Thus, by little and little, strangers became
mixed with the Islanders, and the savage
Britons grew into a wild bold people ; almost
savage, still, especially in the interior of the
country away from the sea where the foreign
settlers seldom went; but hardy, brave, and strong.
The whole country was covered with forests,
and swamps. The greater part of it was very
misty and cold. There were no roads, no
bridges, no streets, no houses that you would
think deserving of the name. A town w.is
nothing but a collection of straw-covered huts,
hidden in a thick wood, with a ditch all round,
and a low wall, made of mud, or the trunks of
trees placed one upon another. The people
planted little or no corn, but lived upon the
flesh of their flocks and cattle. They made no
covins, but used metal rings for money. They
were clever in basket-work, as savage people
often are ; and they could make a coarse kind
of cloth, and some very bad earthenware. But
in building fortresses they were much more
clever.
They made boats of basket-work, covered
with the skins of animals, but seldom, if ever,
ventured far from the shore. They made
swords, of copper mixed with tin ; but, these
swords were of an awkward shape, and so soft
that a heavy blow would bend one. They made
light shields, short pointed daggers, and spears
— which they jerked back after they had thrown
them at an enemy, by a long strip of leather
fastened to the stem. The butt-end was a
rattle, to frighten an enemy's horse. The
ancient Britons, being divided into as many as
thirty or forty tribes, each commanded by its
own little king, were constantly fighting with
one another, as savage people usually do ; and
they always fought with these weapons.
They were very fond of horses. The standard
of Kent was the picture of a white horse. They
could break them in and manage them wonder-
fully w r ell. Indeed, the horses (of which they
had an abundance, though they were rather
small) were so well taught in those days, that
they can scarcely be said to have improved
since ; though the men are so much wiser.
They understood, and obeyed, every word of
command ; and would stand still by them-
selves, in all the din and noise of battle, while
their masters went to fight on foot. The
Britons could not have succeeded in their most
remarkable art, without the aid of these sensible
and trusty animals. The art I mean, is the
construction and management of war-chariots
or cars, for which they have ever been cele-
brated in history. Each of the best sort of
these chariots, not quite breast high in front,
and open at the back, contained one man to
drive, and two or three others to fight — all
standing up. The horses who drew them were
so well trained, that they would tear, at full
gallop, over the most stony ways, and even
'ENGLAND UNDER THE ROMANS.
through the woods ; dashing down their mas-
ters' enemies beneath their hoofs, and cutting
them to pieces with the blades of swords, or
scythes, which were fastened to the wheels, and
stretched out beyond the car on each side, for
that cruel purpose. In a moment, while at full
speed, the horses would stop, at the driver's
command. . The men within would leap out,
deal blows about them with their swords like
hail, leap on the horses, on the pole, spring
back into the chariots anyhow ; and, as soon as
they were safe, the horses tore away again.
The Britons had a strange and terrible reli-
gion, called the Religion of the Druids. It
seems to have been brought over, in very early
times indeed, from the opposite country of
France, anciently called Gaul, and to have
mixed up the worship of the Serpent, and of
the Sun and Moon, with the worship of some of
the Heathen Gods and Goddesses. Most of its
ceremonies were kept secret by the priests, the
Druids, who pretended to be enchanters, and
who carried magicians' wands, and wore, each
of them, about his neck, what he told the igno-
rant people was a Serpent's egg in a golden case.
But it is certain that the Druidical ceremonies
included the sacrifice of human victims, the
torture of some suspected criminals, and, on
particular occasions, even the burning alive, in
immense wicker cages, of a number of men and
animals together. The Druid Priests had some
kind of veneration for the Oak, and for the
mistletoe — the same plant that we hang up in
houses at Christmas Time now — when its white
berries grew upon the Oak. They met together
in dark woods, which they called Sacred Groves ;
and there they instructed, in their mysterious
arts, young men who came to them as pupils,
and who sometimes stayed with them as long as
twenty years.
These Druids built great Temples and altars,
open to the sky, fragments of some of which are
yet remaining. Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain,
in Wiltshire, is the most extraordinary of these.
