Chronicle of the Kings of England

hdr Conatantine, greeted emperor by the army, \etl nvay. in an ejcpedition destined to the cotilioent. a niuuerous force of British soldiers j by whose eiertions, the war Buoce«diiig to his wishes, he gained in a short time the summit of power. For theae veterans, when their toil was over, he founded a colony on the western coast of Gaul, where, to ihia day, their descendants, somewhat degenerate in Eangiia and manners from our own Britons, rpmnin with woijUerful increase.”

In succeeding timet . L, Maximuit, a man well-fitted for command, ha< nut aspii«d to power in defiance of his oatha assumed the purple, as though compelled by the army, and preparing immediately to pass over into Gaul, he despoiled the province of almost all its military force. Not long after also, one Constantine, •■■ho had been elected emperor on account of hi led its whole remaining warlike strength; but lain, the one by TheodufflUB, the other by Honi. became examples of th? instability of human grearaess. vtf the forces which hiid followed them, part shared the fnte of Iheir leaders; the rest, after their defeat, fled to the continental Britons. Thus when the tyrants had left none hut half-savages in the country, tind, in the towns, those only who were given up to luxury, Britain, despoiled of the support of its youthful population, and bereft of every useful art, was for a long time exposed to the ambition of neighbouring nations.