490 
Clifford died at Tow ton Dale, and Rupert fled from Marston 
Moor.” 
It is, however, to the earlier period of onr history only 
that I have now to add a short paragraph “ On the burial- 
mounds of our ancestors in the neighbourhood of Thirsk;” 
though I am well aware that to many persons the exami- 
nation of these early graves, or tumuli, with their rude imple- 
ments of flint and vessels of sun-dried clay, possesses no interest 
or value. But such parties probably forget that these memo- 
rials form an important link in the chain of past history, and 
are intimately connected with the present ; that they con- 
tain the progenitors of our own race, with whose origin and 
progress we ought surely to be anxious to become familiar, 
as the Briton of to-day owes his elevated and social position 
entirely to the various nations by whom this island has been 
conquered or colonized, and whose remains, now disinterred 
from their burial-mounds with the simple objects the latter 
contain, alone mark the slow progress of the skin-clad hunter 
of Britain in the arts of war and peace, and contrast strongly 
with the refined productions of their Boman subjugators, and 
even with their subsequent and less civilized Saxon rulers. 
The northern and eastern parts of this county still exhibit 
numerous tumuli, earthworks, and intrenchments of the 
Britons, Anglo-Saxons, &c., in the former of which peaceably 
repose the remains of those hardy defenders of their native 
fastnesses. From the elevated position of these rude con- 
structions on the Hambleton Hills (a magnificent range, 
extending for eighteen miles), an extensive panoramic view 
of the surrounding country is commanded. And here was, 
doubtless, a strongly-fortified position in the year 50, when 
Iseur, afterwards Isurium of the Homans (of which Aldbo- 
rough near Boroughbridge is the site), was the capital of the 
Brigantes, under Cartismandua, and afterwards occupied by 
the revolted Britons under Yenutius against their perfidious 
