THE history of every nation in the world begins in a dark and fabulous manner: nor can any history be more obscure than that of Great Britain. It is impossible to guess when, or by whom our island was originally peopled. The conjectures on this head have been various; but as they amount only to conjectures, and as the point itself is of no real importance, I shall pass directly forward to the first accounts upon which we may place any reliance. The original inhabitants are represented as consisting of two classes, Priests and Soldiers. The whole island, at least that part of it called South Britain, was divided into small provinces, each of which was allotted to the sovereignty of a prince. These princes lived in constant warfare and contention. The priests were distinguished by the name of Druids; but their power was not only confined to the ceremonies of sacrifice, and other religious parts of worship, it extended to the government of all civil judicature. To the ordinary druids, (who were very numerous, but seldom or ever of mean birth) was committed the administration of justice in the several provinces, the determination of all causes, and the judicial decision of right and wrong; but still subject to the supreme jurisdiction of one chief druid, who, in dignity, excelled all the rest; and who, in civil affairs, had the power of a king, while in religious matters, he might be called the reigning Pope of those days.
The military men were brave, even to a degree of fierceness. They had never felt the effects of fear, fatigue, or luxury. They had been bred in woods, and inured to hardships. Agriculture and merchandize had made little or no progress in the kingdom. The constant diet of the people was milk and flesh-meat, of both which they had great plenty, the whole island being filled with various kinds of cattle.
Such were the Britons, when Julius Caesar invaded their country. He appeared, with his fleet, hovering upon the coast of England, August the twenty-sixth, in the year of Rome, 699, fifty-four or fifty-five years before the birth of Christ. His pretence for this invasion was the constant refuge which the Belgae, a people of Gaul, had received from the inhabitants of Britain, and the perpetual succours and assistance which were granted by the Britains to the enemies of Rome. The pretence was specious. The true motive was a thirst of glory. Caesar’s ambition like the ocean he crost, had no bounds.
I am inclined to think, that this enterprize was not very acceptable to the Roman people: they looked upon it as an hazardous undertaking. Cicero, in one of his epistles to Atticus, expresses himself thus: Britannici belli exitus expectatur: constat enim aditus insulae esse munitos mirificis molibus: etium illud jam cognitum est, neque argenti scripulum esse illum in illa insulâ, neque ullam spem praedae, nisi ex mancipiis: ex quibus nullos puto te literis aut musicis eruditos exspectare. ‘The event of the British war is waited for with impatience. It is certain, that all the approaches to that island are fortified by amazing out-works: and it is universally known, that not a scruple of silver is to be found throughout the whole island; nor are there hopes of any acquisitions except the slaves, amongst whom I cannot suppose you will expect musicians, or men of learning.’ Tully, we perceive, seems to treat the Britains rather in a sneering manner, than to speak of them with his usual, lively, but weighty manner of expression. He has no great opinion of their genius, or of their learning. But however illiterate, or however unskilled in music our ancestors might appear, it cannot be denied, that they were not only couragious, but of a liberal nature, totally devoid of all low art, but not totally unversed in the policy of war. Caesar gives an account of them, which as it comes from an enemy is very much to their honour. He says, he had great difficulty in landing, being annoyed by their darts, and opposed by their cavalry; and when he had brought his troops to an engagement, he confesses, that the battle was maintained with sharpness on both sides. Pugnatum est ab utrisque acriter. At length the Roman arms prevailed. The islanders gave way, retired to their woods, and immediately sent ambassadors to sue for terms of peace. Caesar, upon the arrival of the ambassadors reproached the Britons, as having acted ungenerously, by imprisoning his friend Comius, whom he had sent into England, some time before, with his own particular commands. Their excuse is remarkable. Ejus rei culpam in multitudinem contulerunt, et propter imprudentiam ut ignosceretur petiverunt. ‘They acknowledged their imprudence, begged that it might be forgiven, and fixed the rashness of the action entirely upon the common people.’ So powerful and ungovernable, even at that time, was an English rabble. Caesar, gentle and compassionate, both by nature and policy, received the excuse, demanded hostages, and granted terms of peace.