Three curious stones, called Kits Coty House,
on Bluebell Hill, near Maidstone, in Kent,
form another. We know, from examination of
the great blocks of which such buildings are
made, that they could not have been raised
without the aid of some ingenious machines,
which are common now, but which the ancient
Britons certainly did not use in making their
own uncomfortable houses. I should not won-
der if the Druids, and their pupils who stayed
with them twenty years, knowing more than the
rest of the Britons, kept the people out of sight
while they made these buildings, and then pre-
tended that they built them by magic. Perhaps
they had a hand in the fortresses too ; at all
events, as they were very powerful, and very
much believed in, and as they made and exe-
cuted the laws, and paid no taxes, I don't
wonder that they liked their trade. And, as
they persuaded the people the more Druids
there were, the better off the people woald be,
I don't wonder that there were a good many of
them. But it is pleasant to think that there are
no Druids, now, who go on in that way, and
pretend to carry Enchanters' Wands and Ser-
pents' Eggs — and of course there is nothing of
the kind, anywhere.
Such was the improved condition of the
ancient Britons, fifty-five years before the birth
of Our Saviour, when the Romans, under their
great General, Julius Caesar, were masters of all
the rest of the known world. Julius Caesar had
then just conquered Gaul ; and hearing, in
Gaul, a good deal about the opposite Island
with the white cliffs, and about the bravery of
the Britons who inhabited it — some of whom
had been fetched over to help the Gauls in the
war against him — he resolved, as he was so
near, to come and conquer Britain next.
So, Julius Caesar came sailing over to this
Island of ours, with eighty vessels and twelve
thousand men. And he came from the French
coast between Calais and Boulogne, " because
thence was the shortest passage into Britain ; "
just for the same reason as our steam-boats now
take the same track, every day. He expected
to conquer Britain easily : but it was not such
easy work as he supposed — for the bold Britons
fought most bravely ; and, what with not having
his horse-soldiers with him (for they had been
driven back by a storm), and what with having
some of his vessels dashed to pieces by a high
tide after they were drawn ashore, he ran great
risk of being totally defeated. However, for
once that the bold Britons beat him, he beat
them twice; though not so soundly but that he
was very glad to accept their proposals of peace,
and go away.
But, in the spring of the next year, he came
back; this time, with eight hundred vessels and
thirty thousand men. The British tribes chose,
as their general-in-chief, a Briton, whom the
Romans in their Latin language called Cassi-
vellaunus, but whose British name is supposed
to have been Caswallox. A brave general he
was, and well he and his soldiers fought the
Roman army ! So well, that whenever in that
war the Roman soldiers saw a great cloud of
dust, and heard the rattle of the rapid British
chariots, they trembled in their hearts. Besides
A CHILD 'S H1ST0R Y OF ENGLAND.
a number of smaller battles, there was a battle
fought near Canterbury, in Kent ; there was a
battle fought near Chertsey, in Surrey ; there
was a battle fought near a marshy little town in
a wood, the capital of that part of Britain which
belonged to Cassivellaunus, and which was
probably near what is now Saint Albans, in
:ire. However, brave Cassivellaunus
the worst of it, on the whole; though he
and his mia always fought like lions. _ As the
other Britisfi chiefs were jealous of him, and
were always quarrelling with him, and with one
another, he gave up, and proposed peace.
Julius Caesar was very glad to grant peace
easily, and to go away again with all his re-
maining ships and men. He had expected to
find pearls in Britain, and he may have found a
few for anything I know; but, at all events, he
found delicious oysters, and I am sure he found
tough Britons — of whom, I dare say, he made
the same complaint as Napoleon Bonaparte the
great French General did, eighteen hundred
years afterwards, when he said they were such
unreasonable fellows that they never knew when
they were beaten. They never did know, I be-
lieve, and never will.
