In the fifth century Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, from North Germany and the peninsula of Jutland, invaded Britain. The unfortunate Britons, when they would not submit to their conquerors, were persecuted with fire and sword, and were at last driven to the remote mountain districts in the West of England, particularly Cumberland (the land of the Cymbri or Celts), Wales, and Cornwall. After a sanguinary war, which lasted more than a hundred and fifty years, all their fine fruitful plains fell into the hands of their foreign conquerors, who continually brought more and more of their countrymen over, to build up again and inhabit the burnt or destroyed towns and houses, and to cultivate the neglected fields. The Angles settled principally in the north of England, the Saxons in the south and south-west, and mingled amongst both dwelt the Jutes, who do not appear to have been numerous enough to occupy large districts of their own. Under the common name of “Anglo-Saxons,” the descendants of these nations continued for several centuries to be the reigning people, although the Britons did not cease to make harassing invasions on the frontiers of their hereditary enemies. For the rest, the Saxons successfully continued what the Romans had begun, with regard to the improvement of the land, and the promotion of civilization among the people. They were, it is true, divided into several tribes and smaller kingdoms, which not unfrequently warred against each other. But Christianity soon began to extend itself, and about the time of its introduction the separate kingdoms were united into one. Churches and convents rose with surprising rapidity throughout the country, and the pursuits of peace, science, and art, throve luxuriantly. Every plant, though foreign, flourished vigorously in the English soil. In the first ages, however, Christianity produced among the people, as was the case in other countries besides England, a sort of degeneracy and weakness. Instead of the din of battle of the heathens there were now heard songs and prayers, which, joined with the constantly-increasing refinement, made the people dull and effeminate, so that they willingly bent under the yoke of their masters, both spiritual and temporal. In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries the Anglo-Saxons had greatly degenerated from their forefathers. Relatives sold one another into thraldom; lewdness and ungodliness were become habitual; and cowardice had increased to such a degree, that, according to the old chroniclers, one Dane would often put ten Anglo-Saxons to flight. Before such a people could be conducted to true freedom and greatness it was necessary that an entirely new vigour should be infused into the decayed stock. This vigour was derived from the Scandinavian north, where neither Romans nor any other conquerors had domineered over the people, and where heathenism with all its roughness, and all its love of freedom and bravery, still held absolute sway.