between the Thames and Avon rivers on the south, and Yorkshire and Lancashire on the north.

3. Britannia Secunda, which included Wales, and that part of England which is west of the rivers Severn and Dee.

4. Maxima Cæsariensis, which was bounded on the north by the Vallum Hadriani, and on the south by the southern limits of Yorkshire and Lancashire, and included the Isle of Man (Mona Cæsăris).

5. Valentia, or that part of England and Scotland which lay between the Vallum Hadriani and the Vallum Antonini.

The reader must be referred to the map of Ancient Britain for the names of the native tribes inhabiting these divisions respectively, and for the sites of the principal British and Roman settlements. Under the protection of the Romans, the country had been intersected with artificial roads (viæ stratæ), traversing it in every direction :

4 Various accounts of these roads have been given, but we may collect that the chief of them were :

1. Watling Street (Via Vitellina), which ran from Richborough (Rutupiæ), in Kent, through London to Wroxeter (Uroconium), and hence, probably, to Chester (Deva), where one branch is supposed to have turned off towards the Isle of Anglesea (Mona Taciti). From Chester it proceeded through York to Catterick Bridge (Cataractonium), and soon afterwards divided into two branches; one through Binchester (Vinovia) and Riechester (Bremenium), to the Firth of Forth, in the direction of Edinburgh; the other, through Carlisle (Luguvallium), to the Firth of Clyde, in the direction of Glasgow.

2. Ermin Street (Via Herminia), perhaps from Pevensey (Anderida), in Sussex, to London; but certainly from London, through Godmanchester (Durolipons) and Lincoln (Lindum), to a point on the river Humber (Abus Fl.).

3. The Foss Way (Via Fossārum), perhaps from Seaton (Muridūnum) on the sea-coast of Devonshire, through Ilchester (Ischalis), to Bath (Aqua Solis); but certainly from Bath, through Cirencester (Durocornovium), crossing Watling Street at High Cross (Venonæ), and so through Leicester (Rate), to Lincoln.

4. Ikeneld Street (Via Icenōrum), from Venta Icenorum, or Caister, near Norwich, along the base of the Chiltern Hills, probably crossing the Thames at Wallingford (which was a Roman Statio); from hence (as the name of Ickling Dyke still exists in Dorsetshire) it is supposed to have gone on, through Old Sarum (Sorbiodunum), to Dorchester (Durnovaria).

5. Rycknield Way, from the neighbourhood of Cirencester, through Warwickshire and Derbyshire. Its name is lost at Little Chester (Derbentio), but it probably went on to York.

and ninety-two considerable towns had risen up; among these latter, thirty-three cities' (civitates) were distinguished above the rest by their superior privileges and importance.

Each of these cities had its legal constitution, as in the other provinces of the empire. And it is interesting to discover that Christian bishops, who numbered between thirty and forty, and a due proportion of priests and deacons, had a recognized position in the country long before the political connexion was broken off between Rome and Britain. The Gospel was certainly preached here as early as the apostolic age; and possibly (as many have believed) by St. Paul himself. Among its converts, were Roman rulers, and native princes: and the martyrdom of St. Alban, who suffered at Verulamium (which has since been called, after him, St. Alban's), in the persecution under Diocletian (A.D. 303), shows that this country was honoured, even at that early period, by being called to suffer for the truth. British bishops are known to have been present at the council of Arles (Arelāte), in France (A.D. 314). And probably the British Church was represented at the celebrated council of Nicæa, where the greater part of the Nicene Creed was fixed by the assembled Fathers (A.D. 325). We should bless God that Christianity was so soon introduced, and a branch of the Catholic Church so firmly planted in this island.

CHAPTER II.

DEPARTURE OF THE ROMANS. ARRIVAL AND SETTLEMENT OF THE SAXONS,

From A.D. 409 to A.D. 827.

Ir was observed that the extent of the Roman empire was favourable to the first spreading of the Christian faith. The days, however, of that empire (which is generally thought the fourth empire spoken of by the prophet Daniel) were numbered; and throughout the fourth and fifth centuries

5 Thirty of these civitates were situate in England and Wales, the remaining three in Scotland. Two of the whole number, Verulamium and Eboracum, were called municipia. Londinium, Rutupiæ, Lindum, and six others, colonice. Cataractonium, Luguvallium, and eight others, were Latii jure donate; and the remainder were called stipendiariæ.

of the Christian era, it was gradually weakened and divided by the invasion of the heathen and barbarous nations of the north The depression of the Christian religion, which was the first consequence of this event, issued in the more signal triumph of the truth. Victorious as were the invading tribes over the degenerate Romans in battle, they were themselves successively conquered by the mild and holy faith which was held by their new subjects; and which thus showed itself able to master the passions of men under the various changes to which human society is liable.

