homes. The remains of the Britons, abandoning the greatest part of the island, took refuge in the western parts, Cornwall and Wales, whence they made fierce and incessant attacks on their enemies. At this time the archbishops, Theon of London, and Thadioceus of York, with others of their order who survived the general confusion, seeing all their dependent churches levelled with the ground, fled with the relics of the saints into Wales ; fearing lest by the violence of the barbarians the sacred bones of the ancients might be destroyed from the memory of men, if they did not withdraw them from the danger. Many also went over into Brittany, leaving the entire church of two provinces, Loegria and Northumberland, wholly destitute of its clergy. They raised mounds of earth on certain bodies of the saints which had been reverently entombed, that they might not be exposed to the profanations of the infidels. For the kings of the Angles or Saxons were most undaunted warriors and fierce pagans, who thirsted for nothing so much as for the subversion of Christ and Christian worship ; and if, on subjugating the land, they preserved any churches from injury, they did it to the confusion of Christ's name, and not to his glory ; for converting them into heathen temples, they polluted God's holy altars with their sacrifices. The Britons were for a long season without the royal diadem, until the days of Cadwallon, whom Bede calls Cedwalla; and in the meanwhile, that part of their country which remained to them, was torn with civil wars, and was subject to three tyrants instead of one king. The miserable remnant of the Britons therefore settled in three provinces, namely, Cornubia, or, as it is called by some, Cornwall, because it stretches into the sea like a horn; Demecia, or South-Wales; and Venedocia, or North-Wales. Shut up within these limits, though much against their will, they never forsook the faith of Christ ; but in this alone are they to be blamed, that they ever, even to this very day, cherish a deadly hatred towards the English, whom they esteem no better than dogs, with whom they would as willingly hold intercourse. These provinces of theirs are impregnable, being set with dense forests, environed with deep marshes, and broken with high mountains ; and from thence they break forth like mice from their holes, and cruelly harass the English, for whose redemption, when taken in war,