The Saxon Conquest
fought against Ǽlla and his two sons." The place where this pitched battle was fought is yet unidentified, but it lies probably somewhere between Cissan Ceaster and Andredes Ceaster, possibly within sight of the Chalk hill upon whose steep the huge figure of the Traveller is graven ("The Wilmington Giant")[1]
The result of this battle was doubtful, says the ; but by the Britons this check may have been justly hailed as a defeat inflicted on the advancing enemy. Greatly weakened, the Saxons fell back on their settlement to the west. It was not until the year 491, when Ǽlla was largely reinforced, that he opened his final campaign against the Britons. " Then Ǽlla and Cissa beset Andredes Ceaster and slew all that therein dwelled, and henceforth was there not one Bret left" This is the terse but terrible record of the Saxon Chronicler. Fuller details are to be found in the Chronicles of Henry of Huntingdon,[2]which perchance he compiled from some old Saxon war-songs. Andredes Ceaster was stubbornly defended, both from within and without its fortifications. The besiegers were greatly harassed by the Britons who sallied to the rescue of the besieged from the fastnesses of the neighbouring Andredeswald. At the fall of the town, these Britons probably retreated in a northerly and north-easterly direction, perhaps not far distant from the spot where the golden treasure was found. We hear nothing of further operations by the Saxons near the site of Hastings. With the fall of Andredes Ceaster, what had been a mere settlement developed into the kingdom of the South Saxons. If, as seems probable, the land bordering the shore between the Jutish settlement of Kent and Andredes Ceaster was already a small Teutonic state, perhaps its Earldormen may have acknowledged to some extent the suzerainty of the South Saxon King. This little state, shut off on the west from the South Saxon kingdom by the lagoons or marshes of Pevensey, on the east from the kingdom of Kent by the marshes of Romney, and on the north by the great Andredeswald, would seem to have come into being as an independent settlement of a tribe known as the " Hestingi." Presumably -
- ↑ Supposed by some to represent the god Mercury (Woden), the god of travellers and merchants generally.
- ↑ (A.D. 490) "The kingdom of Sussex which Ǽlla founded he long and valiantly maintained. In the third year after the death of Hengist in the time of Anastasius, Emperor of Rome, who reigned 27 years. Ǽlla was joined by auxiliaries from his own country, with whose assistance he laid siege to Andredecester, a strongly fortified town " (Saxon Chronicle). Pevensey Castle is supposed to stand on the site of Andredes-ceaster, though some antiquarians place it elsewhere on the coast of Sussex. Its name, and the subsequent description given by Henry of Huntingdon, show that it stood on the verge of the great wood mentioned in a preceding note. " The Britons swarmed together like wasps, assailing the besiegers by daily ambuscades and nightly sallies. There was neither day nor night in which some new alarm did not harass the minds of the Saxons: but the more they were provoked, the more vigorously did they press the siege. Whenever they (the Saxons) advanced to the assault of the town, the Britons from without, falling on their rear with archers and slingers, drew the pagans away from the walls to resist the attack upon themselves, when the Britons, lighter of foot, avoided them, taking refuge in the woods : and when they turned again to assault the town, again the Britons hung on their rear. The Saxons were for some time harassed by these manoeuvres, till, having lost a great number of men, they divided their army into two bodies, one of which carried on the siege, while the other repelled the attacks from without. After this the Britons were so reduced by continual famine that they were unable any longer to withstand the force of the besiegers, so that they all fell by the edge of the sword, with their women and children, not one escaping alive. The foreigners were so enraged at the loss which they had sustained that they totally destroyed the town, and it was never afterwards rebuilt, so that its desolate site is all that is now 1p2ointed out to travellers " (Henry of Huntingdon).
