The History of England: with a sketch of our Indian and Colonial Empire

Preface

. This book is by no means a mere expansion of my smaller British History. In structure and in style it is completely a new work, written not so much for school-boys as for senior students, and such general readers as may wish to view the panorama of the British Nation, unfolded within a space comparatively small. A broader canvas has given room for the introduction of figures, incidents, and details, which could find no place in the slighter sketch ; and, instead of adopting the common frame-work of division, afforded by the suc cession of Dynasties and Sovereigns, I have preferred, for the purpose of giving my readers a new and more comprehensive view of the subject, to select as central points and bases of division those colossal land-marks, which catch the eye at once as we look back along the nineteen centuries of our national existence.

But, in order to pre vent mistake or confusion, I have appended to each Book a copious Chronological Table, arranged according to Reigns and Royal Races, which, if carefully studied in connection with the text, will effectually preserve the symmetry and clearness of the plan. Thus, taking as the" subjects of successive chapters the Represent ative Men, who, towering above their generation, have embodied in themselves Its vital idea and achieved its grandest work, and those

PREFACE.

. Memorable Events, which, in their Causes and their Consequences, may be seen to ramify and germinate through many centuries, I have yet so shaped my treatment of the theme as to keep un broken the continuity and union of the various parts, and to fit into its proper place every incident and every name, that should be found in an English History of this size. I have divided the subject into Four Books, whose subdivisions will appear from the Table of Contents. The First Book, closing with the story of Magna Charta, deals with those Four Conquests, which brought the forces of Continental civilization to bear upon our island and filled it with the various races of men that gradually blended into a single and powerful nation. The Second, extending to the death of Elizabeth, depicts the nation undergoing the disci pline of childhood — learning the rudiments of self-government — learning by defeat and disaster the folly of seeking to found a Continental realm — learning to write books and print them — to sail upon the sea, and traffic with distant lands — and, above all, learning to choose, even in the face of stake and fagot, a form of the Christian faith, purer than that which Augustine apd his monks had planted on the Kentish shore.

The Third describes the grandeur and glory of a nation growing to maturity, leading the van in the march of civilization, and able, from the steady poise and undecaying strength of her Constitution, to confront storms which have shaken feebler neighbours to the dust, and in the hour of their peril and dismay to take her trembling foes to the tender shelter of her brave and faithful breast. The Fourth traces the bounds of our Indian and Colonial Empire, telling the story of our settlement in every clime,

PREFACE.

. V and so mingling scenic description with the history of human enterprise, as to portray with some clearness and colour both the victories of Emigration and the natural features of the scattered lands in which these triumphs have been won. I have not omitted chapters bearing upon English life at the various periods of the story ; and in writing these, of which many are based upon the researches of eminent antiquarians like Thomas Wright, I have tried to make them as vivid and pictorial as I could. The Dryasdust age in historical composition is gone ; and there is no reason why the splendid example, set by Macaulay in his famous Third Chapter, should not be followed by any writer, however small, who aims at producing a true picture of ages that are past. In conclusion I would say that this book is intended to follow my smaller volume in a course of historical study.

Let a student so thoroughly master the latter, that no other view of the subject can ever shake or confuse his knowledge of the relations and sequence of our Sovereigns ; and let him then proceed to take that wider and less usual survey afforded by the present volume. I believe that he will thus acquire a more complete and useful knowledge of our National History than can be got by any single view. W. F. C. February 1864. CONTENTS.

Book I. First Period

— THE CELTIC TIME. FROM THE EARLIEST AOES TO THE DEPARTURE OF OÆSAR IN 54 B.C. Chap. Page I. First Glimpses of Britain 1 IL The Two Failures of Julius Cæsar.... 4 Chap. Pago III. How the Ancient Britons lived 9 SECOND PERIOD.— THE ROMAN OCCUPATION. FROM THE DEPARTURE OF 0Æ8AR IN 64 B.O. TO THE LETTERS OF HONORIUS IN 410 A.D. I. Caractacus and Boadicea 16 II. Julius Agricola in Britain 19 III. The Roman Walls and Roads. 21 IV. The Relaxing Hold 24 V. Romanized Britain 26 THIRD PERIOD.— THE TEUTONIC SETTLEMENTS. FROM THE LETTERS OF HONORHJS IN 410 A.D. TO THE BATTLE OF THE WINDRDSH IN 752 A.D. I. Mythical 31 II. The Mission of Augustine 34 III. Edwin— Penda—Offa 36 FOURTH PERIOD.-THE SAXO-DANISH STRUGGLE. FROM THE BATTLE OF THE WINDRUSH IN 752 A.D. TO THE DEATH OF DUNSTAN IN 988 A.D. I. The Rise of Wessex 42 II.

