The title of this paper does not mean that I wish to propose to you any revolutionary opinions as to the character of the earliest English history. I shall not ask you to reconsider the evidence which has convinced generations of scholars of the Germanic character of Early English society and institutions. I shall not discuss the question whether Celtic tradition may have preserved fragments of true but neglected information relating to the age of the Saxon settlement. All that I propose is to ask whether a more exact analysis or a completer presentation of familiar materials is likely to confirm or to overthrow the reconstruction of Early English history which we have inherited from earlier scholars.