The History of Huddersfield and its vicinity

Chapter I

Physical features — Some place names — The Brigantes — Evidences of their settlement — Celtic relics at Cupwith Hill — At Woodsome — At Pike-Law — At High-Flatts — Altar to God of the Brigantes — Of the Celts — Voyage of Pytheas — Expeditions of Julius Cæsar — His account of the Celts — The Druids — The Triads — Dr. Nicholas on the Ancient Britons — Roman Rule in Britain — Agricola's account — Roman roads — Roman garrisons — Camp at West Nab — Roman altar discovered at Slack (Cambodunum) — Discoveries of Dr. Walker — Roman hypocaust at Slack — Explorations at Slack — Evidences of camp there — Schedule of coins found at Slack — Influence of Roman settlement — On government — On industries — On speech — Philological indications.

Chapter II

The withdrawal of the Romans — Saxon influx — Evidences of Saxon settlement — Character of the Saxons — The Danes — Evidences of their settlement — Introduction of Christianity — Paulinus — Conversion of Edwin — Church at Cambodunum — Other Christian stations — Destruction of Church at Cambodunum — Of the Normans — Invasion of William the Conqueror — Ilbert de Laci — The feudal tenure — Domesday Book — Huddersfield and adjacent places in Domesday Book — Economic and social life of this period — The Villans — The Boardars — Common land — The descent of the Laci manor — The Earl of Lancaster —Richard Waley, Lord of Honley — The Elland Feud — Robin Hood — The Lord of Farnley and Slaithwaite — Execution of Earl of Lancaster — Forfeiture of Laci Manors to the Crown — Acquisition by the Ramsden family — Other and part owners — Colinus de Damelvill — Fules de Batona — John d' Eyville — Robert de Bellomonte — John del Cloghes — Richard de Byron — The Byron family in Huddersfield — Purchase by Gilbert Gerrard, temp. Elizabeth. See appendix.

Chapter III

The condition of the general people under the Normans — Norman castles — Baronial oppression — Almondbury Castle — The Lord's Hunting-ground at Marsden — Deanhead Chase — The Dog Kennels — Tragedy at Almondbury Castle — Inquisition of Edward I. — The unjust steward — The Constable of Almondbury — The Inquisition of Edward III. — Ancient dyehouse and fulling mill— Price of provisions— Wages— First traces of woollen industry- The free tenants— The villeins — The term tenants— Their services— The custom of Lytherwythe— Chevage — The Saxon hind— The Lord's Mill— Inquisition of Elizabeth — King's Mill — Encouragement of manufactures by Edward III. — Early weavers— The aulnager— Decay of villanage under com merce — Legislative protection of woollen industry — 19 Eliz. 3 Carl II. : Burial in woollens — Statute of Philip and Mary — The wool-driver — Earnings of early weavers.

Chapter IV

The Subsidy Roll of Richard II. (1379) — Population and Poll Tax of Hoderfeld, Almanbury, Ffarnelay Tyas, Whytelay, Byrton, Heton, North Crosseland, Crosseland fosse, Querenby, Hauneley, Meltham, Holmfirth, Slaxthwayt — Summary — The Subsidy Roll of Henry VIII. (1523) — Population and assessment of Huddersfield-cum-Bradley, Almondburry, Whitlay, Fernelay Tyas, Kirkburton, Kirkheaton, Crosland, Wharneby (Quarmby), Honlay, Meltham, Holmefyrth, Slaghtwatt, Marsden — Summary.

Chapter V

The Parish Church of Almondbury, All Saints' — The Mother Church at Dewsbury, founded by Paulinus — All Saints' erected about 1 100 — The advowson in the Laci family — The College of Jesus at Rotherham — Will of Archbishop Scot — The tithes — The Parsonage House — Property of the Church — List of rectors and vicars — Certain extracts from the parish registers — The Plague — Extracts from churchwardens' accounts — Penance — Communion wine — The bells — Interior of the Church — The Kaye Chapel — The Beaumont Chapel — Monuments of the Fenay family — Of the Kaye family — Churches sprung from All Saints' — Controversy as to Vicarage of Meltham — The faculty for celebrating mass at Honley — The Church quartered. See also appendix.

