The Anglo-Saxon probably made his conquest more easy by treachery and by fomenting discord among the Britons. There is a ballad by Thomas Love Peacock, which treats of such an Anglo-Saxon victory--with at least a shadow of a shade of historical warrant:-- "Come to the feast of wine and meat," Spake the dark dweller of the sea. "There shall the hours in mirth proceed; There neither sword nor shield shall be." None but the noblest of the land, The flower of Britain's chiefs were there; Unarmed, amid the Saxon band They sate, the fatal feast to share. Three hundred chiefs, three score and three Went, where the festal torches burned Before the dweller of the sea; They went, and three alone returned. Till dawn the pale sweet mead they quaffed, The ocean chief unclosed his vest, His hand was on his dagger's haft, And daggers glared at every breast. Still it was an easy victory, that of Anglo-Saxon over Briton. But just as we must, in the light of recent knowledge, give up the idea that the Briton whom Julius Cæsar encountered was a woad-painted savage, so we must refuse to accept the impression (which is implied more often than directly stated) that the Romanised Briton, after the departure of the Roman legions, was quite helpless. Between the Roman departure from Britain and the establishment of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms there, room must be found, somehow, for whatever of historical truth there is as a foundation for the Arthurian legends. On that point let old Caxton speak:-- Now it is notoriously known through the universal world that there be nine worthy and the best that ever were. That is to wit three paynims, three Jews, and three Christian men. As for the paynims they were tofore the Incarnation of Christ, which were named, the first Hector of Troy, of whom the history is come both in ballad and in prose; the second Alexander the Great; and the third Julius Cæsar, Emperor of Rome, of whom the histories be well-known and had. And as for the three Jews which also were tofore the Incarnation of our Lord, of whom the first was Duke Joshua which brought the children of Israel into the land of behest; the second David, King of Jerusalem; and the third Judas Maccabæus; of these three the Bible rehearseth all their noble histories and acts.