Alfred the Great 44 III. Dunstan 51 IV. Life in Anglo-Saxon England 56 V. Government and Law In Anglo- Saxon England 62 FIFTH PERIOD.— THE NORSE CONQUESTS AND ASCENDENCY. FROM THE DEATH OP DUNSTAN IN 988 A.B. TO THE SIONATURE OF MAGNA OHARTA IN 1215 A.D. I. Sweyn and Canute 66 II. Earl Godwin and his Royal Son 73 III. The Rclcn of the Conqueror. 84 IV. Rufus— Beauclerc— Stephen 91 V. Becket 95 VI. The Norman Conquest of Ireland.... 104 VII. Richard of the Lion Heart 100 VIII. Magna Charta 115 IX Life and Law in Anglo-Norman England 121 Chronology of the First Book, arranged according to Races and Reigns CONTENTS.

Book II. First

PERIOD— THE BIRTH OF THE ENGLISH NATION. FROM THE SIGNATURE OF MAGNA OHARTA IN 1215 A.D. TO THE ATTACK ON CADSANT IN 1337 A.D. Chap. Page I. Simon de Montfort 134 II. Roger Bacon 140 III. The greatest of the Plantagenets.... 144 Chap. P»g« IV. Bannockburn 153 V. The Cinque Ports 159 VI. The Pilgrims of the Tabard Inn 163 SECOND PERIOD— THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE IN FRANCE. FROM THE ATTACK ON CADSANT IN 1337 A.D. TO THE DEATH OF TALBOT IN 1453 A.D. I. The Black Prince 169 II. Wat Tyler, a Man of the People 180 III. William of Wykeham 185 IV. The Percys and Glendower 188 V. Wycliffe and Lollardie 191 VI. Azincourt 197 VII. The Bursting of the French Bubble 203 VI1L London when Wlritington was Mayor 212 THIRD PERIOD.— THE CIVIL WAR OF THE ROSES. FROM THE DEATH OF TALBOT IN 1453 A.D. TO THE EXECUTION OF PERKIN WARBEOK IN 1499 A.D. I. The Kingmaker 221 IL William Caxton 228 Us.

Bosworth Field 230 IV. The Paston Letters 236 V. Thorns 'on a Withered Rose. 242 FOURTH PERIOD— THE AGE OF THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. FROM THE EXECUTION OF PERKIN WARBECK IN 1499 A.D. TO THE UNION OF THE CROWNS IN 1603 A.D. I. Cardinal Wolsey 249 II. The Founding of the Anglican Church 260 III. Elizabeth Tudor and her Statesmen 283 IV. A Notable Voyage Round the World 291 V. The Spanish Armada 296 VI. Merrie En gland e 301 Chronology of the Second Book 306

Book III. First

PERIOD— KING versus COMMONS. FROM THE UNION OF THE CROWNS IN 1603 A.D. TO THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION IN 1691 A.D. I. The British Solomon 314 II. Laud— Strafford— Hampden— Pym 324 III. Oliver Cromwell 344 . IV. Mob and Sham 367 V. The Second English Revolution 385 VI. Samuel Pepys taking Notes CONTENTS. IX SECOND PERIOD.-TIME OF THE JACOBITE PERILS. FROM THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION IN 1691 A.D. TO THE BATTLE OF CULLODEN IN 1746 A.D. Chap. Page I. William the Third 406 II. Marlborough and Mordaunt in the Field 413 III. The Treaty os Union 422 IV. The great Whig and Tory Fight.... 425 Chap. Page V. Sir Robert Walpole 429 VI. Dettingen and Fontenoy 448 VII. The Forty-Five 451 VIII. London Life in the Eighteenth Century 459 THIRD PERIOD.— THE SECOND STRUGGLE WITH FRANCE. FROM THE BATTLE OF CULLODEN IN 1746 A.D. TO THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO IN 1815 A.D. I. The Great Commoner 467 II.