Chapter VI

The foundation of the Parish Church of Huddersfield by Walter de Laci — Advowson granted to Nostell Priory — Deed of Ordination of Michael de Wakefield — Its confirmation — Valuation temp. Edw. I. — Visitation temp. Henry VIII. — The Chantries — Early valuation — Dissolution of the Monasteries — Advowson acquired by William Ramsden— List of vicars — The Rev. Henry Venn — The Rev. Harcar Crook — The Highfield Schism — Monuments in the Church — Mr. Coates's School — Population in 1819 The Rev. Gabriel Raynes — The Rev Edmund Hill — The Rev. Thomas Clarke — The Rev. Josiah Bateman — The vicarage The Church of St. Thomas — The consecration and non-consecration of the Cemetery — Certain monuments and inscriptions — The Brookes of Newsome — The Wilkinsons of Greenhead — Sir J. L. Kaye — Extracts from the parish registers — The first Huddersfield Pauper (n.)— Visit of the Somerset Herald— Of the Rev. Joseph Hunter — Re-erection in 1836 — The value of the living — The late G. W. Tomlinson.

Chapter VII

The Priory of Kirklees — The Cistercian Order — Their habit and discipline — Grant by Rayner le Fleming — Elizabeth de Staynton — List of Lady Superiors — Their oath — Various endowments — The advowson of Mirfield Church — Grant of a female serf — Survey of Henry VIII. -Robin Hood — Dissolution of the Priory — Papist Hall — The Armytage family.

Chapter VIII

Education in early times — Establishment and endowment of Grammar Schools — The Kaye grant —The Chapel of St. Helen — The Charter of King James I. to the Almondbury Grammar School — Statutes of the governors — Course of study — Other benefactors — The Nettleton Trust — Robert Nettleton — Monument and residence — The Wormald Trust — Israel Wormald — His house — Present scheme of government — Visitor and governors — Scholarships — Petition for original Charter — List of governors — List of head masters — Some scholars.

Chapter IX

The Beaumont family — Whitley-Beaumont — William de Bellomonte — Sir Richard de Bellomonte— Sir Robert de Bellomonte — Sir John de Bellomonte — John de Bellomonte — Robert de Bellomonte — Henry de Bellomonte — Henry Beaumont — Richard Beaumont — His will — Thomas Beaumont — Richard Beaumont — Richard Beaumont — Edward Beaumont — Sir Richard Beaumont — Monuments in Kirkheaton Church — Sir Thomas Beaumont — The Civil War — Siege of Sheffield Castle— Adam Beaumont — Richard Beaumont — Richard Beaumont — Richard Beaumont — Henry Beaumont — Richard Beaumont — Richard Henry Beaumont — John Beaumont — Charles Henry Beaumont — Richard Henry Beaumont — Henry Frederick Beaumont — Beaumont Park — Woodsome Hall — Henricus Teutonicus — Sir Baldwin Teutonicus — Sir Francis Tyas— -Laurence Kay — Lawsuit for Manor of Slaithwaite — The Finchenden family — Pedigree of the Kayes of Woodsome — The Woodsome manuscript — Arthur Kaye — Denby Grange — Slaughwaite Hall — The Manor House at Slaithwaite — Pole Chapel — John Kaye of Woodsome — Robert Kaye — John Kaye — Sir John Kaye — The Civil Wars — Sir John Kaye — Parliamentary elections — Sir Arthur Kaye — His marriage — Sir X HUDDERSFIELD AND ITS VICINITY.

John Lister-Kaye— Sir John Lister-Kaye of Denby Grange- John Lister-Kaye— Sir John Lister Lister-Kaye— Sir John Pepys Lister-Kaye— The Legge family— William Legge— The Civil Wars— Honest Will Legge— Baron Dartmouth— William Legge, second Baron and first Earl— Marriage of Viscount Lewisham and daughter of Sir Arthur Kaye— William, second Earl of Dartmouth — His friendship with John Wesley — George, third Earl — William, fourth Earl — Some correspondence of William Walter, fifth Earl — Enfranchisement of Slaithwaite estates — The present Earl — Woodsome Hall.