The peace on the side of the Britons was an act of necessity, not of choice. Perhaps is was no less so on the side of the Romans. They would have penetrated farther into the island; they would have visited the coasts and would have considered the various parts that might have afforded them a refuge in any future invasion, if they had not met with a people very different from what they expected. They expected wild savages, they met with real soldiers. They had been used to strike terror upon the continent, they only excited spirit and unanimity in a little island, where they found courage instead of fear; and order instead of confusion.
Caesar, at his first expedition from Belgic Gaul into Britain, had left his cavalry behind him. They were detained by contrary winds in a port at some distance from that where he had embarked: He had given orders that they should follow, on the earliest opportunity, loaded with arms, ammunition, and soldiers: and four days after his arrival in England, they had obeyed those orders, and were more than half way over the British channel, when a sudden storm turned the ships entirely out of their course, and not only forced back many of them to the continent, but drove others to the most western part of the island. At the same time, the vessels which had transported Caesar, and which had remained at anchor upon the British coast, were much shattered by the tempest. Twelve of them were absolutely lost; and the Romans saw themselves at once deprived of all hopes of provision, except such as could be procured from the islanders, by sending out parties to forage at a small distance from the Roman camp.
From these unexpected circumstances, the Britons resolved to reap advantage: they assembled their disbanded troops with great privacy and expedition, and while one of the Roman legions was sent out to forage, they suddenly surrounded the foragers, and must immediately have destroyed the rest, if Caesar with amazing alacrity had not hastened to their assistance. The sudden appearance of Caesar, although attended only by two cohorts, put the Britons to a stand; and the Romans did not think themselves, at that time, sufficiently prepared for an engagement. Each party retired; the Britons to the woods, the Romans to their camp.
Here the Britons seem to have been defective in military conduct. They ought to have pursued their blow: they ought to have attacked Caesar; and in the true spirit of liberty, they ought either to have conquered, or to have died. It is probable that they perceived their error, and it is possible, they might have retrieved it, if a succession of rain and storms for many days together, had not rendered all efforts against the enemy impracticable.
As soon as the weather changed, the Britons came out of their retirement, and marched to attack the Romans in their trenches. Caesar drew out his legions before the camp; both armies engaged, and both fought with equal spirit and resolution; but the Romans were better disciplined, and more perfect masters of the art of war: so that the unhappy Britons were routed, and again compelled to sue for peace, from the hands of an invader, who, although the greatest man that ever lived, must ever appear as lawless a tyrant to Britain as to Rome. Caesar was not sorry to be sollicited for terms of peace: he received the ambassadors in his usual attractive manner, and lost no time in setling the terms of accommodation. He insisted upon a greater number of hostages than he had before required; and, under pretence of avoiding the storms that generally rage in the British seas at the autumnal equinox, he embarked his troops, and hastened back to Gaul.
Caesar, during his short residence in Britain, had observed enough of this new world, to make him tacitly resolve upon a second invasion. The woods were large, the cattle numerous, and the inhabitants a brave people, worthy of being conquered.
A finer object could not have presented itself to the eye of ambition. However, Caesar passed his winter as usual in Italy, without any open declaration of returning into England. In the mean time, the Britons, filled with anger, indignation, and disappointment, and perhaps guided by the dictates of pride, revenge, and obstinacy, were determined not to send the hostages, which had been peremptorily required on one side, and had been faithfully promised on the other. Caesar let some months pass before he took notice of so notorious a breach of faith; and in this particular he acted with all the subtilty of a miser, who, when he has obtained a morgage upon an estate, purposely suffers the interest of it to run on, till he can claim a right of seizing the premises, and defying all equity of redemption.
