Note 216 — SCENE II.

Verstegan, in his "Restitution of Decayed Intelligence," 1634, p. 130, gives the following account of this transaction:—"King Hingistus prepared them a feast; and after the Brittains were well whitled with wine, he fell to taunting and girning at them; whereupon blowes ensued; and the Brittish nobility there present, being in all three hundreth, were all of them slaine; as William of Malmesbury reporteth: though others make the number more, and say that the Saxons had each of them a seax (a kind of crooked knife) closely in his pocket, and that at the watch-word, Nem cowr seaxes, which is, take your seaxes, they suddainely, and at unwares, slew the Brittaines."