13. Then other chiefs, hearing how Esca had succeeded, got together bands of soldiers, and landed in different parts of the country, to try to gain kingdoms also; but they did not all come at once, and their conquests were made by such slow degrees, that the wars lasted more than one hundred and fifty years; so you may guess how hard the Britons fought in defence of their liberty. 20. We can learn but very little about those unhappy times, for the few histories that were then written were mostly destroyed in these long wars; and though songs were composed by the bards or poets, which the people used to learn and teach to their children, these songs were not all true. 21. They were mostly about the wars, and the brave British chiefs who defended the country against the Saxons; and if you should ever hear anybody speak of king Arthur, and the knights of the Round Table, you may remember that he is said to have been one of those chiefs; and, if we may believe the tale, killed four hundred Saxons with his own hand in one battle. 22. Those who made the story about him, say that the nobles of his court were all so equal in bravery and goodness, that he had a large round table made for them to feast at, that no one might sit above another; so they were called knights of the Round Table. But let us return to our history. 23. The Saxons went on making one conquest after another, till, at last, they were in possession of the whole country; where very few of the natives were left, for most of those who had not been killed in the wars, had fled into Gaul, or taken refuge among the Welsh mountains; so from this time we shall hear no more of the Britons, but must look upon the Saxons as the people of England. 24. I told you how Esca had established the little kingdom of Kent. Well, in the course of the wars, six more kingdoms had been formed in the same manner, by different Saxon chiefs, so that, by the time the conquest was completed, there were seven kingdoms in Britain, namely, Kent, Sussex, Essex, and East Anglia, Northumbria, Wessex, and Mercia; and this division of the country among seven kings, was called the Saxon Heptarchy. 25. The Saxons were not clever people, like the Romans, but were rough and ignorant, and cared for nothing but fighting; so while the wars were going on, they ruined and destroyed all the beautiful and useful works that had been done in the Roman times; for they did not understand their value, and only thought it was a fine thing to destroy all that belonged to their enemies. 26. But the works of the Romans were very strong; for even now, when workmen are digging in London, and different parts of the country, they sometimes find Roman walls, and pavements, and foundations of houses, that show what good architects the Romans were.