In the field before the camp the prætorian bands were drawn up under arms. The followers of the British chief walked in procession. The military accoutrements, the harness, and rich colours, which he had gained in various battles, were displayed with pomp. The wife of Caractacus, his daughter, and his brother followed next; he himself closed the melancholy train. The rest of the prisoners, struck with terror, descended to mean and abject supplications. Caractacus alone was superior to misfortune; with a countenance still unaltered, not a symptom of fear appearing, no sorrow, no condescension, he behaved with dignity even in ruin." The address of the heroic Caractacus to the emperor was dignified and impressive: "If my moderation had been as great as my birth, Rome had seen me this day her ally and not captive, and perhaps she would not have disdained to rank in the number of her friends a prince royally descended, and who commanded many nations. My present condition is as dishonourable to me as it is glorious to you. I had arms, horses, riches, and grandeur. Is it strange that I should part with them unwillingly? Does it follow, because you have a mind to rule over all, that therefore every one must tamely submit? Had I sooner been betrayed to you, neither your glory nor my misfortune had been rendered so famous, and my punishment would have been buried in eternal oblivion. But now, if you preserve my life, I shall be a standing monument of your clemency to future ages." And the same writer concludes this affecting scene, so full of dramatic effect: "Claudius granted him a free pardon, and the same to his daughter, his wife, and his brother. Released from their fetters, they advanced to the tribunal where Agrippina shewed herself in state. They returned thanks to her, and paid their veneration in the same style as they had before addressed the emperor. A woman stationed amidst the ensigns and armies of Rome, presented a spectacle unknown to the old republic, but in an empire acquired by the valour of her ancestors, Agrippina claimed an equal share." So far the Romans. Of the resolute and determined struggles of the hapless Boadicea;1 of the many fruitless attempts of the Britons to throw off Roman servitude;2 of the fearless endeavours of Galgacus3 and Carbrid against discipline, and valour, and the bravest of commanders; of the precautions used by Severus1 to defend our island 1 Boadicea was widow of Prasutagus, king of the Iceni (Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire), and was a woman of high courage and invincible spirit. The indignities and insults which this loftyminded woman endured from the Romans, after the death of her husband, were sufficient to arouse to its fiercest pitch the "wild justice" of revenge. She was the English Joan of Arc, endowed with a dauntless heroism and unquenchable love of liberty. At length, in a pitched battle with the Romans under Paulinus, her troops were completely discomfited, and eighty thousand left dead on the field of battle. Boadicea destroyed herself with poison. 2 << Yet even in that distress, when enclosed in their fortifications, and nearly destroyed, and seeing no way to escape, they fought to the last, and gave signal proofs of heroic bravery."-Tacitus, lib. xii. 3 " Lastly, the two noble Scots, Carbrid and Galgacus, supporters in these extremities, leave them in Fame's register, never to be forgotten."-Prideaux, p. 276. + Severus died at York, February 5, A.D. 212, and is supposed to have been buried there. It is more from the Picts and Scots; and of the final departure of the Romans, in the reign of Honorius, to defend the empire against the invasions of Alaric the Goth; of these and other important national events we are unable to enlarge here; they will be found in the page of British history. To sum up briefly the result of these remarks: the Romans found us a nation of barbarians, they left us improved in arts, knowledge, and civilisation. But what Britain gained in ease and luxury1 was lost in fortitude and courage; and when the bulwark of probable his ashes would be sent to Rome, and interred in the tombs of the Antonines. It is asserted also, on a similar slender foundation, that Constantine the Great was born at York, A.D. 272. It is certain, however, that Constantius, father of Constantine the Great, died there about A.D. 307, after which the ceremony of the apotheosis, or deification, was conferred upon him, with all the splendour of Roman pageantry. "In this ceremony an eagle, the king of birds, was always confined near the summit of the funeral pile prepared for the deceased. When all was in a blaze, the eagle was liberated, and, as an emblem of the soul, soared beyond the reach of human eye, followed only by the smoke of the funeral pile, and the enthusiastic shouts and prayers of an innumerable and adoring multitude."-Allan's History of York, vol. i. p. 16. "The barbarians (Britons) so early as A.U.c. 822, A.D. 69, had acquired a taste for elegant and alluring vices."-Life of Agricola. And again: "To establish a plan of education, and give the sons of the leading chiefs Roman valour was removed, the Britons, once so warlike and courageous, were quite unable to sustain themselves against the incursions of their formidable neighbours. In this enervated condition did the Romans leave Britain in the reign of Valentinian, 476 years' after the first invasion of Julius Cæsar. Their army embarked under Gallio for the defence of Gaul and Italy; and having buried their treasures, and bereft England of the flower of her youth, they left her incapable of defending herself, and a prey to those barbarians of the north, who, yet unenfeebled by peace and voluptuousness, retained the courage and ferocity of their forefathers. "When the Romans had left none but half foreigners in our fields; none but gluttons and debauchees in our cities; Britain, robbed of the support of her vigorous youth, and the benefit of the liberal arts, became a prey to her neighbours, who had long marked her out for destruction. For immediately afterwards multitudes lost their lives by the incursions of the Picts and Scots; villages were burnt, cities demolished, and all things laid waste by fire and sword. The inhabitants of the island were greatly perplexed, and thought it better to trust to anything rather than a battle; some of them fled to the mountains; others, having buried their treasures (many of which have been dug up in our age), betook themselves to Rome for assistance." In such a deplorable condition was Britain left, after nearly five hundred years of the palmiest and most brilliant period of the Roman empire, and continual residence in the island. a tincture of letters, was a part of their policy. The Roman apparel was seen without prejudice, and the toga became a fashionable part of dress. By degrees the charms of vice gained admission to their hearts; baths, porticos, and elegant banquets, grew into vogue; and the new manners, which in fact served only to sweeten slavery, were by the unsuspecting Britons called the arts of polished humanity." This account was written about four centuries previous to the final departure of the Romans. The reader may readily imagine to what a wonderful height of splendour and luxury Britain must afterwards have attained. 