Chapter X

The Ramsden family — Robertus de Wodde — The Woddes of Longley — John Ramsden of Longley Hall — William Ramsden — Deed of Purchase of the Huddersfield Estates — Bay Hall — Sir John Ramsden — The Civil Wars — William Ramsden — Sir John Ramsden — Charter of market at Huddersfield — Sir William Ramsden — Sir John Ramsden — The Huddersfield Cloth Hall — Sir John Ramsden — The Huddersfield Enclosure Act — Sir John William Ramsden — The Huddersfield Tenant- Right Case.

Chapter XI

The Civil Wars — Catholic families of the district — Muster at Almondbury for the Parliament — At Doncaster for the King — Major Beaumont drowned — The defences of Almondbury — Sir John Ramsden at Selby — Charles Nettleton of Honley — Captain Horsfall of Storthes Hall — Defence of Sheffield by Sir Thomas Beaumont — Kaye of Woodsome fined by Parliament — Thomas Hirst of Greenhead fined — The Rev. Richard Sykes expelled his cure — The Rev. Christopher Richardson — Lascelles Hall — The Rev. Abraham Woodhead of Meltham — His endowment of the Church at Meltham — Sir Thomas Hoyle of Linthwaite — Resistance of James II. by local gentry — Resistance of the Pretender — The Young Pretender's Army at Scot Head — The Huddersfield Yeomanry.

Chapter XII

Huddersfield in 1800 — A description of the town — The government of the town — The office and duties of the constable — The Cuck Stool— The Whipping Post— The Court Leet— Petition for appointment of constable — The surveyor of highways — The water supply — Public lighting — Introduction of . gas — Early magistrates — The Marsh Prosecution Society — County Court — The Riding School— The playhouse— The Cloth Hall— Private schools — The police — Some private residences — Popular pastimes — Bull baiting — Costumes of the period — The stage coaches The pack horses — Coaching accidents — The state of the High ways — General distress — Wages — Statute of labourers — Hand loom weavers — Merry Dale Mill — Legislative protection of woollen industry— Resistance to union with Ireland — Some early worthies of the town.

Chapter XIII

The introduction of machinery — Riots — The Croppers — Their earnings — Restrictions on exportation — Industrial distress — Petition for Peace — E. and J. Taylor of Marsden — The Luddites — Attack on Bradley Mills — Soldiery at Marsden — Cartwright's mill at Rawfolds — The Luddites at Longroyd Bridge — George Melior — Ben o' Bucks — The oath of the Luddites — Attack on Cartwright's mill — The murder of William Horsfall -The panic in the district — Activity of the magistrates — Treachery of Walker — Arrest and trial of the Luddite leaders — Their execution — Sentences on other Luddites — End of Walker — Reward of Justice Radcliffe — The Radcliffe family.

Chapter XIV

Continued distress — Price of provisions — Bank failures — General disaffection — The Folly Hall fight — The services of the Yeomanry — Reform meetings on Almondbury Bank — Plot to seize the town — A state of siege — Trial of the conspirators — The Chartist agitation — The Plug Riots — Local Chartists — Joshua Hobson — William Armitage — The Factory Acts — Child labour — The system of apprenticeship — A Parliamentary Commission — Evidence of Joseph Habergam — Of Abraham Whitehead — The fire at Atkinson's Mills — Monument to the victims — Elizabeth Barrett Browning's plea — Richard Oastler — The Huddersfield Short-time Committee — The manufacturers' petition — Great demonstration at York — Death of Oastler — The Holmfirth Flood — Memorial at Holmfirth.

