inefficient, and the virtual sovereignty is in the hands of the "Mayors of the Palace," the officers whose function it was to superintend the royal household, and who afterwards were leaders of the feudal retainers. The family of the _Pipins_, who were of pure German extraction, acquired the hereditary right to this office, first in Austrasia and later in Neustria. The descendants of _Pipin of Heristal_, as dukes of the Franks, had regal power, while the title of king was left to the Merovingian princes. The race of Pipin was afterwards called _Carolingians_, or _Karlings_. The preponderance of power at first had been with Neustria, but it shifted to the ruder and more energetic Austrasians. The battle of _Testry_, in which _Pipin_ of Heristal at their head overcame the Neustrians, determined the supremacy of Germany over France (687). His son and successor, _Charles Martel_ (715-741), made himself sole "Duke of the Franks;" and _Pipin the Short_ (741-768), the son of Charles Martel, became king, supplanting the Merovingian line (752). SAXON CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.--In the fourth century, when the power of Rome was declining, the Picts and Scots from the North began to make incursions into the Roman province of Britain. At the same time Teutonic tribes from the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe, began to land as marauders upon the coast. _Honorius_ withdrew the Roman troops from the island in 411; and it was conquered by these invading tribes, especially the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. They became one people, called _Anglo-Saxons_, Angles or _English_. They were fierce barbarians, who drove the Celts whom they did not kill or enslave--and whom they called _Welsh_, or strangers--into Wales and Cornwall. They formed kingdoms, the first of which, Kent, was the result of the coming of _Hengist_ and _Horsa_, whom _Vortigern_, the native prince, had invited to help him against the Picts (449). There were seven of these Saxon kingdoms (the _Heptarchy_), not all of which were at any one time regular communities. They were almost constantly at war with one another and with the natives. They had a king elected from the royal family. Freemen were either _Earls_ or _Churls_, the "gentle" or the "simple." The churl was attached to some one lord whom he followed in war. The _thanes_ were those who devoted themselves to the service of the king or some other great man. The thanes of the king became gentlemen and nobles. There were _thralls_, or slaves, either prisoners in war, or made slaves for debt or for crime. Connected with the king was a sort of Parliament, called the _Witenagemôt_, or Meeting of the Wise, composed originally of all freemen, and then of the great men, the _Ealdormen_, the king's thanes. After the Saxons were converted, the bishops and abbots belonged to it. In minor affairs, the "mark," or township, governed itself.