In the year of Rome 700, Caesar, who, during the winter, had been making various preparations for a second attempt upon England, put his design into execution. He set sail late in the eveing from the Portus Itius, and arrived the next day about noon upon the British coast. His army consisted of two thousand horse, and five legions of foot; and his ships, including transports and every other sort, amounted to above eight hundred. Such a number of vessels appearing at once upon the ocean, was a terrifying circumstance to the Britons: they imagined Caesar’s military forces much more numerous than they really were; and they immediately withdrew their troops from the shore, and retired into a more covered part of the country; so that Caesar landed his men, and fixed his camp without the least opposition. His first enquiry was, into what part of the island the Britons had withdrawn; and having learnt their particular situation, he left a sufficient number of forces to guard his fleet, and proceeded with the rest in pursuit of the enemy. The islanders had expected his approach, and were prepared to receive him, by having fixed themselves upon a rising-ground near a river, at the distance of about twelve miles from the shore. Here they endeavoured to oppose him by their chariots and their cavalry; but in vain. The Roman horse prevailed, and the Britons again withdrew to their woods. They were there fortified, as Caesar tells us, both by art and nature. The woods were very thick, and the passage into them was rendered extremely difficult, by large trees, which had been cut down, and heaped upon each other to a great height. The Britons had made use of this method of fortification, in their civil wars: but the Romans soon made their way over these entrenchments, and expelled the Britons even from the woods, where they had taken shelter. A small number of regular troops will infallibly conquer a much larger number of undisciplined forces. The Roman army consisted of veterans, who had been trained up from their youth in the art of war; and had carried their arms over the greatest part of the world. The Britons had only practised the military science within their own island, and in contests against each other. They were equal in courage, but inferior in skill to their enemies. In some measure to remedy this defect, they enlisted themselves under the greatest commander of those days, Cassivelaunus, prince or sovereign of the Cassi, and the Trinobantes. The Trinobantian territories, were Hertfordshire, Essex, and a great part of Middlesex. The municipal city of this colony, was Verulanum, Verulam, the walls of which, built probably in the time of Agricola, are still to be seen in the approaches to St. Alban’s.
Several skirmishes passed between the Britons and the Romans; in one of which the former gained some small advantage. But what force could repel Caesar? He still marched forward towards the river Thames, resolving to cross it at the only place where it was fordable. Cassivelaunus had foreseen his design, and had drawn up a large body of British troops on the opposite shore. He had fortified the banks with palisades, and had driven into the bottom of the river a great number of sharp stakes whose tops were covered by the water. He had used every precaution that courage, sagacity, and presence of mind could suggest; but the Romans were determined not to be repulsed. Their cavalry first entered the river, the legions immediately followed, and notwithstanding all impediments, passed across the Thames, with such expedition, and approached the enemy with so much vigour, that the Britons, unable to sustain the assault, quitted the banks of the river, and fled farther into the country.
Cassivelaunus still continued to make some attempts against the Romans; but his designs constantly proved abortive. The repeated victories of Caesar, the intestine broils of the kingdom, the immediate presence of a powerful invader, were all circumstances that tended to damp the spirits of an unexperienced, and a disunited people. Many of the principalities (for so I think we may call the several Districts of the island) began to entertain thoughts of suing for an accommodation with Caesar. The Trinobantes set the example: they offered to submit to the conqueror, and to give themselves up to his disposal: at the same time requesting, that he would deliver them from the tyranny of Cassivelaunus, and assign the government, of their colony to Mandubratius, the son of Imanuentius their late king.
Caesar, ever fond of shewing acts of mercy and benevolence, accepted their offers and granted their request. The example of the Trinobantes was soon followed by several of the other colonies, and the unfortunate Cassivelaunus found himself deserted on every side. His capital, a capital indeed of huts and hovels, was taken, plundered, and destroyed. What step was left then for this unhappy prince? only an absolute submission to the conqueror. A true Briton is always unwilling to submit, and Cassivelaunus deferred his submission to the latest hour: however, as he was a man of sense, as well as a man of spirit, and as all the inferior generals were undermining him by making terms for themselves, he resolved to put an end to a disadvantageous war, and to send ambassadors to the enemy, with offers of a surrender. Julius Caesar received them like Julius Caesar. He exerted no acts of tyranny by the victorious progress of his arms; he imposed no hard terms of accommodation: but he required, in the style of a conqueror, the strongest assurances from Cassivelaunus, of never attempting any injuries towards Mandubratius, or the Trinobantes. He received hostages for the performance of this contract; and he extracted a small annual tribute, to be paid by the states of Britain to the Roman people. After these transactions, he took the advantage of a calm season, and sailed back with his army into Gaul.
