At Crayford in Kent, another great battle was fought between the Saxons and the Britons, in which the latter were defeated with great slaughter, and so complete was the victory, that the remnant of the British army were compelled to retreat into London. But with all his success, Hengist was unable to keep possession of little more than the county of Kent, and the island of Thanet, and even this, it appears, he would have found it difficult to retain, but for the dissensions which were ever breaking out amongst the British chiefs. The Britons were able at this very time to send out twelve thousand armed men into Gaul, to war against the Visigoths, so that there can be but little doubt that, had unity reigned amongst them, they would have found no difficulty in driving out the Saxons, as they had done before-time. The island seems to have been so divided at this period, and under the command of so many different chiefs or kings, that they cared not to bring their united forces to bear upon one corner of the kingdom, especially that where the presence of Vortigern still appears to have been acknowledged; for it is probable that the British king, after the death of his son, settled down in his old age, amongst the Saxons, "a sadder and a wiser man." We even hope, in spite of his misdeeds, and the miseries into which his love for a fair face plunged the whole island of Britain, that there is no truth in the statements of our early Saxon historians, who have left it on record that he fled into Wales, where, hated alike "by slave and free-man, monk and layman, strong and weak, small and great," he at last perished with the fair Rowena, and all his family, in those flames which destroyed the fortress where he had sought shelter from his enemies. Yet many venerable names might be brought forward in support of this story of the terrible end of an ancient British king. A dreadful fate for fair Rowena, if true, and all the evidence is sadly in its favour, and from our hearts, we cannot help pitying the poor girl, who with downcast eyes, as she held the golden goblet in her hand, listened to the promises which the island monarch poured into her ears; who stepped from the deck of her father's galley, to share a throne, yet appears never to have forsaken her husband in all the varied vicissitudes of his chequered life; but through battle, flood, and fire, to have trod the same perilous path with him, hand in hand, sometimes, it may be, when alone, shedding tears at the remembrance of her father's cruelties, weeping one hour, for the death of her own friends, and the next, comforting Vortigern for the loss of those he mourned. We picture her, as in the joyousness of her heart she left her native home to meet her father--no mother appears to have accompanied her--and, pagan as she was, we know not how pure and holy the feelings of that heart might be; for, red with blood as the hands of Hengist were, they had,