Nearly a hundred years passed on, and all
that time, there was peace in Britain. The
Britons improved their towns and mode of life :
became more civilised, travelled, and learnt a
great deal from the Gauls and Romans. At
last, the Roman Emperor, Claudius, sent Aulus
Plautius, a skilful general, with a mighty force,
to subdue the Island, and shortly afterwards
arrived himself. They did little ; and Ostorius
Scapula, another general, came. Some of the
British Chiefs of Tribes submitted. Others
resolved to fight to the death. Of these brave
men, the bravest was Caractacus, or Caradoc,
who gave battle to the Romans, with his army,
among the mountains of North Wales. " This
day," said he to his soldiers, "decides the fate
of Britain ! Your liberty, or your eternal slavery,
dates from this hour. Remember your brave
ancestors, who drove the great Caesar himself
across the sea ! " On hearing these words, his
men, with a great shout, rushed upon the
Romans. But the strong Roman swords and
armour were too much for the weaker British
weapons in close conflict. The Britons lost
the day. The wife and daughter of the brave
Caractacus were taken prisoners ; his brothers
delivered themselves up ; he himself was be-
trayed into the hands of the Romans by his
false and base step-mother; and they carried
him, and all his family, in triumph to Rome.
But a great man will be great in misfortune,
great in prison, great in chains. His noble air,
and dignified endurance of distress, so touched
the Roman people who thronged the streets to
see him, that he and his family were restored to
freedom. No one knows whether his great
heart broke, and he died in Rome, or whether
he ever returned to his own dear country.
English oaks have grown up from acorns, and
withered away, when they were hundreds of
years old — and other oaks have sprung up in
their places, and died too, very aged — since the
rest of the history of the brave Caractacus was
forgotten.
Still, the Britons would not yield. They rose
again and again, and died by thousands, sword
in hand. They rose, on every possible occasion.
Suetonius, another Roman general, came, and
stormed the Island of Anglesey (then called
Mona), which was supposed to be sacred, and
he burnt the Druids in their own wicker cages,
by their own fires. But, even while he was in
Britain, with his victorious troops, the Britons
rose. Because Boadicea, a British queen, the
widow of the King of the Norfolk and Suffolk
people, resisted the plundering of her property
by the Romans who were settled in England,
she was scourged, by order of Catus a Roman
officer ; and her two daughters were shamefully
insulted in her presence, and her husband's
relations were made slaves. To avenge this
injury, the Britons rose, with all their might
and rage. They drove Catus into Gaul ; they
laid the Roman possessions waste ; they forced
the Romans out of London, then a poor little
town, but a trading place ; they hanged, burnt,
crucified, and slew by the sword, seventy thou-
sand Romans in a few days. Suetonius
strengthened his army, and advanced to give
them battle. They strengthened their army.
â– and desperately attacked his, on the field where
it was strongly posted. Before the first charge
of the Britons was made, Boadicea, in a war-
chariot, with her fair hair streaming in the wind,
and her injured daughters lying at her feet,
drove among the troops, and cried to them for
vengeance on their oppressors, the licentious
Romans. The Britons fought to the last ; but
they were vanquished with great slaughter, and
the unhappy queen took poison.
Still, the spirit of the Britons was not broken.
When Suetonius left the country, they fell
upon his troops, and retook the Island of
Anglesey. Agricola came, fifteen or twenty
years afterwards, and retook it once more, and
devoted seven years to subduing the country,
especially that part of it which is now called
Scotland; but, its people, the Caledonians,
ENGLAND UNDER THE ROMANS.
resisted him at every inch of ground. They
fought the bloodiest battles with him ; they
killed their very wives and children, to prevent
his making prisoners of them ; they fell, fight-
ing, in such great numbers that certain hills in
Scotland are yet supposed to be vast heaps of
stones piled up above their graves. Hadrian
came, thirty years afterwards, and still they
resisted him. Severus came, nearly a hundred
years afterwards, and they worried his great
army like dogs, and rejoiced to see them die,
by thousands, in the bogs and swamps. Cara-
calla, the son and successor of Severus, did
the most to conquer them, for a time ; but not
by force of arms. He knew how little that
would do. He yielded up a quantity of land to
the Caledonians, and gave the Britons the same
privileges as the Romans possessed. There was
peace, after this, for seventy years.
Then new enemies arose. They were the
Saxons, a fierce, seafaring people from the
countries to the North of the Rhine, the great
river of Germany on the banks of which the
best grapes grow to make the German wine.
They began to come, in pirate ships, to the sea-
coast of Gaul and Britain, and to plunder them.
