CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



prince, the king of the Silures, a tribe dwelling on 

 the banks of the Severn, called Caradoc, or Car- 

 actacus, who had made a noble defence against 

 tin ir arms, was finally betrayed into their hands, 

 and sent prisoner to Rome. His bold bearing 

 in Rome, however, so struck the emperor, that he 

 gave him his freedom, and allowed him to return 

 to his country. In 61 A.D. the Roman governor 

 or legate, Suetonius Paulinus, reduced the sacred 

 Druidical island of Mona (Anglesca), destroyed its 

 altars, and cut down its groves. The extortions 

 and outrages of the Romans roused the subject 

 Britons, and under Queen Buddug or Boadicea, 

 they fell upon and destroyed the Roman settle- 

 ments of Londinium (London), Camalodunum 

 (Colchester), and Verulamium (St Albans), mas- 

 sacring their garrisons. She was defeated, how- 

 ever, in a bloody battle by Suetonius, and is 

 believed to have poisoned herself. 



Julius Agricola, the father-in-law of the historian 

 Tacitus, who was governor of Britain from 77 to 

 85 A.D., was the true conqueror of the country. A 

 beneficent ruler as well as an able general, he not 

 only conquered England, but extended the influ- 

 ence of Rome to the Firths of Forth and Clyde, 

 which he connected by a chain of forts. He was 

 the first to sail round the island, discovering the 

 Orkneys. He even pushed north of the Forth, 

 and was opposed, according to Tacitus, by a large 

 army of the inhabitants, under a chief named Gal- 

 gacus, whom he completely overthrew at a place 

 called by the historian Moits Graupius.* Agricola 

 did much by the fairness of his administration to 

 conciliate the Britons to Roman rule. He induced 

 them to adopt the Roman language, religion, and 

 dress ; under him, good roads, some of which still 

 remain, were made; and temples, courts of justice, 

 dwelling-houses, and even towns were built. 



It appears that Agricola, while on the west 

 coast of Scotland, was desirous of making the 

 conquest of Ireland, which he thought would be 

 useful, both as a medium of communication with 

 Spain, and as a position whence he could overawe 

 Britain. He formed an acquaintance with an 

 Irish chief, who, having been driven from his 

 country by civil commotions, was ready to join 

 in invading it By him, Agricola was informed 

 that the island might be conquered by one legion 

 and a few auxiliaries. The inhabitants, according 

 to Tacitus, bore a close resemblance to the 

 Britons. Prudence, however, prevented Agricola 

 from attempting the conquest of this other island. 



Although the Romans had now effectually con- 

 quered the Britons, they were baffled in all their 

 attempts -upon the northern part of Scotland, 

 which was then called Caledonia. The utmost 

 they could do with the inhabitants of that country 

 was to build walls across the island to keep them 

 by themselves. The first of these was built in the 

 year 120, by the Emperor Hadrian, between New- 

 castle and the Solway Firth. Parts of this are 

 still in existence, under the name of the Picts' 

 Wall Under the reign of Antoninus Pius, how- 

 ever, and in the year 139, a fresh rampart, called 



* The accepted reading of the text until quite recently was 

 Grampiiu; and as the battle was assumed to have been fought 

 near the great central ridge of the country, that central ridge came 

 to be called the Grampians a name quite unknown to native his- 

 tory or tradition. A more careful examination of the manuscripts 

 shews that Tacitus wrote Graupius \ and the locality of the battle 

 is thought to be indicated by the remains of a Roman camp at 

 Ardoch, between Dunblane and Auchterarder, in Perthshire. 

 130 



now Graham's Dike, was made along Agricola's 

 line, from near Blackness on the Forth to 

 West Kilpatrick on the Clyde. The Caledo- 

 nians still proving troublesome, the Emperor 

 Severus marched in person into the north of Scot- 

 land, and, about the year 210, built a chain of 

 forts along the line of Hadrian's Wall. Frequent 

 attempts were afterwards made to extend the 

 Roman Empire north of Hadrian's Wall, and 

 under Lollius Urbicus and other commanders, the 

 Romans must have penetrated Scotland beyond 

 the more northerly rampart, and from remains it 

 is believed they reached the north-east end of 

 Loch Ness, near the present town of Inverness. 

 There is, on the other hand, historical ground for 

 believing that the Caledonians or Picts, as they 

 were otherwise called, penetrated southward as 

 far as Kent. 



Under the Romans, Britain assumed all the 

 appearance of a Roman province. Most of the 

 towns which arose during this rule sprung from 

 colonies, as Lincoln (Lat. colonta, the colony of 

 Lindum, as the Romans originally named the 

 place), or from stationary camps, as Chester (Lat 

 castra, a camp). Both agriculture and trade 

 made some progress, but Roman luxury and vice 

 demoralised a once hardy race. Christianity was 

 introduced probably by missionaries from Asia 

 Minor, although it is not exactly known when. 

 The first martyr is believed to have been St 

 Alban, who was put to death at Verulam in 304. 

 In 314, and in the reign of Constantine, British 

 bishops attended the council of Aries ; and after 

 that date, Christians, whether Roman or Briton, 

 were allowed to live peacefully on the island. 



CONQUEST BY THE SAXONS. 



The Roman Empire was already in its deca- 

 dence when Agricola made Britain one of its prov- 

 inces, and that decay became more rapid as the 

 empire grew older. Hard pressed by the attacks 

 of enemies in almost all quarters, the emperors, 

 after the time of the Antonines, were unable to 

 defend Britain as before against the Picts and the 

 Scots the latter a Celtic tribe which had immi- 

 grated into Scotland from the north of Ireland. 

 At the same time, new enemies assailed Britain 

 from the sea. These were Teutonic tribes, who 

 came chiefly from the mouths of the Elbe and the 

 Weser, in North Germany, and spoke a Low- 

 German or Low-Dutch dialect. There seems 

 good ground to believe that, before this, Teutonic 

 mercenaries had served in the Roman armies in 

 Britain, as in other portions of the empire, and 

 that settlements of such soldiers became small 

 though permanent colonies. Whether these 

 attracted kinsmen from Germany or not, three 

 tribes of pirates at this time became famous 

 the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. Matters 

 in Britain grew worse and worse, and in 409 

 the Emperor Honorius withdrew the Roman 

 legions, and left the Britons to themselves. They, 

 rendered unwarlike and effeminate by the long 

 continuance of Roman dominion, and divided 

 among themselves, were unable to make head 

 against the assailants both by land and sea. The 

 popular story is, that, taking the advice of 

 Gwrtheyrn or Vortigern, one of their chiefs, they 

 called in the aid of Hengest and Horsa, two 

 princes of the Jutes, in the year 449, against 





