The History of England

of about two thousand years, and view the isle of Britain, whose vales and plains are now blooming with the riches of cultivation, whose numerous cities and towns are animated with the activity of commerce and manufacture, whose fleets ride triumphant on the most distant oceans, and whose political institutions claim the admiration of the entire world,-a widely different scene will appear before us.

We shall behold a region covered with

* Authorities :-Cæsar, Suetonius, Tacitus, Dion Cassius, the Augustan and following historians. See Appendix (A).

VOL. I.

forests and spreading into marshes; its inhabitants a rude, barbarous race, subsisting chiefly on the milk and flesh of their numerous herds of cattle, with little of agriculture, and few of the useful arts; their towns mere inclosures in the woods; their dwellings rude wicker cabins; their only vessel the coracle, or boat of framework covered with skins. Nearly as low in the scale of humanity, as her colonists in after-times found the aborigines of the New World, were the original tribes of Britain when the legions of Rome first landed on her shores.

The indigenous inhabitants of the British isles were beyond doubt a portion of the Celtic race, whose seats on the mainland extended eastwards to the Rhine, and southwards far into Spain. The manners, customs, and institutions of the whole race were the same, only varying according to their geographical position; the rudeness and barbarism declining as they came near more civilized countries. Like all races in a low state of culture, the Celts were divided into numerous independent tribes, and warfare evermore prevailed among them. These tribes were composed of three classes or orders; the sacerdotal order, named Druids, the nobility, and the common people. All knowledge was in the hands of the Druids; they were the priests, the philosophers, and the judges of the people; those who refused to submit to their sentence were punished by excommunication, and as the Celtic race has been at all times prone to superstition, this weapon was as powerful in their hands as in those of the Romish clergy of afterages. They were presided over by an arch-druid, who held his office for life; they formed not a caste but an order, into which any one who was duly qualified might be admitted. The Druids had a peculiar system of physics and astronomy; they taught in verses, which were never committed to writing; their chief doctrine was that of the Metempsychosis, or passage of the soul into various bodies; their religious system was dark and sanguinary. The order

enjoyed immunity from all taxes and imposts, and were not required to serve in war. The nobility exercised a despotic power over the inferior people, who were in a state of the most abject slavery; and the power of the Vergobret, or prince, of each tribe was absolute.

We thus see that the institutions of the Celtic tribes offered a striking resemblance to those of the East; the same degrading thraldom of the inferior people, the same exaltation of the sacerdotal order as in Egypt and India ; even the employment of chariots in war was common to both regions. Hence many have derived the Celtic religion and institutions immediately from Asia; but this is a theory of which there is no need, and for which no satisfactory evidence has been offered.

The Celts of Britain had dwelt for ages in the seclusion of their isle, without any direct intercourse with the civilized nations round the Mediterranean, when at length the arms of Rome reached the opposite coast of Gaul. We are certainly told much of the direct trade to Britain of the Tyrians and their colonists of Carthage, but no proofs of this are to be found; and it is much more probable that the tin, iron, and other minerals of the island were conveyed overland to Spain or the south of Gaul, and there disposed of to the foreign traders. We are also of opinion that the mines of Britain were wrought by the Germans, who, under the name of Belgians, had colonized its southern coast, and not by the natives; and that it was in their large vessels, and not in the British coracles, that the commerce was carried on with the continent.

Such then was the state of Britain when (B.C. 55) Julius Cæsar, being engaged in his project of subduing Gaul as a means to the enslaving of his own country, thought that the invasion of an island which was regarded as beyond the limits of the world might tell to his advantage at Rome. He accordingly embarked with two legions, and having effected a landing near Deal on the coast of

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Kent, defeated the natives who came to oppose him ; but as it was not convenient for him to make any stay in the country, he granted the Britons peace on their promise of sending him hostages, and returned to Gaul. The following spring he landed with a force of five legions and two thousand horse: the Britons, who, laying aside their jealousies, had given the supreme command to Cassivelaunus, prince of the Trinobantians*, opposed without effect his passage of the Stour; he afterwards forced the passage of the Thames above Kingston, took Cassivelaunus' chief town, received the submission and hostages of several states, and having imposed tributes (which never were paid) quitted Britain for ever.

The civil war occupied the remainder of Cæsar's life ; the policy of his successor, Augustus, was adverse to extending the already enormous empire, yet an intercourse was kept up with the British chiefs, some of whom made offerings on the Capitol, and they allowed duties to be levied on the commerce between Britain and Gault. The policy of Tiberius was similar to that of his predecessor. The frantic savage, Caligula, to whom the empire next fell, led the army, at the head of which he was plundering Gaul, to the coast opposite Britain (A.D. 36.); the warlike engines were set in order, and he issued his commands to the expecting troops to charge the ocean, and gather its shells as spoils due to the Capitol and Palatium.

At length, while the imperial throne was occupied by the feeble Claudius (43), the plan of conquering Britain was seriously resumed. An exiled British prince having applied to the emperor, orders were issued to A. Plautius, who commanded in Gaul, to invade the island. The Roman soldiers at first hesitated to embark.

When they landed they found no enemy to oppose them, for the Britons had fled to their forests and marshes, thinking the

* See Appendix (B.)

of Strabo, iv. 5.

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Books

The History of England, Band 1