The character of Cassivelaunus, as a general, must always shine with great lustre in the English annals. Si pergama dextra defendi possent etiam hac defensa fuissent. ‘If Britons could have been defended, such a right hand had defended them.’ But his behaviour to the Trinobantes appears by their complaints to Caesar, to have been tyrannical: and his murder of Imanuentius carries with it all the marks of a savage barbarity. Yet perhaps in the seizure of the Trinobantian colony he was assisted by the inhabitants themselves; for I am apt to imagine, that even in those early days, the Britons were fond of making and unmaking kings.
Till Caesar’s death, which was in the year of Rome 711, the Britons remained unmolested by invasions, but still tributary to the Roman people. The murderer of the mighty Julius was attended by all the violence and distraction of civil war; and the Romans were for some years too intensely employed upon the continent to turn their thoughts towards a distant western island, that at that time appeared of little consequence to the southern part of the world.
During this interval, it is not improbable that the Britons made some improvements in their manners, and some advantages in their trade. Julius Caesar describes the inhabitants of the sea-coasts, those coasts that were nearest to Gaul, as a mixture of the Belgae and the Britons. The people who were situated beyond the Thames, and in the most inland parts of the island, consisted, he says, entirely of natives. These, indeed, he represents in general as men, who had scarce any pretensions to the dignity of human nature, except the figure.
Let us therefore remember that the Romans owed their origin to thieves and vagabonds; and that Great Britain owes her glory to savages and wild men. The heralds must decide which of the two sets of Aborigines are entitled to the more-dignified coat of arms.
During the reign of Augustus the Britons remained entirely unmolested by the Romans. The island was looked upon as a kingdom that had rather added personal fame to Julius Caesar than remarkable advantage to the empire of Rome. Augustus was in no degree equal to his uncle in like enterprising genius: however, he had formed a design of visiting Britain, when a sudden revolt of the Salassi, a people of the Piedmontese, put a stop to his intentions, which were never afterwards revived.
Tiberius followed the example of his predecessor, and made no attempt upon the island. Cornelius Tacitus, speaking of this behaviour towards the Britons, says, Consilium id divus Augustus vocabat, Tiberius praeceptum ‘This conduct Augustus called policy: the example of Augustus, was a precept to Tiberius.’
The temper of Caligula, the next Roman emperor, differed in a great measure from the peaceful stupidity of Tiberius. Caligula was vain, impetuous, and extravagant; but cowardly, passive, and irresolute. He assembled an army of two hundred thousand men, passed the Rhine, repassed it, without seeing an enemy; plundered Gaul, came to the gallic shore, proclaimed war against Britain, and gathered cockle shells.
To Claudius the fifth emperor of Rome fate had reserved a more complete conquest of our island than had been made by any of his predecessors. The Britons had justly ridiculed the military fopperies of Caligula; but they carried their exultations too far. They imagined themselves invincible, because a Roman emperor and his numerous army had pompously marched to the sea-shore, and were afraid to cross the ocean. Our ancestors remained wrapt up in this kind of security, at the accession of Claudius, whose personal character could not possibly give the least room for apprehension. He was as indolent as Tiberius, and as cowardly as Caligula; but his lucky stars ordained him to be governed by counsellors of far superior judgment to his own. Among these were Aulus Plautius, and Ostorius Scapula, both men of great eminence in rank and reputation. To the first, was assigned the command of the army destined against the Britons.
It is an observation made by Julius Caesar, that the Belgic Britons, and the native or antient Britons, were very different in their customs and manners. A constant intercourse with the continent, some progress in agriculture, and a considerable increase of commerce, had, in a great measure, polished, and improved the former, whilst the latter remained in their original fierceness.
We cannot wonder that men of such a dissimilar turn of mind and actions, should be continually jarring with each other. The former, like courtiers, were too servilely submissive to tempting circumstances, and alluring views of ambition; the latter, like country gentlemen, were too obstinately resolute, and too impoliticly reserved. These dissentions proved of great use to an invader, and Plautius landed, without the least opposition. He found the island like a desert; scarce an inhabitant appeared. The Belgic Britons had retired into woods and fortresses: they hastened to retreat from an enemy with whom they were unprepared to engage. Plautius moved onward, with his army coasting along the Thames, till he came to Wallingford, where he crossed the river, and entered into the territories of the Donubi, a colony to whom Oxfordshire, and a great part of Gloucestershire, belonged. These were the first people from whom he met with resistance. They fought against the Romans with great bravery; but being unfortunate in four successive battles, and in the loss of one of their chieftains, Togodumus, they retreated across the Thames, and were followed by Plautius. Both armies encamped on the side of the river, next to Gaul; but our historians, I think, have not exactly fixed their situation.
