These things had driven the wretched mother to a perfect phrensy of hate, and aroused her to this desperate struggle for redress and revenge.

But all was in vain.

In encountering the spears of Roman soldiery, she was encountering the very hardest and sharpest steel that a cruel world could furnish.

Her army was conquered, and she killed herself by taking poison in her despair.
By struggles such as these the contest between the Romans and the Britons was carried on for many generations; the Romans conquering at every trial, until, at length, the Britons learned to submit without further resistance to their sway.

In fact, there gradually came upon the stage, during the progress of these centuries, a new power, acting as an enemy to both the Picts and Scots; hordes of lawless barbarians, who inhabited the mountains and morasses of Scotland and Ireland.
These terrible savages made continual irruptions into the southern country for plunder, burning and destroying, as they retired, whatever they could not carry away.