become a deserted city, nor had yet been
devastated as others had been by the enemy. Its walls still served to
afford shelter to the terrified refugees.
(M11)
When next we read of her, she is in the possession of the East Saxons.
How they came there is a matter for conjecture. It is possible that with
the whole of the surrounding counties in the hands of the enemy, the
Londoners were driven from their city to seek means of subsistence
elsewhere, and that when the East Saxons took possession of it, they
found houses and streets deserted. Little relishing a life within a town,
they probably did not make a long stay, and, on their departure, the
former inhabitants returned and the city slowly recovered its wonted
appearance, as the country around became more settled.
(M12)

Christianity in the country had revived, and London was now to receive
its first bishop. It is the year 604. "This year," writes the chronicler,
"Augustine hallowed two bishops, Mellitus and Justus; Mellitus he sent
to preach baptism to the East Saxons, whose king was called Seberht,
son of Ricula, the sister of Ethelbert whom Ethelbert had there set as
king. And Ethelbert gave to Mellitus a bishop's see at London." This
passage is remarkable for two reasons:--(1) as shewing us that London
was at this time situate in Essex, the kingdom of the East Saxons, and
(2) that Seberht was but a roi fainéant, enjoying no real independence
in spite of his dignity as ruler of the East Saxons and nominal master of
London, his uncle Ethelbert, king of the Cantii, exercising a hegemony
over "all the nations of the English as far as the Humber." (14)
Hence it is that London is spoken of by some as being the metropolis of
the East Saxons,(15) and by others as being the principal city of the
Cantii;(16) the fact being that, though locally situate in Essex, it was
deemed the political capital of that kingdom which for the time being
happened to be paramount.
(M13)
After the death of Seberht, the Londoners became dissatisfied with their
bishop and drove him out. Mellitus became in course of time
Archbishop of Canterbury, whilst the Londoners again relapsed into
paganism.(17) Not only was the erection of a cathedral in the city due
to Ethelbert, but it was also at his instigation, if not with his treasure,
that Seberht, the "wealthy sub-king of London," was, as is believed,
induced to found the Abbey of Westminster.(18)
(M14)
When the Saxon kingdoms became united under Egbert and he became
rex totius Britanniæ (A.D. 827), London began to take a more
prominent place among the cities of the kingdom, notwithstanding its
having been three times destroyed by fire between 674 and 801.(19) It
became more often the seat of the royal residence, and the scene of
witena-gemóts; nevertheless it was not the seat of government, much
less the capital. Then and for a long time to come it had a formidable

rival in Winchester, the chief town of Egbert's own kingdom of Wessex.
To Winchester that king proceeded in triumph after completing the
union of the Saxon kingdoms, and thither he summoned his vassals to
hear himself proclaimed their overlord. From Winchester, Alfred, too,
promulgated his new code of Wessex law--a part of the famous
Domboc, a copy of which is said to have been at one time preserved
among the archives of the City of London(20)--and the Easter gemót,
no matter where the other gemóts of the year were held, was nearly
always held at