Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England

CHAP. XIII. How in the reign of Theodosius the younger, in whose time Palladius was sent
to the Scots that believed in Christ, the Britons begging assistance of Aetius, the consul, could
not obtain it. [446 A.D.]
In the year of our Lord 423, Theodosius, the younger, the forty-fifth from Augustus, succeeded
Honorius and governed the Roman empire twenty-six years. In the eighth year of his reign, Palladius
was sent by Celestinus, the Roman pontiff, to the Scots that believed in Christ, to be their first
bishop. In the twenty-third year of his reign, Aetius, a man of note and a patrician, discharged his
third consulship with Symmachus for his colleague. To him the wretched remnant of the Britons
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The Venerable Bede
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England

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sent a letter, which began thus :—"To Aetius, thrice Consul, the groans of the Britons." And in the
sequel of the letter they thus unfolded their woes:—" The barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea
drives us back to the barbarians: between them we are exposed to two sorts of death; we are either
slaughtered or drowned." Yet, for all this, they could not obtain any help from him, as he was then
engaged in most serious wars with Bledla and Attila, kings of the Huns. And though the year before
this Bledla had been murdered by the treachery of his own brother Attila, yet Attila himself remained
so intolerable an enemy to the Republic, that he ravaged almost all Europe, attacking and destroying
cities and castles. At the same time there was a famine at Constantinople, and soon after a plague
followed; moreover, a great part of the wall of that city, with fifty-seven towers, fell to the ground.
Many cities also went to ruin, and the famine and pestilential state of the air destroyed thousands
of men and cattle.
CHAP. XIV. How the Britons, compelled by the great famine, drove the barbarians out of