They were repulsed by Carausius, a native
either of Belgium or of Britain, who was ap-
pointed by the Romans to the command, and
under whom the Britons first began to fight
upon the sea. But, after this time, they re-
newed their ravages. A few years more, and
the Scots (which was then the name for the
people of Ireland), and the Picts, a northern
people, began to make frequent plundering
incursions into the South of Britain. All these
attacks were repeated, at intervals, during two
hundred years, and through a long succession
of Roman Emperors and chiefs ; during all
which length of time, the Britons rose against
the Romans, over and over again. At last, in
the days of the Roman Honorius, when the
Roman power all over the world was fast de-
clining, and when Rome wanted all her soldiers
at home, the Romans abandoned all hope of
conquering Britain, and went away. And still,
at last, as at first, the Britons rose against them,
in their old brave manner ; for, a very little
while before, they had turned away the Roman
magistrates, and declared themselves an inde-
pendent people.
Five hundred years had passed, since Julius
Caesar's first invasion of the Island, when the
Romans departed from it for ever. In the
course of that time, although they had been the
cause of terrible fighting and bloodshed, they
had done much to improve the condition of the
Britons. They had made great military roads ;
they had built forts ; they had taught them how
to dress, and arm themselves, much better than
they had ever known how to do before ; they
had refined the whole British way of living.
Agricola had built a great wall of earth, more
than seventy miles long, extending from New-
castle to beyond Carlisle, for the purpose of
keeping out the Picts and Scots ; PIadrian had
strengthened it ; Severus, finding it much in
want of repair, had built it afresh of stone.
Above all, it was in the Roman time, and by
means of Roman ships, that the Christian
Religion was first brought into Britain, and its
people first taught the great lesson that, to be
good in the sight of God, they must love their
neighbours as themselves, and do unto others as
they would be done by. The Druids declared
that it was very wicked to believe in any such
thing, and cursed all the people who did believe
it very heartily. But, when the people found
that they were none the better for the blessings
of the Druids, and none the worse for the curses
of the Druids, but, that the sun shone and the
rain fell without consulting the Druids at all,
they just began to think that the Druids were
mere men, and that it signified very little
whether they cursed or blessed. After which,
the pupils of the Druids fell off greatly in
numbers, and the Druids took to other trades.
Thus I have come to the end of the Roman
time in England. It is but little that is known
of those five hundred years ; but some remains
of them are still found. Often, when labourers
are digging up the ground, to make foundations
for houses or churches, they light on rusty money
that once belonged to the Romans. Fragments
of plates from which they ate, of goblets from
which they drank, and of pavement on which
they trod, are discovered among the earth that
is broken by the plough, or the dust that is
crumbled by the gardener's spade. Wells that
the Romans sunk, still yield water ; roads that
the Romans made, form part of our highways.
In some old battle-fields, British spear-heads and
Roman armour have been found, mingled to-
gether in decay, as they fell in the thick pressure
of the fight. Traces of Roman camps overgrown
with grass, and of mounds that are the burial-
places of heaps of Britons, are to be seen in
almost all parts of the country. Across the
bleak moors of Northumberland, the wall of
Severus, overrun with moss and weeds, still
stretches, a strong ruin ; and the shepherds and
their dogs lie sleeping on it in the summer
weather. On Salisbury Plain, Stonehenge yet
stands : a monument of the earlier time when
the Roman name was unknown in Britain, and
when the Druids, with their best magic wands,
could not have written it in the sands of the
wild sea-shore.
CHAPTER II.
ANCIENT ENGLAND UNDER THE EAJEXY -AXONS.
HE Romans had scarcely gone away
from Britain, when the Britons be-
gan to wish they had never left it.
For, the Roman soldiers being gone,
and the Britons being much re-
duced in numbers by their long wars,
Picts and Scots came pouring in,
â– the broken and unguarded wall of
SeveruS, in swarms. They plundered the richest
towns, and killed the people ; and came back
so often for more booty and more slaughter,
that the unfortunate Britons lived a life of terror.
As if the Picts and Scots were not bad enough
on land, the Saxons attacked the islanders by
sea ; and, as if something more were still want-
ing to make them miserable, they quarrelled
bitterly among themselves as to what prayers
they ought to say, and how they ought to say
them. The priests, being very angry with one
another on these questions, cursed one another
in the heartiest manner ; and (uncommonly like
the old Druids) cursed all the people whom
they could not persuade. So, altogether, the
Britons were very badly off, you may believe.