Chapter XV

Nonconformist Churches — Salendine Nook Baptist Chapel — Rev. Henry Clayton — The mother church at Rodhillend — Sallindon Nook licensed — Act of Toleration — Letters dismissory — Declaration of Faith — Covenant of Communion — First Subscribers — Rev. Joshua Wood — Rev. Robert Hyde — Rev. James Macpherson — Rev. Thomas Lomas — Rev. David Crompton — Rev. James Parker— Rev. Dr. Stock — Rev. John Thomas — Rev. D. Wilton Jenkins — Baptist Churches derived from Salendine Nook — Pole Moor Chapel — Slaithwaite Baptists — Rev. Henry Wilcock Holmes — The Independents, Highfield — Secession from the Parish Church — Rev. Henry Venn — First members of Highfield — The Trust deed — Church discipline — Rev. William HUDDERSFIELD AND ITS VICINITY. Moorhouse — Rev. Benjamin Boothroyd, D.D., LL.D. — His conversion— His literary pursuits— The Bibliæ Hebraica— Monument to— Rev. John Glendenning— The Rev. Dr. Bruce- Churches derived from Highfield— Ramsden St. Chapel — The Trust Deed — The Rev. J. T. Stannard— fones v. Stannard— Milton Church— The Wesleyans— John Wesley in Huddersfield —His opinion of the country and people— At Honley—Dean house Chapel — Almondbury Methodists — " The Weeping Prophet "—Abraham Moss— Old Bank Chapel — First trustees- Trust Deed— Constitution of circuit — First ministers — The Rev. Alexander Kilham— The New Connexion — High Street Chapel — Queen Street Chapel — Churches derived from Buxton Road — Local preachers — Squire Brooke.

Chapter XVI

Parliamentary History. Early elections — Lord Brougham — Captain Lewis Fenton — Captain Joseph Wood — Riots — Michael Thomas Sadler — John Blackburn, K.C. — "Bulls, tigers, serpents "- General Johnson — Edward Ellis, Jun. — Richard Oastler — The New Poor Law — Rev. Joseph Rayner Stephens — The Leeds Mercury on the candidates — W. R. C. Stansfield — Electioneering tactics — The Liberal Party — John Cheetham — William Willans — Viscount Goderich — Joseph Starkey — Edward Akroyd — Richard Cobden— E. A. Leatham— T. P. Crosland— W. C. Sleigh— W. A. Lindsay — Sir Joseph Crosland — William Summers — Thomas Brooke — Some account of the Brooke family — Elections since 1865 — Joseph Woodhead — The Colne Valley Division — The Holmfirth Division — Walter Armitage — John Sugden.

Chapter XVII

Municipal government — The Court Leet — The Chief Constable — The Vestry — Act for lighting, watching, &c. — First Board of Commissioners — Huddersfield a pocket borough — The patrolmen — Their duties — The Pindar — Introduction of gas — The Huddersfield Gas Works — Board of Highway Surveyors — Development of the town in this period — Banking companies — Churches — Petition for incorporation — Improvement Commissioners — First Board of — The cemetery — Church rates — Model lodging house — Market rights — Renewed agitation for incorporation — Government inquiry — Charter of incorporation granted — The first Council — Population and rateable value of borough at incorporation — C. H. Jones — The Mayors of Huddersfield — Honorary Freemen — Longwood included — Present population and rateable value — Covered markets — Gas — Electricity — Tramways — Tramway fatality — Artizans' dwellings — Mechanics' home —The police— The fire brigade — St. John Ambulance — The water supply — The reservoirs — Lead poisoning — Baths — Beau mont Park — Greenhead Park — The Lindley Moor ground — Free library — Municipal buildings —Town Hall — Borough debt — The Poor Law burdens — Riots — Formation of the Huddersfield Union — Chairman of the Board of Guardians — The Hudders field Infirmary — The Meltham Convalescent Home — Honorary physicians and surgeons — Presidents — William Mallinson — The Industrial Home — The Charity Organisation Society — The Slaithwaite Free School — The Fartown Grammar School — The Longwood Grammar School — Some private schools — The Huddersfield College — The Collegiate — Sunday schools — The Mechanics' Institute — The Technical College — The School Board — Chairmen and vice-chairmen — Church schools — Sir C. W. Sikes — Industrial development — The Weavers' Strike — General Survey.

