LECTURE VI.-THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. Departure of the Romans. The Picts and Scots. The settlements of the 1. FROM the time of Tacitus onwards the Teutonic tribes continued harassing the Roman empire, and by the beginning of the fifth century they were giving so much trouble, even in Italy itself, that the Romans wanted all their legions nearer home. They began to withdraw from their more distant provinces, as from Roumania, which was then called Dacia, and from Britain. Before they went away they repaired the wall of Hadrian from the Tyne to the Solway, as the northern barbarians were also growing more and more troublesome. The Romans fully meant to come back again ; but they never did so they never could find the opportunity. The Teutons spread everywhere. There were Goths in Italy, Goths in Spain, Vandals in Africa, Franks in Gaul, and very soon Angles in Britain. 410. Departure of the Romans. 2. Now came the proof of what was said above. The Roman civilization forced on the Britons had done but little good and much harm. They had been so used to be governed by others that they did not know how to govern themselves; they had been so used to be fought for that they had nearly forgotten. how to fight for themselves. As soon as the strong hand, which had kept them under while protecting them, was lifted off everything seemed to fall to pieces. 3. The Britons began to quarrel among themselves. Some, perhaps the least civilized of them, made friends with the Picts and barbarians to the north, who were, of course, their kinsfolk. These barbarians, seeing the comforts and wealth of the civilized regions where the Romanized Britons lived, soon managed to get over the Roman wall, and to make plundering expeditions into the very heart of the country. 4. The Romanized Britons hardly knew how to defend themselves; they had lost their savage courage, and had not learnt the Roman discipline. One of them, named Gildas, who is supposed to have lived in the sixth century, and who wrote a very curious history of the times after the departure of the Romans, gives an account of the northern enemies. 5. We have now done with our Roman authorities, with Julius Cæsar and Tacitus; this is the first British book we have had. Gildas, however, wrote in Latin, though Gildas. not in the masterly style of either Cæsar or Tacitus. He evidently tried very hard to write in a fine manner; sometimes he appears to have attempted to imitate the old Hebrew prophets, and it is astonishing what a number of wicked kings and other people he found to denounce. 6. This is a translation of his description of the Picts and Scots, as those northern invaders were called. "The Picts and Scots, like worms which in the heat of mid-day come forth from their holes, hastily land again from their canoes; . . . differing from one another in manners, but inspired with the same avidity for blood, and all more eager to shroud their villanous faces in bushy hair than to cover with decent clothing those parts of their body which required it. Moreover, having heard of the departure of our friends" (that is, of the Romans), “and their resolution never to return, they seized with greater boldness than before on all the country as far as the wall. To oppose them there was placed on the heights a garrison equally slow to fight and ill-adapted to run away-a useless and panic-struck company, who slumbered away days and nights on their unprofitable watch. Meanwhile the hooked weapons of their enemies were not idle, and our wretched countrymen were dragged from the wall and dashed against the ground... But why should I say more? They left their cities, abandoned the protection of the wall, and dispersed themselves in flight more desperately than before. The enemy, on the other hand, pursued them with more unrelenting cruelty than before, and butchered our countrymen like sheep." 7. During all these troublous times we can see with reverence the influence of Christianity in the wonderful men who stood, as it were, in the breach, to help the conquered, to tame and soften the conquerors. I fear we in England do great injustice to the memory of these saints. Because a great many fables and strange tales have grown up about their histories, and too much has been made of the honour and reverence due to them, and because some of the saints in the Roman calendar were noted for what we cannot call virtues at all, we are apt to confuse them altogether, and think the very word "saint means some useless unpractical bigot; that is, if we ever think about them at all. For the most part, however, we have quite forgotten them, or only know their names as belonging to old churches and towns. 8. But when we read different histories of these times, we find there have always been wonderful Christian heroes (sometimes on the Danube, sometimes in Italy, and other places), leading glorious lives, dying glorious deaths; teaching, baptizing, mediating, feeding the starving, clothing the naked. One such man St. Germain. was in Britain while the wars with the Picts and Scots were at their height-Saint Germain or Germanus, a bishop from Gaul. He had come over to Britain to argue against some heretics. For, unhappily, Christians had already begun quarrelling about words and doctrines which are hard to understand. However, while in the country he was implored to aid the poor Britons against their enemies, and he is said to have presided over the most singular battle that, perhaps, ever took place on English ground. Fuller tells us the story 429. "The pious bishop" (after baptizing multitudes of pagan converts), turning politic engineer, chose a place of advantage, being a hollow dale surrounded with hills. Here Germanus placed his men in ambush, with instructions that, at a signal given, they should all shout "Hallelujah' three times with all their might, which was done accordingly. The pagans were surprised with the suddenness and loudness of such a sound, much multiplied by the advantage of the echo, whereby their fear brought in a false list of their enemies' number; and, .rather trusting their ears than their eyes, they reckoned their foes by the increase of the noise rebounded unto them; and then, allowing two hands for every mouth, how vast was their army! But besides the concavity of the valley improving the sound, God sent a hollowness into the hearts of the pagans, so that without striking a stroke, they confusedly ran away. Thus a bloodless victory was gotten without sword drawn, consisting of no fight, but a fright and a flight." 