The Saxon Period

The development of Roman Britain, after proceeding for three and a half centuries, was gradually checked by the weakness of the Roman power. As everyone knows, Rome had in the fifth century enough to do in defending the Continental portions of her empire without troubling about an outlying province like Britain. The Romans were compelled to leave Britain to its fate, and their legions had to quit its shores. But years before they went the Eastern and South-Eastern coast of the island had been harried by pirates of Teutonic race, “the second wave of the Aryans,” and a special officer had to be appointed to keep them in check. He was known as the Count (Comes) of the Saxon shore, ¹ and had command of a squadron and a line of nine forts extending from Brancaster on the Wash to Pevensey on the coast of Sussex. Besides these Saxon pirates, the Picts and Scots raided the country, venturing on one occasion (368 a.d.) as far south as the banks of the Thames, and, thus harassed both by sea and land, the unfortunate Britons might well cry out, “The barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea to the barbarians; we are massacred or must be drowned.”