Chapter I. The

valleys of the Colne and of the Holme and the vast amphitheatre in which the town of Huddersfield stands were, in the far off days when history begins, the wild home of the Brigantes, a tribe of the Gallo-Brythonic branch of the great Celtic family. The region now so populous, its natural face transfigured by the art of man, was then sparsely populated and densely wooded. The waters from the extensive heights and moorlands flowed in a thousand rills to swell the larger streams that rise on Holme Moss and Stanedge, and when the frequent storms swept the gloomy forests angry floods of great depth and force streamed down the beds now so shallow and dry. The deer, the fox, the boar, and the wolf were among the denizens of the thicket and the forest. Deer Hill, Doe Hill, Stag Hill, Wolf Stones, Fox Royd, Wildboarley, Brockholes, bear these names for good and sufficient reasons.

It is said that even in the reign of Edward the Third wolves might occasionally be found in this neighbourhood. The last is said to have fallen to the spear of John of Gaunt.'11 Many names familiar to our ears attest the sylvan beauties of the pristine scene. The (i) Mayhall's " Annals of Yorkshire." Calder (Cell-dwyer) was "the river of the wooded waters," long before the Colne took its name from the Roman Colonia near its banks. Long-wood ; Lockwood (from Old English loc or loca, an enclosure) ; Wooldale, (from Waid. Anglo Saxon), the forest-dale ; Ag-brigg (Aec. Old English), the Bridge of the Oak ; Birkby, Birchencliffe (respectively the Birch-village and Birch-cliff) ; Lingards (from the Danish Lyng, heather, and garde, an enclosure) ; Linthwaite (from thoeit, Danish, a clearing) ; Slaithwaite (the Slack or Sloe-tree) ; Lindley (lea Saxon, a meadow) ; Farnley (the Fern Field) ; Marsden (Den.

British, a deep or wooded valley) ; Diggle ( Diggellian, Anglo Saxon, to conceal) ; and such local and personal names as Olroyd, Learoyd, Ackroyd, Boothroyd, Highroyd (Scan. rydde, to clear), are eloquent witnesses of the natural features of the part of the Brigantian country with which we are concerned. A century after the Norman Conquest, the Lord of Sadelworth gave tithe of his forest of Sadelworth to the mother church of St. Chad, at Rochdale. The Brigantes, who seem to have dispossessed and driven southwards and westwards an earlier Goidelic race, were fitting settlers of parts so wild and rude. Scholars are not agreed as to the origin of the word Brigantes. Some would have it that their name meant " the hill-men " or mountaineers, from the same origin as the Welsh Bre or Bryn, a hill.

Mr. Rhys, the ingenious and profound author of " Celtic Britain," derives the name from the stem brigant, meaning noble, free, privileged, and inclines to the theory that their name pointed to an honourable distinction between them and the earlier Goidelic races they had dispossessed. Of their presence in these regions we are not without many indications. It is probable they gave its earlier name to the noble height we now call Castle Hill. The word Almond-bury, it is suggested by the Rev. R. Collins, the Vicar of Kirkburton, in his " Burton in the Past,"* is a compound of the Celtic Allt-maen, a steep hill of rock. There is much to be said, as will presently appear, to support the contention that a British settlement or encamp ment preceded the Roman station or colony at Slack, the Cambodunum of debate.

The Celtic word dun means a high place of strength, and Cambo(/««um may well have meant the fortress named in honour of Camul, the British war god, and it would be in accordance with Roman policy to erect their own stronghold upon the ruins of a fortress wrung from a stubborn foe. At various points within easy distance of Cambodunum many remains of Celtic weapons and implements have from time to time been unearthed. The following were found at Cupwith Hill, buried under a bed of peat varying from three feet to nine feet in depth : A doublebarbed arrow-point, a large scraper or skin flint, several long scrapers, two knives, one of white the other of black flint; half-a-dozen arrow-points of different formation, several spear or javelin heads, many flakes of flint, possibly used for skinning animals ; a rudely designed flint celt or battle-axe, and (nearer to Buckstones) many single winged arrow-points of flint.

