The Chronicler tells us of the retreat of the Roman legions, and how Hengist and Horsa, invited by Vortigern, King of the Britons, landed in Britain. Then comes the ominous account of the Saxons, who turned against the friends that called upon them for succour and totally defeated the British at Crayford in Kent:-- '457. This year Hengist and Æsc, his son, fought against the Britons at the place which is called Crecganford, and there slew four thousand men; and the Britons then forsook Kent, and in great terror fled to Lundenbyrg.' Then for a century and a half there is no further mention of London in the Chronicle. We are not told what became of the fugitives, nor what became of the city; as Lappenberg says: 'No territory ever passed so obscurely into the hand of an enemy as the north bank of the Thames.' It is as difficult to suppose what some have supposed--that the city was deserted and remained desolate for years--as to imagine that trade and commerce continued in the city while all around was strife. There may have been some arrangement by which the successful Saxon who did not care to live in the city agreed that those who wished to do so should live there. But all is conjecture in face of this serious blank in our history. If there had been a battle and destruction of the city we should doubtless have had some account of it in the Chronicle. Gradually the Saxons settled on the hithes or landing places on the river side, and at last overcame their natural repugnance to town life and settled in the city. When London is again mentioned in the Chronicle it appears to have been inhabited by a population of heathens still to be converted. Under the date 604 we are told:-- 'This year Augustine consecrated two bishops; Mellitus and Justus. He sent Mellitus to preach baptism to the East Saxons, whose King was called Sebert, son of Ricole, the sister of Ethelbert, and whom Ethelbert had then appointed King. And Ethelbert gave Mellitus a bishop's See in Lundenwic, and to Justus he gave Rochester, which is twenty-four miles from Canterbury.' The Christianity of the Londoners was of an unsatisfactory character, for after the death of Sebert, his sons, who were heathens, stirred up the multitude to drive out their bishop. Mellitus became Archbishop of Canterbury, and London again relapsed into heathenism. In this, the earliest period of Saxon London recorded for us, there appears to be no relic left of the Christianity of the Britons which at one time was well in evidence. Godwin recorded a list of sixteen ecclesiastics, styled by him Archbishops of London, and Le Neve adopted the list in his _Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ_, on the authority of Godwin.