In a like way, though Kemble's "Saxons in England" and Sir F.Palgrave's "History of the English Commonwealth" (if read with caution) contain much that is worth notice, our knowledge of the primitive constitution of the English people and the changes introduced into it since their settlement in Britain must be mainly drawn from the "Constitutional History" of Professor Stubbs.
Baeda's "Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum," a work of which I have spoken in my text, is the primary authority for the history of the Northumbrian overlordship which followed the Conquest.

It is by copious insertions from Baeda that the meagre regnal and episcopal annals of the West Saxons have been brought to the shape in which they at present appear in the part of the English Chronicle which concerns this period.
The life of Wilfrid by Eddi, with those of Cuthbert by an anonymous contemporary and by Baeda himself, throws great light on the religious and intellectual condition of the North at the time of its supremacy.

But with the fall of Northumbria we pass into a period of historical dearth.
A few incidents of Mercian history are preserved among the meagre annals of Wessex in the English Chronicle: but for the most part we are thrown upon later writers, especially Henry of Huntingdon and William of Malmesbury, who, though authors of the twelfth century, had access to older materials which are now lost.

A little may be gleaned from biographies such as that of Guthlac of Crowland; but the letters of Boniface and Alcwine, which have been edited by Jaffe in his series of "Monumenta Germanica," form the most valuable contemporary materials for this period.
From the rise of Wessex our history rests mainly on the English Chronicle.

The earlier part of this work, as we have said, is a compilation, and consists of (1) Annals of the Conquest of South Britain, and (2) Short Notices of the Kings and Bishops of Wessex expanded by copious insertions from Baeda, and after the end of his work by brief additions from some northern sources.