Moreover, if this British theory were at all sound, how could we account for the title being so rarely given to the kings of Wessex, and never to those of Mercia, both of whom were nevertheless in continual hostile contact with the Welsh, and of whom the former at least exercised sovereign rights over a numerous Welsh population dispersed throughout their dominions? Again, why should it have been given to successive kings of Northumberland, whose contact with the British aborigines, even as Picts, was not of any long continuance or great moment[11]? Above all, why should it not have been given to Æðelfríð, who as Beda tells us was the most severe scourge the Kelts had ever met with[12]? But there are other serious difficulties arising from the nature of the military force which, on any one of the suppositions we are considering, must have been placed at this war-king’s disposal: is it, for example, conceivable, that people whose military duty did not extend beyond the defence of their own frontiers, and who even then could only be brought into the field under the conduct of their own shire-officers, would have marched away from home, under a foreign king, to form part of a mixed army? still more, that the comites of various princes, whose bond and duty were of the most strictly personal character, could have been mustered under the banner of a stranger[13]? Yet all this must be assumed to have been usual and easy, if we admit the received opinions as to the Bretwalda. We should also be entitled to ask how it happened that Wulfhere, Æðelbald, Offa, Cénwulf, the preeminently military kings of the Mercians, should have refrained from the use of a title so properly belonging to their preponderating power in England, and so useful in giving a legal and privileged authority to the measures of permanent aggrandizement which their resources enabled them to take? ----- Footnote 11: I am not aware of the Picts, Peohtas, having ever been numbered among the Bretwealhas. Footnote 12: Hist. Eccl. i. 34. “Nemo enim in tribunis, nemo in regibus plures eorum terras, exterminatis vel subiugatis indigenis, aut tributarias genti Anglorum, aut habitabiles fecit.” Footnote 13: Nearly the only instance recorded of a mixed army, is that of Penda at Winwedfeld; but it does not appear that this consisted of anything more than the Comitatus of various chieftains personally dependent upon, or in alliance with, himself. We do not learn that οἰOswiu’s victory gave him any rights over the freemen in Eastanglia, which could hardly have been wanting had the Eastanglian _hereban_ or _fyrd_ served under Penda. -----