16 



to fintl that th« Mayor would iufonn thcni of some 

 recent archaeological discovL'ry, throwing" a new 

 light on their prtH'ioxis knowledi^e — some new 

 discovery of remains in the county — remains 

 clearly Teutonic and under circumstances showing 

 them to be pre-Roman. Had this Vieen the case he 

 was sure everyone would have given it due 

 consideration, having regard to the Mayor's 

 reputation as an antiquarian. But the Mayor's 

 iiKiin argument was the report to Ca*sar by 

 the ambassadors that tlie greater pai't of 

 the Continental Belgae were of German origin, 

 eoupled with the fact tbat there were trilx'S knowTi 

 as Belgge in Britain, and he therefore argued that 

 the British Bclg» were Teutonic. Now, similarity 

 in miiue did not by any means imply similarity of 

 race, especially in that case. The Continental 

 Belgaj in Ceesar's tiuic were admittedly a political 

 confederation, not an uimiixed race ; Ca?sai", Book 

 II. (4-), spoke of fifteen different tribes as forming 

 the Continental Belgie aUianec against liim ; and 

 after mentioning eleven tribes as contril)uting 

 .among them some 300,000 men, he woimd up by 

 rcfen-ing to the remaining four trilies which ho 

 states were " all comprehended xmder the connnon 

 name of Germans," and contributed 40.(XK> ; these 

 figures did not look as if even the Continental 

 Belga- were so largely Germanic as one would 

 jiulgc from the Ambassadors' rcixirt to Ca-sar, 

 that the Belga; were for the most jiart (.Termaus 

 4»riginally. Csesar told them that tlie Continental 

 Belgae drove out the ancient inhabitants, who 

 were admittedly Kelts. As the next step the en- 

 quiry arose naturally, " What became of those 

 ancient inhabitants:'" The generally accepted 

 conclusion was that they came over to this island 

 jind founded the British Belgie tri!>es, forming a 

 part of the second or Brythonic Keltic immigra- 

 tion, pushing the prior or Goidelic Keltic immi- 

 grants inland. Kichard of Cirencester (1350), 

 speaking of the British Belgaj, said, "All 

 the Belgfe are Allobrugcs, or foreigners, 

 and derived their origin from the Belgse and 

 Kelts. The latter, not many ages before the 

 arrival of Ctesar, quitted their native coxmtry 

 Gaul, which was conquered by the Romans and 

 Germans, and passed over to tliis country, i.e. 

 Britain." He (Mr. Maylam) was not setting up 

 the old clironiclers as authorities in their fabulous 

 stories, but as regarded traditions of i-ace tht.'ir 



authority stood on a higlier footing. TheTeutouie 

 and other tribes who had driven out the aneirnt 

 inhabitants wire also named Belgte from tin- 

 name of the country they had conquered. If 

 similarity of name wiis any support of racf 

 identity, then our might argue that the English 

 were Keltic, for tlii-y \v<!re also called Britains, 

 and so were tln' JCidtic inhabitants of Brittany 

 (Bretons). If tlie British Belgie tribes were 

 Teiitonic, it was sti-augi' that Caesar did not s:iy 

 so. He said " The Cantii differ but little in their 

 manners from the <_Ta\ds." It was not r-vun 

 admitted tliat the aucient Cantii were Belgie, for 

 Caesar did not say that " Kent and the whole 

 maritime district " was occupied by Belgie tribes, 

 as stated by the Mayor in his paper. Ca*sar 

 (Book v., 12) did not mention Kent, he said: — 

 " Maritima ^mrs ub (is. qui jjraedae ac belli 

 inferendi causa ex Belijio ti'ansierunt." Professor 

 Rhys (who was professor of Keltic at Oxford), said 

 that there was no evidence that the Cantii were 

 Belgie. Therefore, even if the British Belgie ti'ibes 

 were Teutonic, it did not follow that the ancient 

 inhabitants of our County of Kent were Teutonic. 

 Befoi'C couclutling, he should like to refer to the 

 Mayor's reference to tlie British historian Nennius. 

 The Mayor's p(.iint, it woidd be remembered, was 

 that in relating the probably fabulous story of the 

 maiTiage of the British King Vortigern to Rowena, 

 the daughter of the Saxon leader Hengist, Nen- 

 nius (who w:is British) said that " Hengist and 

 his elders were all of one counsel that they sho\ild 

 ask for the tract of land that in their (i.e., Saxon) 

 tongue is called ' Cantwara land,' but in our 

 tongue {'.€., British), 'Chcnt,'" and upon this 

 passage the Mayor assmned that in the middle of 

 the fifth century the Saxon new comers were 

 represented as calling Kent " Cantwaraland," and 

 he enqiui-es hou- they came to give it this dis- 

 tinctively Saxon name if the men of the land were 

 not Saxon already. If Nennius were a writer 

 contemporary with the Saxon invasion, there 

 might be something in the point, but the I'eal 

 facts of the case were that Nennius did not write 

 until at any i-ate 3(X» years, possibly 500 years, after 

 the Saxon invasion, and the mention of the Saxon 

 name for Kent had reference to the time when he 

 was writing, when the Saxons had been settled 

 here for several centuries, and the County had 

 naturally acquired a S:ixr>n name. 



