by both gods and Britons, succeeded Malgo, king of the Britons. And the before-mentioned kings, those, that is to say, of the Angles and Saxons, being aware of his inconsiderable character, united and rose in insurrection against him, and after many battles drove him from city to city, till at last, after a severe battle, they drove him across the Severn into Wales. And the clergy and the priests were all driven out of the country, swords flashing on every side, and flames crackling in the churches in every direction. Therefore the remnant of the Britons retreated into the western parts of the island, that is, into Cornwall and Wales, abandoning the greater portion of the island; and from thence they made frequent and fatal attacks on their enemies without mtermission. Then the archbishops, Theonus, archbishop of London, and Thadiocus, archbishop of York, seeing all the churches, which were under their government, levelled with the ground, fled with many of the ordained clergy who had survived the perils of those times, and with the relics of the saints, into Wales, fearing lest, by the irruption of such numerous and terrible hosts of barbarians, the holy bones might be effaced from the recollection of men, if they did not withdraw them from the impending danger. A great many people also fled to Armorican Britain (Brittany), and abandoned the whole church of two provinces, namely, Loegria and Northumberland, which were thus stripped of their convents and left desolate. Some, however, of the bodies of the saints which lay reverently concealed in burying places, they covered with mounds of earth, to prevent them from exposure to the contempt of unbelievers. For the most valiant kings of the Angles and Saxons were most atrocious pagans, who thirsted for nothing more than to utterly subvert Christ and the worship of Christians. For if any church remained unhurt after the district was subjugated, it tended more to the confusion of the name of Christ than to his glory. For these unbelievers made there thirty temples to their own gods, and polluted the holy altars of God with their profane sacrifices. Therefore, the Britons abandoning the crown of the kingdom for many ages, that is to say, till the time of Cadwallon, whom Bede calls Cedwallus, never ceased from attacking uninterruptedly with civil wars that part of the country which remained to them, and which was subject not to one king, but to their tyrants.