So it has been with the successive races that have fought in those early days on British soil. The first real military system worthy of the name was that which brought woad-clad Britons in collision with the military might of Rome. But wonderful as the Roman organisation was, it seems to have left but little permanent trace on the people it had governed and civilised for four hundred years, from the time of Cæsar’s first landing to that in which Honorius recalled the last legion from the deserted province of Britannia to assist the main trunk of the empire. There is little evidence that the Saxons met with any more valuable opposition than mere courage, an attribute of little real permanent importance against a foe that had at the least a sort of military organisation. For that the Saxons had such is clear. They had learned from the Romans indirectly if not directly; and there is a distinct trace of Roman influence in the way they arranged a battle. This applies still more to their fighting organisation after they had conquered and subdued the effete defenders of Roman Britain, before the Danes came. Though they, too, had succumbed to the enervating influence of peace, they had established a genuine system which had in it the elements of the army as it is, or at least some portion of it. For the army of Saxon England was, in all essential respects, a militia; that is to say, a body closely resembling the tribal array, but better organised. Against these came the Danes, whose methods were those of the early Saxons; that is to say, tribal leading under renowned chiefs. But the stronger and more correct principles that underlay the Saxon organisation triumphed in the end; and the raids of Danish hordes were beaten in detail, and became absorbed in the Saxon stock, to revivify and strengthen it. The Roman was an alien, and remained so; but both Saxon and Dane had the same racial origin, became, finally, part of the nation they had conquered, and were absorbed by it, to form the English, when the still stronger tone that Norman soldiers gave--coming also, be it remembered, from the same group of peoples--had borne fruit. The story of the Saxon conquest and of the Danish invasion contains few points of military interest, though that period was the cradle in which the future army was to be reared. Still there is one battle of that time which should rank with the decisive battles of the English world, for it stemmed the tide of Danish success, and led to the amalgamation of the hostile sides against the next new comer. This turning-point is the battle of Æscesdune, or Ashdown, fought most probably on the Berkshire hills.