9. If this victory, however, "not by shooting, but by shouting," was ever really achieved, the Britons were very unsuccessful on the whole. They turned and prayed the Romans to come back and help them. This is part of the letter they wrote to Ætius, who was a Roman general and consul. "The groans of the Britons. The barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea throws us back on the barbarians; thus two modes of death await us: we are either slain or drowned." We see how much the Britons were changed from the old days of Caradoc and Boadicea. It was really about time cowards like this got a new master. The 10. For as the Romans had now too much on their hands to come back, the distressed Britons had to look out for some one else to help them. This time it was rather like the sheep praying the wolves to take care of them. The people they turned to had indeed been called "sea-wolves." They were the English. 11. At this time they were living as three tribes in Sleswig, and near the mouth of the Elbe. They were called the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes, and the Angles were the most important and powerful of them. Though they were near neighbours, they were quite distinct from one another, and continued so long after they came into Britain. They hardly deserved a better name at present than sea-wolves or pirates. They were good sailors, as we are now, and good fighters. They had long been accustomed to come ravaging and pillaging on the coasts of Britain. English. 12. In an evil hour for the Britons, but in a good hour for us, Vortigern, a British king of Kent, bethought him of hiring one set of barbarians against another, and of persuading these Teutonic pirates to fight for him against the Picts and Scots, promising them in return not only money, but lands. "The barbarians," says the Briton Gildas, "being thus introduced as soldiers into the island, to encounter, as they falsely said, any dangers in defence of their hospitable entertainers, obtain an allowance of provisions, which, for some time, being plentifully bestowed, stopped their doggish mouths. Yet they complain that their monthly supplies are not furnished in sufficient abundance, and they industriously aggravate each occasion of quarrel, saying that unless more liberality is shown them they will break the treaty and plunder the whole island. In a short time they follow up their threats with deeds." Their arrival. 13. Their first landing-place was at Ebbsfleet, in the Isle of Thanet, which was then much more of an island than it is now, and separated from the mainland by a difficult and dangerous ford. Vortigern, perhaps, thought that he could pen them up there, and they would come no farther. But he little knew what he had done. After the quarrels Gildas mentions, and more and more of the strangers coming pouring in, they soon burst out of the island, under their two chiefs Hengist and Horsa. The names of both these chiefs meant horse (hengst is a German word for horse now), and the standard of Kent is a horse to this day. I believe we may still see a horse marked on the sacks of hops which come from Kent. Our forefathers liked naming themselves after animals, but especially after wolves. merce. 449. The first battle. 14. They crossed the ford which bounded the Isle of Thanet on the west, and marched towards London, which was a rich town even in the old Roman days, noted, as it is now, for its comThe first great battle with the Britons was fought on the way, at Aylesford in Kent, and the English conquered, though one of their chiefs, Horsa, was slain. After this victory there was a frightful massacre. These "wolves," our ancestors, were still heathens, and very cruel and merciless. The other Teutons who invaded the Roman empire had partly learned Christianity, and with it had become more pitiful, so that they did not utterly exterminate the conquered. But it was a long time before those in Britain learnt Christianity. Many of the Britons fled from their homes, and took refuge in caves; the same caves where the old palæolithic men had fought with hyænas and bears long ago. In those caves, where, deep down, we find rough flint implements and bones, there are found nearer to the top the golden ornaments of the British ladies, their pins and combs, and beautiful enamelled brooches; and their money, with Roman inscriptions. 495. Cerdic. 15. The first of the kingdoms which the Teuton invaders founded was that of the Jutes in Kent. Afterwards the Saxons also began to settle themselves in the southern counties, in Hampshire, Dorsetshire, &c., under their king, Cerdic. Cerdic was the forefather, either directly or indirectly, of all our kings and queens, even down to Queen Victoria, so we ought to remember his name; and he was called the King of Wessex, or the West Saxons. 16. Although Gildas speaks so slightingly of the courage of the Britons, still they held out in different parts for a long time, and sometimes beat their enemies back. It was most likely during the founding of the kingdom of Wessex that King Arthur lived and fought (if he ever lived at all), though it is thought by some that his kingdom was on the border-land between England and Scotland. He was a British king, and we all know from Tennyson's Idylls that he was continually fighting against heathenism and lawlessness. Those heathen were the Angles and Saxons. 17. A very amusing old knight, Sir Richard Baker, who in the seventeenth century wrote a most quaint history of England, gives us this account of King Arthur. Arthur. |