1 Other dates are mentioned by Rapin, Bede, Gildas, and Stillingfleet; but I have preferred following Camden. 2 William of Malmesbury. D CHAPTER III. THE SAXONS. "Quin et Armoricus piratam Saxona tractus SIDONIUS APPOLLINARIS. HE Britons being released from the Roman jurisdiction in the reign of Honorius,' in the year of the invasion of Cæsar 476 (A.D. 421), the government and election of kings again fell into their own hands, and they became, as heretofore, an independent nation, living by their ancient laws, and enjoying their hereditary freedom. But in a short time the heat of liberty, like a feeble flame, gradually expired; the old spirit of sloth and effeminacy increased rapidly upon them; and that diligence, wisdom, courage, and patriotism, which had nobly sustained them in their fiercer struggles and more galling trials forsook them altogether. The ravages of the Picts and Scots, undeterred and unrepelled by the enervate, degenerate Britons, increased daily, and the whole island was overwhelmed by the most terrible calamities. In this strait the Britons earnestly entreated Rome for assistance, about the thirty-ninth year of the Emperor Theodosius. Their letters were addressed 1 For a list of the Roman emperors from the time of Claudius Cæsar to Honorius, see Samms, pp. 181, 182; also the Roman lieutenants who served in the island; and the succession of Saxon and British kings, including Shakspere's dramatic heroes, Leir, and Kymbelin or Cymbeline. 2 The Picts, it is probable, although Bede has supposed the contrary, were a portion of the ancient Britons, driven out in the wars of Agricola and Severus. It is certain that the habit of painting their bodies was common to both the Britons and Picts, and hence their name : They inhabited the eastern part of Scotland as far as the Grampian Hills. Bishop Stillingfleet agrees with Bede, that this people sprang direct from Scythia; but I cannot help agreeing with the weighty arguments of Camden in favour of their British or Celtic derivation. By the Scots were meant the Highlanders of Scotland, of Celtic origin, who passed over from Ireland, and eventually gave name to the country : "Totam cum Scotis Hibernem Movit, et infesto spumavit remige Thetis." The Scots remain pure and distinct at the present time; but the Picts have been displaced in the Lothians of Scotland by the Saxon race. The word is probably the same with the Gaelic scuit or scaoit, a wandering horde. to Ætius, the governor of Gallia, with this inscription: "To ÆTIUS, THRICE CONSUL, THE GROANS OF THE BRITONS. The barbarians drive us to the sea, and the sea drives us back upon the barbarians; and thus between two kinds of death we are either slaughtered or drowned. We, the poor remnant of the Britons, and your vassals, besides the enemy, are afflicted with famine and mortality, which at this time extremely rageth in our land." The Notwithstanding these urgent appeals, the Britons received no answer.1 Roman empire, like the British, was already toppling to its wane; the Huns and Vandals thundered for admittance at the gates of the imperial city, and the oncerenowned empress of the seven hills could now scarce sustain herself for a day against the innumerable swarms of barbarians, rushing onward to despoil the merciless despoiler of the universe of her ravished treasures." "Furthermore," says Samms," the sore of famine being healed in Britain, others more virulent broke out, riot, luxury, and wantonness, the usual attendants of fulness and plenty, and with them all vices incident to human nature. For, besides fornication, adultery, uncleanness, rapes, incest, the necessary companions of intemperance, contentions, strifes, civil discords arose amongst them; and they who had been feeble in repressing a foreign enemy, in vindicating their private animosities were eager and obstinate." Driven to desperation by the incessant inroads of his enemies, and still more perplexed by the furious cabals and discords of his own people, Vortigern, elected king of Britain A.D. 445, now turned his thoughts towards the Saxons,3 inhabitants, or, as Rapin writes, "masters," of Saxony, Westphalia, and all that part of the Low Countries lying north of the Rhine. 'See Camden's Britannia, vol. i. p. 130. Bede, however, asserts, contrary to the statements of Camden and Samms, that "the Romans declared to the Britons that they could not for the future undertake such troublesome expeditions for their sake, advising them rather to handle their weapons, and undertake the charge of engaging their enemies."-Bede, p. 38. 2 The emperor Theodosius was now hotly engaged in dangerous wars with Bledla and Attila, kings of the Huns; an ancient race, rude, savage, and barbarous, who formerly inhabited that part of Sarmatia bordering on the Palus Mæotis and the Tanais, the ancient boundary between Europe and Asia. 3 3 Rapin, after alluding to the supposed origin of the Saxons from "the tower of Babel," the Sacæ or Sassones of Asia, mentioned by Pliny, and from Persia, where it appears many words are still similar to the Saxon, proceeds to say: "but they that are willing to spare the pains of so laborious a search, are content to begin their history from the time of their coming forth from the Cimbrian Chersonesus. The Saxons had for some time been in possession of the Cimbrian Chersonesus; when driven thence by the Goths, they came and settled in Germany, in the parts now called Lower Saxony. The Angles joining with the Saxons when they came out of the Chersonesus to make conquests in Germany, became one and the same nation with them. Great numbers of Goths mixed likewise with them to share in their conquests. It can hardly be doubted that these three nations were united before their coming into Britain, when we consider the good understanding between them all the while they were employed in establishing themselves in the island. It will be found that they acted always in concert, that their interests never were different, and that the government settled by them is a clear evidence they looked upon themselves as one and the same people."-Rapin, vol. i. p. 27. |