At all events, the power of Hengist and Horsa gradually increased, as years passed on, until the Britons began to be alarmed at their growing strength and multiplying numbers, and to fear lest these new friends should prove, in the end, more formidable than the terrible enemies whom they had come to expel.  Contentions and then open quarrels began to occur, and at length both parties prepared for war.  The contest which soon ensued was a terrible struggle, or rather series of struggles, which continued for two centuries, during which the Anglo-Saxons were continually gaining ground and the Britons losing; the mental and physical superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race giving them with very few exceptions, every where and always the victory.

There were, occasionally, intervals of peace, and partial and temporary friendliness.  They accuse Hengist of great treachery on one of these occasions.  He invited his son-in-law, King Vortigern, to a feast, with three hundred of his officers, and then fomenting a quarrel at the entertainment, the Britons were all killed in the affray by means of the superior Saxon force which had been provided for the emergency.  Vortigern himself was taken prisoner, and held a captive until he ransomed himself by ceding three whole provinces to his captor.  Hengist justified this demand by throwing the responsibility of the feud upon his guests; and it is not, in fact, at all improbable that they deserved their share of the condemnation.

The famous King Arthur, whose Knights of the Round Table have been so celebrated in ballads and tales, lived and flourished during these wars between the Saxons and the Britons.  He was a king of the Britons, and performed wonderful exploits of strength and valor.  He was of prodigious size and muscular power, and of undaunted bravery.  He slew giants, destroyed the most ferocious wild beasts, gained very splendid victories in the battles that he fought, made long expeditions into foreign countries, having once gone on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to obtain the Holy Cross.  His wife was a beautiful lady, the daughter of a chieftain of Cornwall.  Her name was Guenever.[1] On his return from one of his distant expeditions, he found that his nephew, Medrawd, had won her affections while he was gone, and a combat ensued in consequence between him and Medrawd.  The combat took place on the coast of Cornwall.  Both parties fell.  Arthur was mortally wounded.  They took him from the field into a boat, and carried him along the coast till they came to a river.  They ascended the river till they came to the town of Glastonbury.  They committed the still breathing body to the care of faithful friends there; but the mortal blow had been given.  The great hero died, and they buried his body in the Glastonbury churchyard, very deep beneath the surface of the ground, in order to place it as effectually as possible beyond the reach of Saxon rage and vengeance.  Arthur had been a deadly and implacable foe to the Saxons.  He had fought twelve great pitched battles with them, in every one of which he had gained the victory.  In one of these battles he had slain, according to the traditional tale, four hundred and seventy men, in one day, with his own hand.