Near to the entrance gates of Woodsome Hall again, was found a British celt or battle-axe, of green stone, weighing over nine ounces, five inches in length, with a cutting edge of a little over six inches.! In 1830 a British celt (or stone battle-axe) was found near Pike-Law, above Mealhill ; it measured rather more than seven inches in length and about three inches in breadth at the broadest part. Its weight was two pounds ten ounces. In shape it nearly resembled the.common axe of the present day — the cutting edge wedge-shaped, and about three inches broad on the face ; the other end being rounded, and * "Kirkburton Church Monthly" (March, 1896). t " Proceedings of the Yorkshire Topographical and Archæological Society," IX., 255 and 329. about five-and-a-half inches in circumference. In 1845, another of these weapons was found near High-Flatts, in the township of Denby.

It was wedge-shaped, six-and-threequarter inches in length, and about three-and-a-fourth inches in breadth, gradually tapering to about two inches, being about one-and-three-quarters inches at the thickest part ; the cutting edge being formed by a rapid slope on each side, of nearly two-and-a-half inches, forming a uniform convex edge, like that of a common axe, and as fine as the quality of the stone would permit. It had a dusky white appearance, with a polished surface, of a close texture, having much the look of ironstone." Dr. Walker, the antiquarian, discovered not far from Blackmoor foot the remains of a Celtic kistvaen or place of interment.! Some seventy years ago there existed at Brow Grains, between West Nab and Deer Hill, a Druidical Stone, known locally as the Rocking Stone. This relic of antiquity was levelled to the ground, in ignorance or from wanton mischief, by a few workmen in 1827 or 18284 September, 1896, a flint arrow head and an urn containing human bones was dug up on Pule Hill.

Again, in August, 1883, a Roman altar was found in the township of Longwood, near Huddersfield, embedded in the soil, at a spot in a direct line between Slack and Castle Hill. It bore an inscription in the Latin : DEO S. BRIGANT ET N. AUG. T. AUR. QUINTUS D. D. P. ET. SS. abbreviations, which enlarged, would probably read : Deo Sancto Brigantum et Numini Augusti, Titus Aurelius Quintus, Decreto Decuriconum, Posuit et Susceptum Solvit: "To the Holy God of the Brigantes and to the Divinity * Morehouse : " History of Holmfirth." t Hughes : " History of Meltham." J Hughes : " History of Meltham," 4. of the Emperor, Titus Aurelius Quintus, by decree of the Decurions, has placed (this altar) and discharged his undertaking." The Decurions were the Senators of a municipium or colonia, and the Holy God of the Brigantes was the war god Camul, and in him the Romans would recognize a deity kindred to their own much idolized Mars.

That they should erect an altar to a British god was characteristic of the Romans of the later ages, who, with absolute impartiality, used the gods of their own and others' faith as part of the machinery of policy, conquest and government. If the Roman garrison in these parts conceived that any purpose of pacification would be served by erecting an altar to so respectable a deity as the war god of an enemy so redoubtable as the Brigantes had proved themselves, the politic Roman had no objection to erecting an altar and honouring it with an inscription. It had got to that with him, that one god was very much as another. His opinion of the whole sacred business is shewn by coupling with the dedication to the Sanctus Deus Brigantum a. similar tribute to the Divinity of the Emperor, for the Romans of the decline deified their Emperors : a proof not so much of respect for the Emperors as of contempt for the gods.

Are these, then, all the traces of those Celtic predecessors of ours that remain ? — an inscribed altar, a heap of stones, a few flints, and a few names. For my part, I am not disposed to dismiss our Celtic ancestors so summarily. It is too much the custom to sum up all that is known of them by saying that Cæsar found a race of Celtic savages in England, that successive Roman generals subdued them, and that when, after four hundred years, the Romans withdrew, Teutonic tribes from the mouth of the Elbe drove a wretched remnant into the fastnesses of Wales and Cornwall. But it may well be, as I shall seek to show, that neither Roman nor Saxon, either extinguished or banished the original Celtic population of these regions, and on the hills and in the valleys of the Colne and Holme may still be many a hardy Yorkshireman whose Brigantian forbear gave a good account of himself both to Roman swordsman and Saxon and Danish raider.

