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popedom up to public sale, and disposing of it to the highest bidder, and bishoprics and inferior benefices were filled in the same manner. Benedict VIII. and John XIX., two brothers, publicly bought the popedom one after another, and on the death of the latter it was purchased in a similar manner for a child of ten years of age, Benedict IX. The emperor, Henry III., who was a prince of abilities and authority, resumed to himself the right of filling the pontifical chair, and nominated successively three popes without any opposition on the part of the church or people of Rome.

CHAPTER V.

HISTORY OF BRITAIN - Earliest State-Landing of Julius Cæsar-Conquest by the Romans-Abandonment of Britain on the Gothic Invasion of ItalyIrruptions of the Picts and Caledonians-Saxon Invasion-Heptarchy-Union under Egbert-Danish Invasions-Alfred the Great-His Institutions-His Successors-Norman Conquest.

THE history of the British Isles has hitherto been postponed, till we should be enabled to consider it in one connected view, from its rudest stage to the end of the Anglo-Saxon government, and the conquest of England by the Normans, which properly constitutes the first period of British history.

The origin of the population of kingdoms is always uncertain. Arguments derived either from a similarity of manners among ancient nations, or from the etymology of local names, and designations of provinces and their inhabitants, are extremely fallacious and inconclusive. Nations the most unconnected, when examined in the same state of society, or at the same period of their progress from barbarism to civilization, will always exhibit a similarity of manners; which, therefore, can never be considered as a proof of their relation to each other and there is no opinion of the origin of nations, however whimsical or ridiculous, that may not find its support from the versatile and pliable etymology of words. Such speculations fall not within the province of the general historian.

All ancient writers agree in representing the first inhabitants of Britain as a tribe of Gauls; the Romans found among them the same monarchical government, the same religion and language, as among the Celta on the continent. They were divided into many small nations or tribes, unconnected with and independent of each other. Tacitus mentions a spirit of independence to

have prevailed even among the individuals of each state or nation, which, while it excited frequent factions, prevented the chief or prince from ever attaining the absolute authority of a despot. Their religion was that of the Druids; the uncertainty regarding whose particular tenets is universally acknowledged. It is, however, generally agreed that they taught the belief of one God, Creator of the universe; of the limited duration of the world, and its destruction by fire; of the immortality of the human soul, and its transmigration through different bodies, in which the just and the wicked met with a retribution for their conduct in the present state but on these doctrines, as general principles, they seem to have reared an immense superstructure of fable. Their worship was polluted by the horrid practice of human sacrifice; and the chief office of their priests was to divine future events from the flowing of the blood of the victim, or the posture in which he fell after receiving the fatal blow. The influence of this religion was so great as to extend over every department of the government of the Britons. The Druids were not only the priests, but the judges, civil and criminal; and the bondage in which they held the minds of the people was so strict as to supply the place of laws. The Romans, after the conquest of Gaul, found it impossible to reconcile to their laws and institutions the nations whom they had subdued, while this religion subsisted, and in this instance were obliged to depart from their usual principles of toleration. They abolished the religion of the Druids by the severest penal enactments.

In this situation were the inhabitants of Britain when Julius Cæsar, after having overcome the Gauls, began to look to the conquest of this island. The natives, conscious of their inability long to resist the Roman arms, endeavored, before his arrival, to appease him by submissions, which had no effect in altering his purpose. He landed, as is supposed, near to Deal; and, contrary to his expectation, found himself opposed, not by a tumultuous troop of barbarians, but by a regular and well-disciplined army, who attacked him with the most determined courage. Though repulsed, they persevered in repeated attacks on the legions, and, availing themselves of all their local advantages, spun out the campaign till the approach of winter, with very little loss to themselves. Cæsar was soon equally disposed as they to an accommodation; and after some weeks spent in ineffectual operations, he reëmbarked his troops, determined to return with a much greater force. In his second invasion, he brought with him five legions, making at least 20,000 foot, a competent body of horse, and a fleet of 800 sail.

To resist so formidable an army, the Britons, hitherto disunited

A most elaborate account of the history, manners, learning, and religion of the Druids, is to be found in Henry's History of Britain, b. i., ch. 4.

under their different princes, entered into a confederacy, appointing Cassibellanus, king of the Trinobantes,* their commander-inchief. They now made a most desperate resistance, and showed all the ability of practised warriors. The contest, however, was in vain; Cæsar gained several advantages; he penetrated into the country, burned the capital of Cassibellanus, the present St. Alban's, or Verulamium; deposed that prince, and established his own ally, Mandubratius, upon the throne; and, finally, after compelling the country to articles of submission, he returned again into Gaul.

Britain was for some time rescued from the yoke of the Romans by the civil wars, in Italy, which gave sufficient employment at home; and, after the fall of the commonwealth, the first emperors were satisfied with the conquests they had obtained over the liberties of their country: so that the Britons for near a century enjoyed their freedom unmolested. But in the reign of Claudius the conquest of Britain was seriously determined. Claudius, after paving the way by Plautius, one of his generals, arrived himself in the island, and received the submission of the southeast provinces. The rest, under Caractacus, or Caratach, made an obstinate resistance; but were at length subdued by Ostorius Scapula; and Caractacus, as has been already noticed, was defeated, and sent prisoner to Rome; where his magnanimous behavior procured him a very respectful treatment.‡

Yet the island was not subdued. Suetonius Paulinus, under the emperor Nero, was invested with the chief command. He directed his first attempts against the island of Mona, now Anglesey, upon the coast of Wales, which was the centre of the Druidical superstition; and expelling the Britons from the island, who made a most frantic resistance, he burned many of the Druids, and destroyed their consecrated groves and altars. Haying thus triumphed over the religion of the Britons, he thought his future progress would be easy; but he was disappointed in his expectations. The Britons, more exasperated than intimidated, were all in arms, and headed by Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, had attacked several of the Roman settlements. Suetonius hastened to the protection of London. The Britons, however, reduced it to ashes, massacred the inhabitants that remained in it, putting to death 70,000 of the Romans and their allies. Suetonius revenged these losses by a decisive victory, in which 80,000 Britons fell in the field. Boadicea, to escape slavery, or

*The country of the Trinobantes comprehended Middlesex and Essex.Camden.

