at sea; and even under Honorius, Victorinus and Gallio were able to drive back the Scots, the Picts, and the Saxons, and to preserve some sort of order and security in the narrow seas. But towards the end of the period of Roman rule, the protection of the Roman fleets and armies was only occasionally and irregularly vouchsafed; and when at length the Britons, in reply to their prayers for assistance against the northern pirates, were told to defend themselves, they indignantly rose and drove out the last few official representatives of the effete Empire. For the moment the islanders were free; but they were totally defenceless, and the Picts pressed them sorely.
The Picts,[1] properly the Caledonii and Meatæ, were the tribes dwelling north of the Roman walls, and were probably Celts of Goidelic type. They were never subjugated by the Romans. The Scots were Ulster Gaels of predatory habits, who at the end of the fifth century colonised Argyle and established there a Scottish kingdom of Dalriada, which was for some time in alliance with the Irish Dalriada, whence the colonists had come. So much for strict definitions. But the Picts and Scots of the period immediately following the Roman abandonment of Britain, stand, in the language of early historians, for any of the freebooters who, coming from the north and west, harassed the southern and more civilised part of the main island. After the Roman withdrawal, they appear to have broken down the fortified walls which for many generations had limited their operations in the north; and, when the Britons attacked them in that quarter, the invaders seem, utilising their unchallenged sea power, to have landed an army in rear of the defence, and to have completely disheartened and confounded their opponents. But the period is one of turmoil, darkness, and myth.
Endeavours to unravel the confusing tangle of fact and fiction left us by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Nennius, Bede, Gildas, and the annalists, lead to the conclusion that, after the first period of chaos consequent upon the Roman desertion, one Vortigern, a prince of the Demetæ, by murder and fraud, acquired a leading position in the island; but that, finding himself opposed, on the one hand, by a considerable Roman party, under Ambrosius Aurelianus,[2] a prince of the Damnonii, and, on the other, by the Picts, and having little in view beyond his own personal welfare, he called in a roving band of
