The Britons, impelled by these violent extremities, ana roused to indignation against their treacherous auxiliaries, were necessitated to take arms; and having deposed Vortigern, who had become odious from his vices, and from the bad event of his rash counsels, they put themselves under the Command of his son, Vortimer. They fought many battles with their enemies; and though the victories in these actions be disputed between the British and Saxon annalists, the progress still made by the Saxons proves that the advantage was commonly on their side. [* Chron. Sax. p. 12. W. Malms, p. 11. Hunting, lib. U. p. 309. Ethelwerd, Brompton, p. 728.] [** Chron. Sax. p. 12. Alured. Beverl. p. 49.] [*** Bede, lib. i cap. 15. Nennius, cap. 35. Gildas, sect 2d.] In one battle, however, fought at Faglesford, now Ailsford, Horsa, the Saxon general, was slain and left the sole command over his countrymen in the hands of Hengist. This active general, continually reënforced oy fresh numbers from Germany, carried devastation into the most remote corners of Britain; and being chiefly anxious to spread the terror of his arms, he spared neither age, nor sex, nor condition, wherever he marched with his victorious forces. The private and public edifices of the Britons were reduced to ashes; the priests were slaughtered on the altars by those idolatrous ravagers; the bishops and nobility shared the fate of the vulgar; the people, flying to the mountains and deserts, were intercepted and butchered in heaps: some were glad to accept of life and servitude under their victors: others, deserting their native country, took shelter in the province of Armorica; where, being charitably received by a people of the same language and manners, they settled in great numbers, and gave the country the name of Brittany.[*] The British writers assign one cause which facilitated the entrance of the Saxons into this island--the love with which Vortigern was at first seized for Rovena, the daughter of Hengist, and which that artful warrior made use of to blind the eyes of the imprudent monarch.[**] The same historians add, that Vortimer died; and that Vortigern, being restored to the throne, accepted of a banquet from Hengist, at Stonehenge, where three hundred of his nobility were treacherously slaughtered, and himself detained captive.[***] But these stories seem to have been invented by the Welsh authors, in order to palliate the weak resistance made at first by their countrymen, and to account for the rapid progress and licentious devastations of the Saxons.[****] After the death of Vortimer, Ambrosius, a Briton, though of Roman descent, was invested with the command over his countrymen, and endeavored, not without success, to unite them in their resistance against the Saxons. Those contests increased the animosity between the two rations, and roused the military spirit of the ancient inhabitants, which had before been sunk into a fatal lethargy.