The Britons conciliated the favor of Augustus by sending ambassadors to Rome, from time to time, with presents. These consisted of works in ivory (query, whence the material?) bridles, chains, amber, and glass-vessels.-Strabo, lib. iv.

For a brief narrative of the Roman transactions in Britain prior to the time of Agricola, see Tacitus, vit. Agr., cap. xiii. &c.

an ignominious death, put an end to her own life by poison. Still this success was not attended with the reduction of the island, which was not accomplished till Julius Agricola received the command, and formed a regular plan for the subjugation of Britain. He secured every advantage which he obtained by proper garrisons; and, pushing northward beyond the centre of the island, he fixed a chain of forts between the Friths of Clyde and Forth, which secured the Roman provinces from the incursions of the barbarous inhabitants from the north. He cultivated very successfully, likewise, the arts of peace; and, by degrees, reconciled the southern Britons to the laws and government of the Romans. The Caledonians still defended their barren moun tains, which, happily for them, the Romans did not think worth much pains to subdue. Adrian visited Britain, and built a new rampart between the Tyne and the Frith of Solway. The Roman province was consequently, at this time, somewhat retrenched in its limits. It was afterwards extended by the conquests of Antoninus Pius, and Severus, who carried his arms very far into the north. The details of these expeditions, however important to a Briton, exceed the circumscription of general history.*

By the decline and fall of the Roman empire, Britain again recovered her liberty. The legions which defended the island were carried over to the protection of Italy and Gaul against the Gothic invaders. The southern Britons did not regain peace by this change, for they were invaded by the Picts and Caledonians, and so degraded and abased was the national spirit by its subjection to the Roman yoke, that the Britons solicited the protection of Rome against their unconquered neighbors. A trifling assistance was all that the state of the empire could afford. The Romans, as a last good office, assisted them in rebuilding the wall erected by Severus, and counselling them to arm manfully in their own defence, they bade a final adieu to Britain about the year 448, after having been masters of a considerable part of the island for nearly four centuries.

The legions had been entirely withdrawn about forty years before this period; and, under the reign of Honorius, Britain was considered an independent country. From that period till the descent of the Saxons in 449, the state of the country, and the nature of the government, can only be matter of conjecture.†

The character of the southern inhabitants of the island appears at this period to have been extremely despicable; they could not avail themselves of the liberty they had gained by the

The reader will find this first period of British history fully and ably illus trated by Camden, "Romans in Britain;" and Chalmers in his Caledonia, b. i.,

the Roman Period.

See a fine visionary picture of it (acknowledged to be such by the historian himself) in Gibbon, c. xxxi. Decl. and Fall of Rom. Emp.

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departure of the Romans. The Picts and Caledonians considered the southern Britons as a people fitted for slavery. They broke down from their mountains with unresisted fury, and carried havoc and devastation along with them. The Britons, instead of vindicating their rights by a magnanimous opposition, again renewed their abject solicitations to the Romans; but the Goths had given to them too much employment at home to permit their sending aid to a distant and useless province. In this extremity, numbers of the Britons fled across the sea into Gaul, and settled in the province of Armorica, which from that time became known by the name of Brittany. It was happy for those who remained, that their enemies, the Picts and Caledonians, had too much of the predatory disposition to think of making complete conquests, or securing what they had won. They were satisfied with ravaging a part of the country, and retired again to their mountains. The Britons, in this interval of peace, behaved as if secure of its continuance. They made no preparations for resisting an enemy, whom they might easily have foreseen they would often have to cope with. A new irruption of the Picts and Caledonians totally disheartened them; and, to complete their shame, they sent a deputation into Germany, to invite the Saxons to come to their assistance and protection.

The Saxons were at this time regarded as one of the most wårlike tribes of the ancient Germans. They occupied the sea-coast from the mouth of the Rhine to Jutland; and had made themselves known to the Britons by piratical expeditions on their coasts. They received this embassy with great satisfaction, and under the command of two brothers, Hengist and Horsa, they landed in the year 450 on the island of Thanet, and immediately marched to the defence of the Britons. The Scots and Picts, unable to resist the valor of these foreigners, were defeated and compelled to retire to the north. The Saxons, as might have been expected, next turned their thoughts to the entire reduction of the Britons. After various and alternate changes of success, the Saxons, having brought over large reinforcements of their countrymen, finally accomplished the reduction of South Britain. Different parts of the country having been subdued by different leaders, who were each ambitious of independence and absolute authority, the country, even after its final reduction, which was not till above a century and a half after the first landing of the Saxons, exhibited a broken and divided appearance. Seven distinct provinces were formed into independent kingdoms !

The history of the SAXON HEPTARCHY is extremely obscure. The duration of the several kingdoms till their union under Eg

It is in this period that is placed the reign of king Arthur, prince of the Silures, who achieved many victories over the Saxons, and having signally routed them in the battle of Badenhill, fought A. D. 520, secured the tranquillity of his people for above forty years.

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