I saw it myself, being right up in the van with the siege engines, under the walls. In its way it was more unpleasant even than a battle. The Saxon leader was a big man, blond like his father, and young. He appeared before Ambrosius stripped to his trews, which were of coarse stuff bound with thongs. His wrists likewise were bound, this time with a chain, and his head and body were smeared with dust, a token of humiliation he hardly needed. His eyes were angry, and I could see he had been forced into this by the cowardice—or wisdom, as you care to call it—of the group of Saxon and British notables who crowded behind him out of the city gate, begging Ambrosius for mercy on themselves and their families.

This time he gave it. He demanded only that the remnants of the Saxon army should withdraw to the north, beyond the old Wall of Hadrian, which (he said) he would count the border of his realm. The lands beyond this, so men say, are wild and sullen, and scarcely habitable, but Octa took his liberty gladly enough, and after him, eager for the same mercy, came his cousin Eosa throwing himself on Ambrosius’ bounty. He received it, and the city of York opened its gates to its new king.

Ambrosius’ first occupation of a town was always to follow the same pattern. First of all the establishment of order; he would never allow the British auxiliaries into the town; his own troops from Less Britain, with no local loyalties, were ones that established and held order. The streets were cleaned, the fortifications temporarily repaired, and plans drawn up for the future work and put into the hands of a small group of skilled engineers who were to call on local labour. Then a meeting of the city’s leaders, a discussion on future policy, an oath of loyalty to Ambrosius, and arrangements made for the garrisoning of the city when the army departed. Finally a religious ceremony of thanksgiving with a feast and a public holiday.

In York, the first great city invested by Ambrosius, the ceremony was held in the church, on a blazing day near the end of June, and in the presence of the whole army, and a vast crowd of people.

I had already attended a private ceremony elsewhere.