And so Feargus and his Picts helped Edwy to clear the land of Lindesey and they sent word out to all the thanes around that Edwy was king of the lands of his fathers, and if any would not call him king there would be war with him and all the Picts with him upon his side. And so after awhile Feargus returned, leaving Alastair to be king Edwy’s captain until all the land was brought under him. And they won Alban, and on the third day of their return was a great feast spread, and all the chiefs of that country were guests and many kings and princes, with Llewellin of Gwynedd and one MacGilliosa, a stout stranger from Galloway, and many Picts and Britons from Lothian, who had helped Feargus in times past, as this history showeth, for the beautiful and noble Torfrida, whose fame was in men’s mouths as a heroine for all time, was wed to Feargus of Albainn, son to king Nechtan of the Hundred Battles. ENGLAND IN PENDA’S DAY Of the Britain of which the foregoing story treats we know but little, and the strong Anglo-Saxon bias of many otherwise excellent writers has obscured what few facts we really possess of the stormy times of the great and faithful patriot king Penda. It may be the case that the Saxons had a reputation for cruelty, as the late Mr. Freeman points out, but we can have no true picture of the England of those times if we imagine that our English or Saxon ancestors were ever numerous or barbarous enough to exterminate, as historians would have us believe they did, the native Welsh or British, except in rare instances. The foregoing story makes it clear that the “English,” though a strong and well-organised handful of soldiers, were but a large handful after all, just as the Roman settlers, and Normans of later times, were but a handful compared to the whole population. Historians have based their beliefs in the Teutonic origin of the “English” people of to-day largely on language, on the fact that the surnames of the majority of the people are English and that the language they speak to-day is chiefly of English origin. We know now that a language is not necessarily an index to the race of the people, but that it is often acquired by contact with another race who spoke it and who may or may not have been its original owners.