of London, and sent him to preach baptism to the East Saxons; but we know that it was Æthelbert, King of Kent, who gave him his Bishop’s See. Bede also tells us that Æthelbert built the first church of St. Paul, and in the charter granted to it more than four and a half centuries later William the Conqueror specially mentions that the church was of Æthelbert’s foundation. Thus, in the year 457 we lose sight of Roman London in connection with a great victory of the Kentish people over the Britons at Crayford, and when we get the next historical glimpse it is in connection with Æthelbert, King of Kent, founding a Bishop’s See within the city. The inference to be drawn from these two historical statements is plain—viz., that some time between these two dates the Kentish people drove out the Britons, and took possession of the city. It may have been early or late, even as late as the early part of the time of Æthelbert himself, as Green supposes.[1]
It has been shown that the settlers in Kent must have been mainly Goths and Frisians, both maritime nations known to Bede under the general name of Jutes. It must have been the people of the Jutish race in Kent, assisted probably by emigrants from their former homes, who attacked and took Romano-British London. A great prize was theirs. We know nothing about its loot, but great loot there must have been—sufficient, no doubt, to attract a host of allies from the great shipping centre in the Baltic—Wisby, in the Isle of Gotland. The city became by conquest part of the Kentish dominion.
It would be out of place to discuss at any length how it was probably captured, but, considering that Goths, Frisians, and Wends were all maritime nations, and considering also how centuries later it was taken by the maritime Danes and Norwegians, there can be little doubt that a naval force on the Thames played an important part in its capture. Did the captors destroy it? There is no contemporary information, but, reasoning from
- ↑ Green, J. R., ‘Making of England,’ 109.