The Roman General remained in his camp, and evidently declined an engagement. The Donubi, although four times vanquished, and still in a state of exile from their own colony, attributed his conduct to fear: but they were mistaken in their judgment. The inactivity of Plautius was neither the effect of fear nor caution: he waited for the arrival of the emperor; and, from a nobleness of soul, uncommon in a general, intended to crown his imperial master with all the laurels and honours that might arise from any future conquest over the Britons.
Claudius landed at the Portes Rutupinus (Sandwich in Kent) and marched with his troops to the mouth of the river Thames, where Plautius was encamped. As soon as the Roman forces were all joined, they repassed the Thames, and, with much slaughter, made their way through a great number of the Britons, who had endeavoured to stop their passage. They took Camlodunum the capital of one of the British Princes; and they passed on with such a victorious quickness, that many of the Belgic colonies thought it a proper time to submit. Claudius placed them under the government of Plautius; and, after a stay only of sixteen days in the island, returned to Gaul, in his way to Italy.
The personal presence of a powerful prince, is of great efficacy wherever he goes. The veni, vidi, vici of Julius, was a motto accidently applicable to Claudius Caesar, who, in a little more than a fortnight subdued, partly by arms, and partly by the terror of his name, four colonies of Britons. Plautius judged rightly in sending for such a figure to be carried about, at the head of the army: his judgment was not less exquisite, in sending it as quickly back. A longer stay might have discovered the idol to have been pasteboard; and the Britons might have despised the pageant, when they found it only a moving machine in the human form.
As soon as Claudius had set sail, the Romans resolved upon a farther progress into different parts of our island. They divided their troops under the command of two generals. Aulus Plautius, the propraetor, and Flavius Vespasianus, afterwards Emperor. The actions of Vespasian are mentioned by Dio and Suetonius, and are particularly extolled by Tacitus. Our English Historians are no less profuse in his praises. Most of them assign to him the conquest of the isle of Wight; and of the several other Belgic colonies, from Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Somersetshire, to the extremity of the western part of Cornwall.
Plautius had undertaken the conquest of the more inland countries: but probably finding his task too difficult, he contented himself with the laurels which he had gained, and returned to Rome. Astorius Scapula succeeded him in the title of propraetor, and in the command of the army. Scapula, in attempting to pursue the plan of his predecessor, met with many difficulties. His adversaries were endued with a certain stubborn bravery, that scorned the superior power of the Romans. They fought with the resolution of men, who esteemed the enjoyment of their laws and liberty as the greatest blessings under heaven. The love of liberty, and a true devotion to its cause, seems to have been implanted by nature itself in the breasts of our forefathers. How strangely, and from what incidents this elementary British fire was frequently evaporated, and again was amazingly rekindled, must be the subject-matter of future enquiry. Certainly it never shone forth with greater brightness than in the person and character of Caractacus: he was a prince of a noble birth, and a proud undaunted spirit: he was an able and a judicious commander. During nine years successively, he had defended himself with inferior forces, against Ostorius and the Roman army. He had often shifted his ground, and had withdrawn his troops into mountains and rocky places. Every passage that might prove accessible to the enemy, was stopt up, and fortified by heaps of stones. At length the Romans, growing ashamed of their frequent disappointments, and enraged to be outdone by a Briton, demolished his fortresses, and forced him to an engagement. The event of the battle was fatal to Britain in general, and particularly unfortunate to Caractacus, whose wife and daughter were taken prisoners. The unhappy prince escaped, only to become more miserable: he fled, in confidence of receiving friendship and protection from Cartismandua, queen of the Brigantes, who immediately betrayed him to the conquerors; and Caractacus, with his captive family, were sent bound in chains to Rome.
[To be continued.]
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