on fJ?e nx>asion of 

 <J>oufJ?=12$esf of Britain 



WithLightfrom the British Chronicle, the Brut y Breninoedd. 

 By W. BARNES, B.D. 



I HE Chronicle of the Kings is that on -which 

 Geoffrey of Monmouth grounded his British 

 History, which he has eked out with much fine 

 writing that does not go to confirm the British 

 Brut, and he has made a sad hash of the British 

 names. Vespasian's inroad on the south-west 

 shore of Britain, the land of the later kingdom of the West 

 Saxons, cannot but be interesting to us, whose homes are now on 

 the same ground. The Roman writers have left a very short 

 history of it, while it is BO markworthy that we may wish to 

 know more of it. Suetonius, A.D. 92. 15 (Vesp. 4), says : 

 ' Claudio Principe Narcissi gratid legatus legionis in Germaniam 

 missus est (Yespasianus) made in Britanniam translatus, tricies 

 cum hoste conflixit duas validissimas gentes, super que vigint 

 oppida, et insulam Vectem Britannise proximam in ditionem 

 r edegit, partim Auli Plautii, legati consularis, partim Claudii 

 ipsius ductu." Suetonius (A.D. 120): "Under the Emperor 

 Claudius, by the favour of Narcissus, Vespasian was sent a s 

 legate of a legion into Germany, and thence was transferred to 

 Britain. He fought thirty times with the foe, and brought two 

 very strong tribes, besides twenty strongholds and the Isle of 

 Wight, very near to Britain, into homage (to the Roman power) 



