Nevertheless, a kernel of truth doubtless lingers in the traditional
story. Thanet was afterwards one of the first landing-places of the
Danes: and its isolated position–for a broad belt of sea then separated
the island from the Kentish main–would make it a natural post to be
assigned by the Welsh to their doubtful piratical allies. The inlet was
guarded by the great Roman fortress of Rhutupiæ: and after the fall of
that important stronghold, the English may probably have occupied the
principality of East Kent, with its capital of Canterbury. The walls of
Rochester may have held out longer: and the West Kentish kingdom may
well have been founded by two successful battles at the passage of the
Medway and the Cray.

The legend as to the settlement of Sussex is of much the same sort. In
477, Ælle the Saxon came to Britain also with the suspiciously
symmetrical number of three ships. With him came his three sons, Kymen,
Wlencing, and Cissa. These names are obviously invented to account for
those of three important places in the South-Saxon chieftainship. The
host landed at Kymenes ora, probably Keynor, in the Bill of Selsey,
then, as its title imports, a separate island girt round by the tidal
sea: their capital and, in days after the Norman conquest, their
cathedral was at Cissan-ceaster, the Roman Regnum, now Chichester: while
the third name survives in the modern village of Lancing, near Shoreham.
The Saxons at once fought the natives "and offslew many Welsh, and drove
some in flight into the wood that is named Andredes-leag," now the Weald
of Kent and Sussex. A little colony thus occupied the western half of
the modern county: but the eastern portion still remained in the hands
of the Welsh. For awhile the great Roman fortress of Anderida (now
Pevensey) held out against the invaders; until in 491 "Ælle and Cissa
beset Anderida, and offslew all that were therein; nor was there after