Heroes of the Cotton Mill 477 III. Bnrke—Nelson—Pitt—Fox 481 IV. The Peninsula and Waterloo 503 FOURTH PERIOD.— HALF A CENTURY OF INVENTION AND REFORM. FROM THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO IN 1815 A.D. TO THE PRESENT TIME. I, The Later Days of Canning. 524 II. The Battles of Emancipation, Reform, and Abolition 530 III. The Stephensons— Father and Son... 536 IV. The Reign os Victoria. 539 V. A Cluster of Inventions, Discoveries, and Reforms 566 Chronology of the Third Book 573

Book IV. Our Indian And Colonial Empire

I. India 589 II. Minor Asiatic Colonies 609 III. European Colonies 612 IV. African Colonies 620 V. Australasian Colonies 629 VI. North American Colonies... 639 VII. South American Colonies 658 VIII. West Indian Colonies— 659 List of Works for Reference and Illustration HISTORY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

Chapter I. First Glimpses Of Britain

Tin. Sparks of light. Various races. The secret mines. The secret discovered. Mythical. Tin was the attractive thing which drew the first thin rills of civilization to our islands. Some stray Phœnician sailors, not improbably from Gades (Cadiz) on the Iberian coast, beating aimlessly about among the Biscay waves, saw, perhaps through clearing mist, shifting glimpses of a white shore, upon which they found abundance of this precious metal to he had almost for the picking up. Tin was really a precious metal then. The Homeric warriors had sought with weapons of bronze ; and for many centuries, until the art of tempering iron had reached some degree of forwardness, swords and spear-heads of mingled copper and tin continued to decide the battles of the ancient world. Temples too were adorned with bronze ; statues and urns were moulded of it.

Useful alike in peace and war, tin was much sought, and well paid for. We can therefore well understand the joy with which the restless money-seeking traders of Tyre and Carthage would learn the secret of these distant islands and their mines ; and the jealous caution with which the cunning old monopolists would conceal their approaches to the mysterious treasure-house. In this they were aided by nature. Girdled with an unknown sea, aijd curtained with treacherous grey mists, the Tin Islands long remained a shadowy name to the ancient world ; and from all the wealth of classic literature, before the day of Julius Cæsar, there can he gathered only two or three faint sparks of light to cast upon a mass of im penetrable darkness. (6) BRITAIN AS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS. Herodotus, the father of Greek history, writing about 450 B.C., knew no thing of these lands, but that they were islands, and that tin was found there.

Calling them Cassiterides (Tin Islands), he wrote all he knew of them in a single Greek word. Somewhat more definite is the knowledge of Aristotle ; but the added information we get from his notice looks small indeed, when we remember that it took one hundred years to expand the vague word of Herodotus into the scanty statement. " Beyond the Pillars of Hercules are two islands, which are very large, Albion and Ierne, called the Britannic,1 which lie beyond the Celtae." Here, for the first time in history, we have the number and the names of the islands which form the nucleus of our mighty empire. Polybius, writing about 150 B.C., notices the Britannic Isles, coupling with his mention of them a special reference to the working of tin. From the fragments of a geographical poem by Festus Avienus, who wrote in the fourth century, we gather a few facts about the voyage of an ancient mariner of Carthage, named Himilco.

Sailing from his native city, in less than four months he reached some islands, which he called the Œstrymnides. These (perhaps the Scilly Isles)2 abounded in tin and lead, but had no wood for ship-building, so that the inhabitants were forced to make boats out of hide. The Phœnicians were not allowed to drive their profitable trade without many attempts to trace the course of their vessels. So keenly was the tin hunt kept up on both sides, that once when a Roman cruiser was chasing a Carthaginian ship, the captain of the latter had no way of keeping the secret but by running upon a reef, and taking with his sailors to a raft. At last the well-kept mystery oozed out. Pytheas, a Greek of Marseilles, is said to have penetrated the unknown sea at a very early date. Others followed. The monopoly was broken ; and a trade in tin sprang up between the horn-shaped 1 Various derivations have been given for the word " Britain."

There is no certainty in the matter, except that this is one of the oldest names of the island. I give a few of the conjectural etymologies: — 1. From Brutus, son of Ascanius the Trojan.— (Chief authority, Geoffrey of Monmouth.) 2. From Prydain, an ancient king. — (Welsh Triads.) 3. From Britin, a plural word meaning " separated," given by the people of Gaul to their island kindred. — ( Wliitaker.) 4. From Britdaoine, the painted people; a name given by "the Phœnician Gallic colony" to the wild Scandinavian settlers.— (Sir William Betham.) 5. From Bruit, the Celtic for tin or metal, and tan, which has in many Indo-European tongues the meaning "land." Thus Bruit-tan would mean (like Cassiterides) Tinland. — (Pictorial History of England.) Albion, or Alhin, the oldest name of Great Britain, is explained to be a Celtic word, meaning " white island," used by the Gauls in speaking of the chalk-rocked land they saw to the north.

