The Venerable Bede, in describing the invasion of England by the German tribes in the time of Vortigern, states that their "leaders were two brothers, Hengist and Horsa, who were the sons of Victgils, whose father was Vetta, whose father was Victa, whose father was Woden." So the genealogy runs, and in this all the old chroniclers are agreed; and here undoubtedly lies a Vetta, the son of Victa, neither of them common names among the Saxons. We may ask ourselves what brought the Saxon chief so far from his native shores, and to a land where his race did not take root? But we have the authority of Nennius for saying that the Saxons occupied for a short period various regions beyond the _Mare Frisicum_ (the Firth of Forth), and Ammianus Marcellinus tells us that, two generations before the invasion of Hengist and Horsa, a Saxon host was leagued with the other races of Scotland, the Picts, Scots, and Attacots, against their common enemy, the Romans, and fought with a Roman army under Theodosius. The battle probably took place near this spot, for it must have been fought somewhere between the two Roman walls, and this place is included in that tract of country. The vulgar name of the monument, the Cat-Stane, points to this hypothesis, the name being clearly derived from the British _Cad_, the Scoto-Irish _Cath_, the Welsh _Cat_, all meaning "battle."[58] When Mr. Lhwyd visited the spot in 1688, the sculptured stone was surrounded by large stones laid lengthways, this one only being set on end. [58] Should any one wish to pursue this subject further, he will find it most exhaustively treated in vol. I. of _Archæological Essays_, by the late Sir James Young Simpson, Baronet. May not possibly Torphin, who gave his name to the neighbouring village of Corstorphine, have been a leader in the same Saxon host? Beside this venerable monument, how modern appears everything else that we have looked at! What changes it has seen! And yet here it stands, little altered by the centuries that have passed over it. One deed of violence it was a witness of, which we must not forget to mention. On this very spot, in April 1567, Queen Mary was seized, on her way from Stirling to Edinburgh, by a troop consisting of eight hundred spears, commanded by Lord Bothwell. They surrounded her attendants, and, taking possession by force of the Queen's person, hurried her off on the fatal journey to Dunbar.