Of the origin of the Saxons, whose aid the Britons are said to have sought after the departure of the Romans, nothing is distinctly known, except that they had, for some time previously, made themselves masters of the territory lying between the Elbe and the Rhine, pushing forwards their conquests or occupation of the country as far as the coasts of Zealand, part of the present kingdom of Holland. Their occupation of England was probably exceedingly gradual, the south and east having been early peopled with these strangers, so that the so-called Saxon conquest was really, therefore, rather the slow result of their increasing numbers than of such a development of military or naval genius as is seen in the later inroads of the Danes or of William the Norman.