The words Albus and Alp probably contain the same root. Ierne and Iernis are the Greek forms of Eire, a Celtic word (of which the genitive is Eirin, or Erin) meaning "the west or the extremity." A certain western promontory of Africa, and another in Spain bore the same name. Juver nia and Hlbernia are formed from the same root. s St Michael's Mount, near which submerged islets can be traced, has also been supposed to represent the Œstrymnides. EARLY ETHNOLOGY. 3 promontory of south-western Britain and the opposite shore of Gaul. Then, as we learn from Diodorus Siculus, the metal was carried to an island "in front of Britain," named Ictis (probably Wight), was there sold and shipped for Gaul, to be carried on pack-horses overland to Marseilles and Narbona. The natural result of this commerce was to give a certain polish to those natives of Britain, who met often with the merchants of the Continent.

Grave courteous bearded men they were, carrying staves and wearing long black cloaks girt about the waist ; very unlike the wild inland men with blue tatooing on their naked limbs, from whom the popular notion of an ancient Briton is taken. In the dim old time, of which I am writing, our islands were peopled mainly by Celts, who formed the foremost wave of that Japhetic tide of population which set steadily westward from the plain of Babel.1 Sweeping along the Mediterranean shore, it spread northward through the west of Europe, until met by a slower and stronger wave — the German or Teutonic nations — which had pressed right on from the Black Sea through the centre of the continent ; and by this it was beaten farther and farther west, till, at last, only in the mountain lands on the very margin of the Atlantic could the Celts find a safe home.

There they have lingered to the present day. Settled in the centre of the southern shore of Britain — in the district between the English and the Bristol Channels, corresponding to the modern shires of Hants, Wilts, and Somerset — were the Belgae, a fierce and warlike tribe, who are thought to have been of Teutonic blood, and who kept up a close connec tion with their continental kindred. But the mass of the original population of the Britisli Isles was Celtic. In Ireland, as' might be expected from its being the extreme western outpost of Europe, the Celtic element was even then, as it still remains, purer and stronger than in the sister island. But all the Celts who inhabited ancient Britain were not of the same kind. A people called Cymri (Cimbri or Cimmerii), corresponding to the modern Welsh, held sway over the basin of the Clyde and adjacent districts, where their kingdom of Reged or Strathclyde flourished during the earlier Christian centuries.

The Erse or Gaelic races, represented by the Irish or the Highlanders of Scotland, probably preceded them in the possession of Wales.2 Gaulish tribes too lived in eastern Britain. And there may have been, besides these various Celtic peoples, a sprinkling of Saxons or Frisians, who had settled even before the landing of Cæsar on the eastern coasts. The early mythical story of Britain rests chiefly upon the Latin chronicle of Geoffrey of Monmouth,3 who professed to have translated an old manuscript brought over from Bretagne (Armorica). Of these wild and misty legends, out of which British history gradually dawned, I shall say little. Brutus, the 1 The Lapps and Finns— a race of gentle olive-cheeked black-haired dwarfs— may represent an earlier ripple of the same great flood. 2 Wales, from a Saxon word Wealfas, meaning " strangers," was otherwise called Cambria.

Tlic Welsh call themselves Cymri, a name which appears to connect them with the Cimbri. • This chronicler died about 1164 a.d. CÆSAR LOOKS ACROSS THE SEA. grandson of Trojan Æneas, lands among the giants, and mows them down with ease. A famous wrestler of his train hurls headlong from Dover Cliff the fierce Gogmagog, whose twelve cubits of stature could not save him from the deadly fall. Bladud reigns — one of a line of many kings— and bathes in the hot wells of Caerbad, whence modern Bath has sprung. Here and there, amid a crowd of flying phantoms, names with which we have grown familiar gleam out from the shadows. Lear alone is almost real, for a magic hand has touched him, and clothed him with imperishable light. Yet we must not ac cept Shakspere's picture of King Lear and his daughters as agreeing in all points with the account of the old chronicler.

It seems that the beggared discrowned king crossed to France, where his disowned daughter Cordelia had become the wife of a king. With the aid of her husband's troops she replaced her father on his throne ; and when he died, reigned after him for five years. Then, defeated by the sons of her wicked sisters, she is said to have slain herself. Shakspere's Cordelia is killed before her father dies.

