Great Britain -- History -- Anglo-Saxon period, 449-1066; Middle Ages -- Sources
After him succeeded Aurelius Conan, his nephew, a youth of wonderful
valour; who, as he gained the monarchy of the whole island, would have
been worthy the crown of it, had he not delighted in civil war. He
raised disturbances against his uncle, who ought to have reigned after
Constantine, and cast him into prison; and then killing his two sons,
obtained the kingdom, but died in the second year of his reign.
CHAP. VI.--_Wortiporius, being declared king, conquers the Saxons._
After Conan succeeded Wortiporius, against whom the Saxons made
insurrection, and brought over their countrymen from Germany in a very
great fleet. But he gave them battle and came off with victory, so that
he obtained the monarchy of the whole kingdom, and governed the people
carefully and peacefully four years.
CHAP. VII.--_Malgo, king of Britain, and a most graceful person, addicts
himself to sodomy._
After him succeeded Malgo, one of the handsomest of men in Britain, a
great scourge of tyrants, and a man of great strength, extraordinary
munificence, and matchless valour, but addicted very much to the
detestable vice of sodomy, by which he made himself abominable to God.
He also possessed the whole island, to which, after a cruel war, he
added the six provincial islands, viz. Ireland, Iceland, Gothland, the
Orkneys, Norway, and Dacia.
CHAP. VIII.--_Britain, in the flame of a civil war under king Careticus,
is miserably wasted by the Saxons and Africans._
After Malgo succeeded Careticus, a lover of civil war, and hateful to
God and to the Britons. The Saxons, discovering his fickle disposition,
went to Ireland for Gormund, king of the Africans, who had arrived there
with a very great fleet, and had subdued that country. From thence, at
their traitorous instigation, he sailed over into Britain, which the
perfidious Saxons in one part, in another the Britons by their continual
wars among themselves were wholly laying waste. Entering therefore into
alliance with the Saxons, he made war upon king Careticus, and after
several battles fought, drove him from city to city, till at length he
forced him to Cirencester, and there besieged him. Here Isembard, the
nephew of Lewis, king of the Franks, came and made a league of amity
with him, and out of respect to him renounced the Christian faith, on
condition that he would assist him to gain the kingdom of Gaul from his
uncle, by whom, he said, he was forcibly and unjustly expelled out of
it. At last, after taking and burning the city, he had another fight
with Careticus, and made him flee beyond the Severn into Wales. He then
made an utter devastation of the country, set fire to the adjacent
cities, and continued these outrages until he had almost burned up the
whole surface of the island from the one sea to the other; so that the
tillage was everywhere destroyed, and a general destruction made of the
husbandmen and clergy, with fire and sword. This terrible calamity
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