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160 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xxxviii defended with resolution ; the advantages of ground, hills, forests, and morasses were diligently improved by the inhabi- tants ; the conquest of each district was purchased with blood ; and the defeats of the Saxons are strongly attested by the dis- creet silence of their annalist. Hengist might hope to achieve the conquest of Britain; but his ambition, in an active reign of thirty-five years, was confined to the possession of Kent; and the numerous colony which he had planted in the North was extirpated by the sword of the Britons. The monarchy of the West Saxons was laboriously founded by the persevering efforts of three martial generations. The life of Cerdic, one of the bravest of the children of Woden, was consumed in the conquest of Hampshire and the isle of Wight ; and the loss which he sustained in the battle of Mount Badon reduced him to a state of inglorious repose. Kenric, his valiant son, ad- vanced into Wiltshire ; besieged Salisbury, at that time seated on a commanding eminence ; and vanquished an army which advanced to the relief of the city. In the subsequent battle of Marlborough, 141 his British enemies displayed their military science. Their troops were formed in three lines ; each line consisted of three distinct bodies, and the cavalry, the archers, and the pikemen, were distributed, according to the principles of Roman tactics. The Saxons charged in one mighty column, boldly encountered with their short swords the long lances of the Britons, and maintained an equal conflict till the approach of night. Two decisive victories, the death of three British kings, and the reduction of Cirencester, Bath, and Gloucester, established the fame and power of Ceaulin, the grandson of Cerdic, who carried his victorious arms to the banks of the Severn, and flight After a war of an hundred years, the independent Britons still occupied the whole extent of the Western coast, from the wall of Antoninus to the extreme promontory of Cornwall ; and the principal cities of the inland country still opposed the arms of the Barbarians. Resistance became more languid, as the number and boldness of the assailants continually increased. 141 At Beran-Birig, or Barbury castle, near Marlborough. The Saxon chronicle assigns the name and date. Camden (Britannia, vol. i. p. 128) ascertains the place ; and Henry of Huntingdon (Scriptores post Bedam, p. 314) relates the circumstances of this battle. They are probable and characteristic ; and the his- torians of the twelfth century might consult some materials that no longer exist.