The province of Britain soon felt the effects of the weakening of the Roman empire. The Romans were forced to withdraw their legions from these shores; and as it had been their policy to train the natives in peaceful arts and habits, they left them in a defenceless condition to contend with the Picts and Scots, who were continually harassing and plundering them. The Romans finally left the island in the year 409. After suffering the evils as well of anarchy as of foreign invasion, the Britons seem to have chosen Vortigern as their king, in the hope of finding a remedy for their ills under a strong and able ruler. A people, however, that has long trusted to others for protection, cannot soon recover those manly habits which none should suffer themselves to lose. Appeal to the Romans for aid was found to be vain, and Vortigern at length invited the Anglo-Saxons from the coast of Jutland and Holstein, to assist him in repelling those enemies whom he was himself unable to drive out of his kingdom. These heathen foreigners came over in great numbers under the brothers Hengist and Horsa, with whom Vortigern tried to confirm his league by marrying their sister Rowena. They were first settled in the Isle of Thanet, and soon succeeded in driving back the Picts and Scots to their own fastnesses; but by degrees became more fatal enemies to the British than those whom they were summoned to repel. A pretext for quarrelling with Vortigern was soon found; or (as some say) a plot was contrived for massacring him and the principal British nobles. The result of his unwise invitation was, that the Britons were gradually driven into Wales,

• The Picts seem to have been the Caledonians of the older period under a new name. The Scoti were a horde which had passed over from Hibernia (Ireland).

Cornwall, and Armorica in Gaul, called afterwards, from this circumstance, Bretagne or Brittany; and that the Saxons, in a period of about one hundred and fifty years, established seven kingdoms in this island, which began to be called England, after the Angles, who had then settled themselves in it. This condition of England is known as the Saxon Heptarchy 7, from two Greek words which signify seven governments; and the kingdoms thus established were: 1st, Kent, comprehending Kent and Middlesex ; 2nd, the South Saxons, which included Sussex, Surrey, and the New Forest; 3rd, Wessex, comprising Hants, Dorset, Wilts, and the Isle of Wight; 4th, the East Angles, comprehending Cambridge, Norfolk, and Suffolk; 5th, Essex, which included parts of Herts; 6th, Mercia, embracing the midland counties; and 7th, Northumberland, the most extensive of all, in which all the northern counties were comprised.

The civil history of England at this time consists only of the wars of these petty kings, of whom some one had often a sort of supremacy over the others, till the year A.D. 827, when Egbert, king of Wessex, after subduing the others, made himself sole master of England.

We may easily believe that the expulsion of the British by a heathen and barbarous people, proved in the first instance a serious hindrance to the Christianity as well as the civilization of the island. The British Church had recently recovered from the effects of a heresy called Pelagianism, (from its author, Pelagius or Morgan, who was a native of Wales,) through the ministry of St. Germain and St. Lupus, who held a disputation at Verulamium, A.D. 429, by which it was successfully put down. Schools had been established at Bangor and elsewhere; and missions had been sent to spread the Gospel among neighbouring nations. The Saxon invasions put an end for a time to these holy undertakings. The British bishops with their flocks found refuge chiefly in Wales, where the bishoprics founded by St. Asaph and

7 There had at first been a small Mid-Saxon kingdom (of which we now find traces in the word Middlesex), but it soon ceased to exist. And there were originally two Northumbrian States, Bernicia and Deira. But the number of seven prevailed at length. Hence the word Heptarchy.

8 Under the title of Bretwalda.

St. David at places still called after them, attest the piety which yet found a home among the ancient Britons, when England was again given up to the darkness of heathenism.

A state of things thus unhappy, when the Church in England was so depressed that only a few of its bishops and clergy remained, could not but move the zeal of the Church abroad. The compassion of Gregory, a priest of Rome who afterwards became its Bishop, was quickened by the sight of some English children exposed for sale in that city. He would fain have himself undertaken a mission-but found this to be impracticable. It was, however, one of his first acts, after becoming bishop of Rome, to send Augustine with several monks, to attempt what he had himself desired to do. Augustine landed in Kent, A.D. 596, and succeeded in converting Ethelbert, the king, already favourably disposed towards Christianity by Bertha' his queen, who was a Christian princess. He afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury.

The success of the mission of St. Augustine reflects honour upon Gregory, at whose command it was undertaken. Unhappily, however, that bishop and his successors took occasion, from the circumstance of Rome having been instrumental in reconverting England to the Faith, to invent a claim of supremacy for the Church of Rome over that of England, which had been unknown till then. The archbishop of Canterbury, it was urged, held his see as a bishop suffragan, or dependent, on the see of Rome, and could not exercise his functions until he had received a pall1 (for which he was sometimes obliged to pay a large sum of money) from the pope 2. This claim was frequently resisted, more or less successfully, on political and ecclesiastical grounds, by the English Church, and, as we shall see in the course

9 Lithardus, a bishop who had accompanied Queen Bertha from Gaul, had paved the way for St. Augustine's exertions. So that, strictly speaking, the latter was not the reconverter even of the south of England.

1 The pall was perhaps originally a robe, but afterwards it was a small piece of woollen cloth, put on the archbishop's shoulders when he officiated, which lay over the rest of his habit. Its rudeness and the nature of the material were to be emblems of humility, and of the pastoral office.

2 The bishop of Rome is generally called the Pope, although this title (which means Father) originally belonged to all bishops.