Cornwall. Thus the conquest of the interior was practically complete.
There still remained, it is true, the subjugation of the west; but the
west was brought under the English over-lordship by slow degrees, and in
a very different manner from the east and the south coast, or even the
central belt. Cornwall finally yielded under Æthelstan; Strathclyde was
gradually absorbed by the English in the south and the Scottish kingdom
on the north; and the last remnant of Wales only succumbed to the
intruders under the rule of the Angevin Edward I.

There were, in fact, three epochs of English extension in Britain. The
first epoch was one of colonisation on the coasts and along the valleys
of the eastward rivers. The second epoch was one of conquest and partial
settlement in the central plateau and the westward basins. The third
epoch was one of merely political subjugation in the western mountain
regions. The proofs of these assertions we must examine at length in the
succeeding chapter.




CHAPTER VII.

THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE ENGLISH SETTLEMENT.


It has been usual to represent the English conquest of South-eastern
Britain as an absolute change of race throughout the greater part of our
island. The Anglo-Saxons, it is commonly believed, came to England and
the Lowlands of Scotland in overpowering numbers, and actually
exterminated or drove into the rugged west the native Celts. The