Chapter II. The Two Failures Of Julius

CÆSAR. Bent on conquest. Anchor weighed. The landing. The fight among the corn. Return to Gaul. Second expedition. Cassibelan. British tactics. Repulse of the Britons. Passage ofthe Thames. Abandonment of Britain. Caesar's story. Eleven years before the bloody Ides of March, Julius Cæsar, one of the greatest soldiers the world has known, having fought his way through Gaul, looked over a narrow belt of sea upon the chalky shore of Britain. No Roman had ever landed there ; but there were few who had not then heard of the mysterious island, richly stored with pearls and tin, and peopled by a race who were no mean foes upon a battle-field. The sight of that gleaming coast-line — the fabled wealth of British rivers and rocks — the angry remembrance of those stalwart islanders, who, shoulder to shoulder with their Gaulish kinsmen, had rushed upon his marshalled legions, and bf others, who across the sea had given welcome and shelter to his flying foes — and, a motive perhaps stronger than all, the desire to achieve some brilliant exploit, grander than his Gallic triumphs now grown somewhat stale, — some exploit which should cast his rival, Pompey, completely into the shade, and crown his own sword with a laurel-wreath no Roman had ever worn before — all these things combined to root in Cæsar's breast the resolution of invading Britain.

The old campaigner wished to fling the shadow of his sword before him. Calling together, therefore, the chief merchants of the Gallic coast, he cross examined them about the people and the harbours of the opposite land.' He got no information from these cautious men; but, as he had no doubt intended THE FIRST LANDING OF CÆSAR. 5 them to do, the moment they left his presence, they sent the alarming news of the threatened invasion across to their island friends. Speedily there came back envoys from several of the tribes, who deprecated the wrath of the great soldier by humble offers of submission. But this did not stay the scheme. Despatching a cruiser to survey the coast and mark its vulnerable points, he brought the Tenth and Seventh Legions, many auxiliaries, and a picked body of cavalry down to Portus Itius,1 where eighty transports lay to receive them.

The return of the reconnoitreing galley was the signal for the start. Before dawn on an August morning the fleet weighed anchor and stood out from the harbour across the strait. By ten o'clock they were August 26, close to the white cliffs of the British shore, on which there swarmed, 5 5 thick as bees, black clouds of fighting men, ready to oppose the B.C. landing. The Roman cavalry had not yet arrived ; and, as the day wore on, and three o'clock came, Cæsar resolved on action without them. With a favouring breeze and tide he sailed eastward to a shelving strand, seven miles off, where it would be easier and safer to land. And as the darting galleys cut the sea, abreast of them on land, keeping pace with the sweeping oars, dashed the long lines of British horsemen and charioteers, so that when the landing-place — probably near Deal2 — was reached at last, and the galleys were driven prow foremost on the beach, the patriotic islanders presented a front as hold and threatening as when first the Romans saw their array of war upon the white rocks.

For some shameful moments the veterans of Cæsar hung back, dismayed. Sounding trumpets and waving standards were of no avail. The shaggy-locked giants on the shore rode into the waves with wheeling spears, and dared them hoarsely to come on. Still their laggard feet clung to the friendly decks, until an officer, who has won glory by the single act, the standard-bearer of the Tenth, leaped into the water with his eagle, crying, "Follow me !" The effect was electric. The next moment saw the whole army of brass-mailed men floundering breast-high in the surf, and struggling towards the shore against a forest of spears and amid a ceaseless rain of darts and stones. The fight was hard and long ; but Cæsar's men were used to conquer ; and the beaten islanders soon saw with sorrowful eyes their dreaded foe digging trenches for a camp upon the blood-stained shore.

Hard by upon the white rollers of the sea, now wearing another crimson than the seaweed's blush, floated a silent company of British and Roman dead — foes no more. Sadly the sun sank and the August evening fell. Next morning brought offers of submission from most of the neighbouring 1 Portus Itius or Iccius, afterwards called Gessoriacum, lay on or near the site of modern Boulogne.— (Wright.) Cæsar's army had mustered in the country of the Morini (the Pas-de- Calals). Witsand or Wissan, between Calais and Boulogne, has also been taken for Portus Itius. 3 The shore between Walraer and Sandwich appears the likeliest place for Cæsar's landing. Pevensey, Folkestone, Dover, have been also named. But nineteen hundred winters have so altered tho landmarks and outline of the coast, that it Is Impossible to fix the spot with any certainty.

