[Illustration: TREATY OF HENGIST AND HORSA WITH VORTIGERN. (_See p._ 27.)]
Northumbria was also an Anglian settlement, with an admixture of Frisians, on the banks of the Forth. We know little, however, of the manner in which the two great divisions grew up--Bernicia, including the whole of the country from the Forth to the Tees, with Edinburgh as its capital; and Deira, founded by Ida in 547, answering, roughly speaking, to Yorkshire, with York as its chief town. These two kingdoms were sometimes united under one king; sometimes separate. The first king over all Northumbria was Ethelfrith (600). It is important to notice that the Lowland Scots are as purely English as the people of London; and, curiously enough, we are in ignorance of the date when the present boundary line between the two kingdoms became in any way fixed. The separation probably did not occur before the time of Canute the Dane.
The last of the English kingdoms to be formed was that of Mercia, the march or border-land. It probably owed its origin to the gradual combination of a number of smaller kingdoms, and extended over the greater part of the midlands.
Thus was founded what is sometimes called the Heptarchy; but wrongly so: in the first place, because the word does not mean "seven kingdoms," but "the rule of seven persons;" and in the second, because the number of kingdoms in England was never fixed, but was sometimes fewer than seven, sometimes more. It will be noticed that the Britons, or Welsh, still had possession of an unbroken territory, extending over the whole of the west of England and Scotland. It included Devon, Cornwall, and the greater part of Somerset, the whole of the country west of the Severn, part of Chester, Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland, and the whole of the south-west of Scotland, which was called the kingdom of Strathclyde. The Celtic inhabitants of the Scottish Highlands were also unsubdued; and for many years the English fought against the Welsh and between themselves.
The first of the Anglo-Saxon or English kingdoms (to give them the more generally accepted title) to acquire a definite superiority was that of Kent; but it soon gave way to the rising power of Northumbria. Nevertheless, the period of Kentish ascendency is one of great importance, for it witnessed the conversion of England to Christianity. Ethelbert, who reigned from 560 to 616, was the first prominent English king after the various sovereignties had taken shape and consistency. He married a Christian princess, Bertha, the daughter of Charibert, king of the Franks. But although she was allowed to exercise her religion, it does not appear that the new faith made any sensible progress until, in the year 597, Pope Gregory the Great determined to send a monk, named Augustine, to preach the Gospel in the land of the heathen English. The beautiful story of the means by which Gregory's attention was called to this distant land is well known. Before he became Pope, it chanced one day that he was walking in the market-place at Rome and saw some fair boys exposed for sale as slaves. His curiosity aroused, he asked of what nation they came. "They are _Angles_," was the reply. "_Non Angli sed Angeli_" ("They are not Angles, but angels"), said Gregory, "and should be the co-heirs of the angels in heaven. But of what tribe are they?" "Of Deira." "Then must they be delivered _de ira Dei_ (from the wrath of God). And who is their king?" "Ella," was the answer. "Then," said Gregory, "shall _Alleluia_ be sung in his land."