miserable countrymen as fast as bees to their hives, for fear of
an ensuing storm), being strengthened by God, calling upon him
with all their hearts, as the poet says,--"With their unnumbered
vows they burden heaven," that they might not be brought to utter
destruction, took arms under the conduct of Ambrosius Aurelianus,
a modest man, who of all the Roman nation was then alone in the
confusion of this troubled period by chance left alive. His
parents, who for their merit were adorned with the purple, had
been slain in these same broils, and now his progeny in these
our days, although shamefully degenerated from the worthiness
of their ancestors, provoke to battle their cruel conquerors,
and by the goodness of our Lord obtain the victory.

26. After this, sometimes our countrymen, sometimes the enemy,
won the field, to the end that our Lord might in this land try
after his accustomed manner these his Israelites, whether they
loved him or not, until the year of the siege of Bath-hill, when
took place also the last almost, though not the least slaughter
of our cruel foes, which was (as I am sure) forty-four years and
one month after the landing of the Saxons, and also the time of
my own nativity. And yet neither to this day are the cities of
our country inhabited as before, but being forsaken and overthrown,
still lie desolate; our foreign wars having ceased, but our civil
troubles still remaining. For as well the remembrance of such
terrible desolation of the island, as also of the unexpected
recovery of the same, remained in the minds of those who were
eyewitnesses of the wonderful events of both, and in regard
thereof, kings, public magistrates, and private persons, with
priests and clergymen, did all and every one of them live orderly
according to their several vocations. But when these had departed