[Footnote 30: Whitaker's "History of Whalley," ii. 19.] [Footnote 31: Baines' "History of Lancashire" (second edition), ii. 24.] [Footnote 32: _Lanc. and Ches. Hist. Soc._, iii. 3.] [Footnote 33: _Hist. Soc. of Lanc. and Ches._, iii. 60; also Fishwick's "History of Kirkham," _Chetham Soc._, xcii. 5.] [Footnote 34: Fishwick's "History of Poulton-le-Fylde," _Chetham Soc._, new series, viii. 4; also civ. 2.] [Footnote 35: Watkin's "Roman Lancashire," p. 203.] [Footnote 36: "The Palatine Note-book," iv. 201.] [Footnote 37: Fishwick's "History of Rochdale," p. 7; also _Lanc. and Ches. Arch. Soc._, p. 73 _et seq._] [Footnote 38: _Ibid._, p. 12.] [Illustration] CHAPTER V. THE SAXON AND THE DANE. If it is true--as generally supposed--that the Britons, after being grievously oppressed by the Picts and Scots, called in the German tribes to assist them, then it naturally followed that, after driving back the Northern invaders, they themselves took possession of the land they had been fighting for. In Lancashire, the desertion of the Romans probably led to a considerable part of the county being again laid waste, and the inhabitants scattered. All authorities agree that for some forty years after the departure of the Romans the Britons were in continual strife, and that their independence brought to them only war and misery. The three Teutonic tribes known to the Romans as the Jutes, the Saxons and the Angles, in A.D. 449 appear to have called themselves Englishmen, and in that year they won their first battle against the Britons at Aylesford, in Kent. After this it took nearly 150 years to acquire the land from the South to the Forth. The Northern parts were for the most part taken possession of by the Angles, and divided into kingdoms, the boundaries of which are not known; some authorities place part of Lancashire in the kingdom of Deira, which had York for its centre, whilst others maintain that the kingdom of Strathclyde extended southward to the banks of the Dee; be this as it may, towards the close of the sixth century Lancashire formed part of the kingdom of Northumbria, which was held by the Angles. The inhabitants of these Northern parts, in their contests with the invaders, had the great advantage of having possession of the Roman strongholds, and no doubt offered a stubborn resistance. With the new rulers came new names, new language, and new customs, and many things that had been established by the former invaders were swept away.