(3) Bede says that London was the metropolis of the East Saxons. Henry of Huntingdon tells us that Ella _founded_ Sussex; Wessex was _founded_ by Cerdic in the year 519; and the kingdom of Essex--that is, of the East Saxons--was _founded_ by Erchinwin, whose son Slede married the sister of Ethelbert, king of Kent. This Slede's son was Sebert, the first king of Essex converted to the Christian faith. Now we know that when Augustine's mission came in 597 Ethelbert was still reigning in Kent, and his nephew ruled in London when Mellitus brought the Gospel there in 604. If, then, we put the "foundation" of the kingdom of Essex by Sebert's grandfather some thirty or forty years before this time, we again reach the date of the probable occupation of London, which we may put provisionally about 570. It was probably early in the sixth century that the Saxons began to get a footing in what became Essex, as in 527, according to Huntingdon, large bodies of men came from Germany and took possession of East Anglia, various chiefs of whom "contended for the occupation of different districts." We may suppose that Colchester first fell, then Verulam, and that London was entered only after its complete isolation, and as the culmination of the English Conquest of South Britain, just as was the case in the Norman Conquest exactly five hundred years later. All Celtic tradition looks back to London as the British capital. Dr. Rhys quotes a story from the Welsh Laws to the effect that "the nation of the Kymry, after losing the crown and sceptre of London and being driven out of England, assembled to decide who should be chief king."[23] In the story of Bran in the Mabinogion, which Celtic scholars say is untouched by any influence so late as Geoffrey's, it is told that the seven men journeying with the head of the Blessed Bran were told that Caswallawn the son of Beli "has conquered the Island of the Mighty and is crowned king in London." _Alfred's London._--In endeavouring to trace the topographical vestiges of London, as far as any sufficiently clear indications will allow, it will be found that we can easily carry back a great number of wards, streets, and churches to the century which followed the Conquest. More patient research allows of pushing still further a large number of "origins" to a time anterior to the Conquest, but subsequent to the Roman evacuation of the city. As the greatest of all London events in this space of time was the resettlement of the city by Alfred, less than two centuries before Duke William entered within its walls, and as London may readily be supposed to have altered very little in that time, we may well take the reign of the great king, who died exactly a thousand years ago, as the centre of gravity of the whole period, and the pages which follow might very well be called an account of London in the time of Alfred.