Antiquaries are divided in opinion over the ancient history of Crayford. While some incline to the belief that it is the site of the Roman Noviomagus, others are prone to select Keston Common as the locality of that shadowy camp and city. The question will probably never be settled beyond a doubt, but the weight of evidence is strong in favour of Keston Common, eight miles away to the south-west. Here still exist the traces of great earthworks, covering a space of a hundred acres, while numerous finds of Roman coins and pottery have been made from time to time. At Crayford, on the other hand, the only presumptive evidence is to be found in this having been that old Roman military way, Watling Street, and, in the very slender thread of allusion to the name of Noviomagus, supposed, on the authority of Hasted, to be extant in the title of the half-forgotten manor of Newbury. But, however vague may be the connection between Noviomagus and Crayford, certain it is that here, in 457, was fought that tremendous battle between the Saxons under Hengist, and the Britons commanded by Vortigern, a conflict in which four thousand of the Romanised Britons were slain. It was in 449 that Hengist and Horsa, brother-chiefs[1] of the Jutish-Saxons, landed at Ebbsfleet, in Thanet, at the invitation of Vortigern, who sought their aid against the Picts and the Sea-rovers. They came in three ships, and their original force could scarcely have numbered more than five hundred men. But, having warred for the Britons, and fought side by side with them against the Scots, they soon perceived how defenceless was the land. "They sent," says the Anglo-Saxon chronicler, "to the Angles, and bade them be told of the worthlessness of the Britons, and the richness of the land." In response to this invitation, there came from over sea the men of the Old Saxons, the Jutes, and the Angles; and, six years after the landing of the two brothers, these treacherous allies, strengthened in number, felt strong enough to attempt the seizure of Kent. Pretexts for a quarrel were readily found, and, through the mists that hang about the scanty records of that time, we hear first of the Battle of Aylesford, fought in 455, in which the Britons experienced their first great defeat. Here, though, Horsa was slain, and to Hengist, with his son Esc, was left the foundation of the Saxon kingdom of Kent. The Battle of Crayford for a time left all this fertile corner of England to the Saxons. "The Britons," says the chronicler, "forsook the land of Kent, and in great consternation fled to London." But, though enervated by long years of luxury, and so greatly demoralised by defeats, the Britons had yet some force left. Vortigern, "the betrayer of Britain," as he has come down to us in the pages of history, was overthrown by another enemy, a rival British prince, that doughty Romanised chieftain, Aurelius Ambrosianus, who, after defeating that weak king, gathered up the scattered patriots,