They were in such distress, in short, that they
sent a letter to Rome entreating help — which
they called the Groans of the Britons ; and in
which they said, "The barbarians chase us into
the sea, the sea throws us back upon the bar-
barians, and we have only the hard choice left
us of perishing by the sword, or perishing by
the waves." But, the Romans could not help
them, even if they were so inclined ; for they
had enough to do to defend themselves against
their own enemies, who were then very fierce
and strong. At last, the Britons, unable to bear
their hard condition any longer, resolved to
make peace with the Saxons, and to invite the
Saxons to come into their country, and help
them to keep out the Picts and Scots.
It was a British Prince named Vortigern who
took this resolution, and who made a treaty of
friendship with Hengist and Hoksa, two Saxon
chiefs. Both of these names, in the old Saxon
language, signify Horse ; for the Saxons, like
many other nations in a rough state, were fond
of giving men the names of animals, as Horse,
Wolf, Bear, Hound. The Indians of North
America, — a very inferior people to the Saxons,
though— do the same to this day.
Hengist and Horsa drove out the Picts and
Scots; and VORTIGERN, being grateful to them
for that service, made no opposition to their
settling themselves in that part of England which
is called the Isle of Thanet, or to their inviting
over more of their countrymen to join them.
But Hengist had a beautiful daughter named
Rowena ; and when, at a feast, she filled a
golden goblet to the brim with wine, and gave
it to Vortigern, saying in a sweet voice, " Dear
King, thy health ! " the King fell in love with
her. My opinion is, that the cunning Hengist
meant him to do so, in order that the Saxons
might have greater influence with him ; and
that the fair Rowena came to that feast, golden
goblet and all, on purpose.
At any rate, they were married ; and, long
afterwards, whenever the King was angry with
the Saxons, or jealous of their encroachments,
Rowena would put her beautiful arms round
his neck, and softly say, " Dear King, they are
my people ! Be favourable to them, as you
loved that Saxon girl who gave you the golden
goblet of wine at the feast ! " And, really, I
don't see how the King could help himself.
Ah ! We must all die ! In the course of
years, Vortigern died — he was dethroned, and
put in prison, first, I am afraid ; and Row in v
died; and generations of Saxons and Britons
died ; and events that happened during a long,
long time, would have been quite forgotten but
for the tales and songs of the old Bards, who
used to go about from feast to feast, with their
white beards, recounting the deeds of their fore-
fathers. Among the histories of which they sang
and talked, there was a famous one, concerning
the bravery and virtues of King Arthur, sup-
posed to have been a British Prince in those old
times. But, whether such a person really lived,
or whether there were several persons whose
histories came to be confused together under
thai one name, or whether all about him was
invention, no one knows.
I will tell you, shortly, what is most interest-
ing in the early Saxon times, as they are de-
scribed in these songs and stories of the Bards.
In, anil long after, the days of Vortigern,
fresh bodies of Saxons, under various chiefs, came
1 louring into Britain. One body, conquering
the Britons in the East, and settling there, called
their kingdom Essex ; another body settled in
the West, and called their kingdom AYessex ;
the Northfolk, or Norfolk people, established
themselves in one place ; the Southfolk, or
ENGLAND UNDER THE EARL Y SAXONS.
Suffolk people, established themselves in an-
other ; an. I gradually seven kingdoms or states
arose in England, which were called the Saxon
Heptarchy. The poor Britons, falling back
before these crowds of fighting men whom they
had innocently invited over as friends, retired
into Wales and the adjacent country ; into
Devonshire, and into Cornwall. Those parts
of England long remained unconquered. And
in Cornwall now — where the sea-coast is very
gloomy, steep, and rugged — where, in the dark
winter-time, ships have often been wrecked close
to the land, and every soul on board has
perished — where the winds and waves howl
drearily, and split the solid rocks into arches
and caverns — there are very ancient ruins, which
the people call the ruins of King Arthur's
Castle.
Kent is the most famous of the seven Saxon
kingdoms, because the Christian religion was
preached to the Saxons there (who domineered
over the Britons too much, to care for what they
said about their religion, or anything else) by
Augustine, a monk from Rome. King Ethel-
bert, of Kent, was soon converted ; and the
moment he said he was a Christian, his courtiers
all said they were Christians ; after which, ten
thousand of his subjects said they were Christians