It will, then, be interesting to see what can be gleaned from books con cerning our Celtic forefathers. The first writer of antiquity to whom we are indebted for even the most fragmentary account of our country is Pytheas, the story of whose travels was published soon after the death of Aristotle. Pytheas was an eminent mathematician of the City of Marseilles, and the merchants of that emporium of the southern seas fitted out an expedition with a view to the extension of their trade, just as Mr. Stanley in our days received substantial support from the London merchants in his African enterprises. Pytheas was entrusted with the command of this expedition, and twice he penetrated some little distance into the interior of Britain.* This was about 330 b.c He informs us that he saw plenty of corn in the fields in the South- East, and he noticed that the farmers gathered the sheaves into large barns, in which the threshing was done.

They had so little sun that the open threshing floors of the brighter South would not have done in a land of cloud and rain like Britain. It was permissible for a man born under the cloudless skies of the Mediterranean shores to speak disrespectfully of our British clime. He noticed also that they made a drink by mixing wheat and honey, megethlin, the mead of later days. Two centuries later, Posidonius visited Britain, and from him we learn that the inhabitants lived in mean dwellings made for the most part of reeds or wood, and that harvest with them meant cutting off the ears of corn and storing them in pits underground. * See Elton's " Origins of Eng. Hist," pp. 13, &c. But, after all, our real acquaintance with Britain begins with that pest of our boyhood, Julius Cæsar. In the fourth book of his commentaries Cæsar tells how he made up his mind to prosecute an expedition into Britain, because in almost all his Gallic wars help had been sent thence to his enemies, thinking that even if he should not have time to prosecute a lengthy campaign, he might find it of great service to merely visit the island and see what sort of people were there and what their country and their ports — matters almost entirely unknown to the Gauls, for no one except traders ever visited them, and they only the merest fringe of the island.

Then we have the well known story of how his fleet of eighty vessels, having two legions of 12,000 infantry, drew near the southern coast, between Dover and the South Foreland. The Britons were gathered in loose order upon the beach and the white cliffs. They brandish their spears ; they hurl them with fatal precision at the long oared triremes : nay, they rush breast high into the waves to meet the conquerors of the world. The Roman oarsmen cannot gain the shallow. There is hesitancy, some fear perhaps. Then from the standard bearer of the tenth legion, as he leaps from the bark into the waves, comes that cry which has rung down the ages : " Desilite, commilitiones, nisi vultis aquilam hostibus prodere ; ego certe meum rei publicae atque imperatori ojficium praes'itero. Leap, my comrades, if you would not betray the Eagle into the hands of the enemy.

I, at any rate, will do my duty to my country and my general." The natives fall back : there is the pretence of a submission, and after a stay in the island of a few days Cæsar returns to Gaul, apparently not loth to escape with dignity from an under taking which his experienced judgment warned him was not to be so lightly emprized. The people in Rome, however, thought much of his accomplishment, and well they might, for did not their poets sing of the " horrible Britons," " the remotest race of the world," " men cut off from the whole globe." The Senate decreed a public festival of thanksgiving to last for twenty days, a tribute which reflects quite as much honour upon our brave ancestors as on Cæsar and his legions. In the following spring, B.C. 54, Cæsar made another and more formidable assault upon our island.

He had gathered a considerable fleet at Port Ittius, which some writers identify with Calais, others (Napoleon III. among them) with Boulogne. This time he stays longer, and has more marked success. He has an army of 30,000 infantry, a complement of cavalry, borne in 900 transports. Surely it was not to subdue a horde of painted savages such an array of the picked soldiers of the world was gathered, the veterans of a thousand fights. We do affront ourselves to think so meanly of the men whose heirs we are. Cæsar stayed longer, but withal not long. It was a brief campaign, and he did not get further north than St. Albans. He, however, made a few hasty observations, and it is those which constitute the sum total of the knowledge with which the general reader is content. He informs us that the interior of Britain was inhabited by Aborigines, but that the coast was settled by immigrants from Belgium ; that the population was dense and their houses numerous, built after the Gallic style ; and they are rich in herds of cattle.