there, will check the incursions of the barbarians, and so yon will remain in peace on this side of the Humber." Yortigern consented, and immediately they sent ambassadors, and they who had been invited, namely, Octa, Abissa, and Cerditms, came with three hundred ships full of armed men, all of whom were kindly received by Vortigern, and enriched with Uberai presents, nut when the Britons saw this, they feared their treachery, and desired the king to expel them from his territories, for that pagans ought not to associate with Chrutians, because the Christian law forbade it. Moreover, a murmur and complaint of the nobles was heard against the detestable marriage of the king, of which one poet speaks in a tone of invective and in elegant verse :— " Law, love, and marriage bonds unite the two ; But what a law ? what love ? what kind 0 1 bonds ? The law is lawless, hateful is the love, Discordant all the bonds." Moreover, the number of those who arrived was so great, that they were a terror to the natives to whom they were to have been a protection. But Vortigern disdained to attend to the advice of his countrymen, because he loved them above all nations, on account of his wife. A.D. 454. The nobles utterly deserted Vortigern, king of Britain, and unanimously raised Vortimer his son to the throne, who by their advice, which he adopted in every particular, began to expel the barbarians, and pursuing them as far as the river Derwent, he defeated them and put great numbers of them to the sword. And with them fled Vortigern, who gave them all the aid that he could, on account of his wife, as he was very uxorious. Then Vortimer, having gained the victory, began to restore to the native citizens the possessions which they had lost, and to treat them with affection, and to restore the churches that had been destroyed, and to treat with especial honour the ecclesiastics and religious men. A.D. 455. Which is the seventh year after the arrival of the Angles in Britain, the nations of die Angles with Vortigero, having recovered their strength, began again to provoke Vortimer, king of the Britons, to war. And the armies meeting here and mere about Aylesford, fought a long time with great vigour. At length the weight of the battle turned against the