THE SECOND LANDING OF CÆSAR. chiefs ; and the acceptance of these brought to the Roman camp the chiefs themselves, who flocked in to pay a hollow homage, and watch for a chance of retrieving their loss. The chance soon came. When, four days later, the ships which bore the much-desired cavalry hove in sight of the Roman camp, a storm arose that drove them back to Gaid, and shattered terribly the entire fleet. Quietly the British chiefs slunk away, and mustered their men for a dash. It was the end of the harvest time, and one field of corn still stood uncut, not far from the Roman camp. The Seventh Legion, sent out to reap it — supplies were very scanty in the Roman tents — were beset by a host of horsemen and charioteers, who had stolen on them under cover of the woods. A cloud of dust, rising from the trodden ground, told the sentinels at the camp that something more than harvesting was going on.

Cæsar hurried to the spot with fresh troops : it took all his generalship to save from utter ruin the beleaguered reapers, and to carry them safely back to camp. Drunk with success, the Britons followed him to his trenches ; but this was a great mistake. Foiled and broken, they were forced to flee into the woods ; and from these leafy fortresses they sent out again their petitions for peace. Cæsar was very glad to grant their prayer. He had had eighteen or twenty days of British warfare, and thought it quite enough for the present. However, not to imperil his assumed dignity as a conqueror, he insisted on receiving from the suppliant chiefs double the number of hostages before agreed on. The demand was merely an empty form, for in his hurry back to Gaul he found it convenient to forget that he had ever made it, and sailed away from the island without having received a single man. - What Cæsar thought of British soldiers may be judged from the preparations of the fullowing summer.

Eight hundred transports rode at anchor to receive five legions and two thousand horse — an army of at least 32,000 men. Landing on the Kentish shore at a place selected the year before, and probably not far from the scene of his first struggle with the natives, be found the tactics of the Britons completely changed. No one opposed his landing; there was no foe in sight. But from some peasants or fishermen, brought that evening to his camp, he learned that, about twelve Roman miles away, upon a river— no doubt the Stour — the British forces awaited his approach. Leaving a guard in the camp, he moved at once to the spot, where huge heaps of felled trees blocked up every approach to the stronghold. The Romans succeeded in forcing the rude defences, but not until they had cast up a mound against the barricade, aud climbed it under cover of their shields, which they lapped together in the form called testudo, from its resemblance to the shell of a tortoise.

At this critical time came news of a terrible storm which had wrecked many of the Roman ships and crippled all the rest. Again the elements were fighting on the British side. Cæsar must go back to camp. All thoughts of following up the blow just given must yield to this pressing danger, for the fleet was all-important, as the only base of operations on which the Romans CASSIBELAN. 7 could rely. Ten days were, therefore, spent in patching the ships, hauling them up on the beach, and drawing round them a line of defence, which joined them to the camp. These ten days were precious to the Britons. Taught by their reverses, they saw that internal quarrels must be forgotten in the presence of the Romans ; and that, unless all were to perish, all must unite in fighting the battles of the island. Thickest woods and widest marshes could not save scattered and disunited tribes, which would be easily defeated in turn by the advancing legions.

There must be a single army and a single chief. All eyes turned to Cassibelan, whose territoiy lay probably in Hertfordshire, and who was well known as the terror and the scourge of those neighbours who resisted his will. He was the very man for the great emergency ; and in ninety days of brilliant and not unprofitable struggle with his well-skilled foe, this earliest of British soldiers won a name that cannot die. Never had Romans fought with so daring and so strange a foe. The time or manner of their attack there was no foreseeing. They dashed out from a wood upon the passing Romans, struck their sharp quick blows, and, before the heavy-armed legionaries had quite prepared for battle, the wood had swallowed them up again. A distant cloud of dust, springing suddenly up, would sweep nearer with whirlwind speed, and out from its centre would burst a rattling charge of wooden cars, drawn by small wiry horses, filled with giant spearmen, and armed, it is said, with huge scythes or hooks1 projecting from the wheels, which tore a bloody lane through ranks hardy enough to await the onset.

Right through the Roman march they would go, and vanish as they came, leaving maimed and dead to mark their ghastly track. The Britons never met Cæsar in regular battle-array, for they knew that in a pitched battle they could not cope with men whose lives had been devoted to scientific warfare, and that their only hope of victory lay in wearing out the patience of the foe by incessant surprises,— a thing which their know ledge of every hill and valley, bush and cliff, made easy to them. Yet we would be doing injustice to these gallant men, if we forgot that their tactics and their knowledge of camp-making extorted wonder aud praise even from Cæsar, whose brilliant laurels they somewhat dimmed. The confederate British army had mustered south of the Thames under the command of Cassibelan, during the ten days spent by Cæsar in repairing and fortifying his fleet.