The History of England Part 2

APPENDIX II.

THE FEUDAL AND ANGLO-NORMAN GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.

Origin of the Feudal Law.--Its Progress.--Feudal Government of England.--The Feudal Parliament.--The Commons.-Judicial Power.-- Revenue of the Crown.--Commerce.--The Church.--Civil Laws.--Manners

CHAPTER XII.

HENRY III.

Settlement of the Government.--General Pacification.--Death of the Protector.--Some Commotions.--Hubert de Burgh displaced.--The Bishop of Winchester Minister.--King's Partiality to Foreigners.-- Grievances.--Ecclesiastical Grievances.--Earl of Cornwall elected King of the Romans.--Discontent of the Barons--Simon de Mountfort, Earl of Leicester.--Provisions of Oxford.--Usurpation of the Barons.--Prince Edward.--Civil Wars of the Barons.--Reference to the King of France.-- Renewal of the Civil Wars.--Battle of Lewes.--House of Commons.-- Battle of Evesham and death of Leicester.--Settlement of the Government.--Death and Character of the King.--Miscellaneous Transactions of this Reign

CHAPTER I.

THE BRITONS.--ROMANS.--SAXONS.--THE HEPTARCHY.--THE KINGDOM OF KENT-- OF NORTHUMBERLAND--OF EAST ANGLIA--OF MERCIA--OF ESs.e.x--OF SUSs.e.x--OF WESs.e.x

[MN The Britons.]

The curiosity, entertained by all civilized nations, of inquiring into the exploits and adventures of their ancestors, commonly excites a regret that the history of remote ages should always be so much involved in obscurity, uncertainty, and contradiction. Ingenious men, possessed of leisure, are apt to push their researches beyond the period in which literary monuments are framed or preserved; without reflecting that the history of past events is immediately lost or disfigured when intrusted to memory or oral tradition; and that the adventures of barbarous nations, even if they were recorded, could afford little or no entertainment to men born in a more cultivated age. The convulsions of a civilized state usually compose the most instructive and most interesting part of its history; but the sudden, violent, and unprepared revolutions incident to barbarians are so much guided by caprice, and terminate so often in cruelty, that they disgust us by the uniformity of their appearance; and it is rather fortunate for letters that they are buried in silence and oblivion.

The only certain means by which nations can indulge their curiosity in researches concerning their remote origin, is to consider the language, manners, and customs of their ancestors, and to compare them with those of the neighbouring nations. The fables which are commonly employed to supply the place of true history ought entirely to be disregarded; or if any exception be admitted to this general rule, it can only be in favour of the ancient Grecian fictions, which are so celebrated and so agreeable, that they will ever be the objects of the attention of mankind. Neglecting, therefore, all traditions, or rather tales, concerning the more early history of Britain, we shall only consider the state of the inhabitants as it appeared to the Romans on their invasion of this country: we shall briefly run over the events which attended the conquest made by that empire, as belonging more to Roman than British story: we shall hasten through the obscure and uninteresting period of Saxon annals: and shall reserve a more full narration for those times when the truth is both so well ascertained and so complete as to promise entertainment and instruction to the reader.

All ancient writers agree in representing the first inhabitants of Britain as a tribe of the Gauls or Celtae, who peopled that island from the neighbouring continent. Their language was the same; their manners, their government, their superst.i.tion, varied only by those small differences which time or communication with the bordering nations must necessarily introduce. The inhabitants of Gaul, especially in those parts which lie contiguous to Italy, had acquired, from a commerce with their southern neighbours, some refinement in the arts, which gradually diffused themselves northwards, and spread but a very faint light over this island. The Greek and Roman navigators or merchants (for there were scarcely any other travellers in those ages) brought back the most shocking accounts of the ferocity of the people, which they magnified, as usual, in order to excite the admiration of their countrymen. The south-east parts, however, of Britain had already, before the age of Caesar, made the first, and most requisite step towards a civil settlement; and the Britons, by tillage and agriculture, had there increased to a great mult.i.tude [a]. The other inhabitants of the island still maintained themselves by pasture: they were clothed with skins of beasts. They dwelt in huts, which they reared in the forests and marshes, with which the country was covered: they shifted easily their habitation, when actuated either by the hopes of plunder, or the fear of an enemy: the convenience of feeding their cattle was even a sufficient motive for removing their seats: and as they were ignorant of all the refinements of life, their wants and their possessions were equally scanty and limited.

[FN [a] Caesar. lib. 4.]

The Britons were divided into many small nations or tribes; and being a military people, whose sole property was their arms and their cattle, it was impossible, after they had acquired a relish for liberty, for their princes or chieftains to establish any despotic authority over them. Their governments, though monarchical [b], were free, as well as those of all the Celtic nations; and the common people seem even to have enjoyed more liberty among them [c] than among the nations of Gaul [d], from which they were descended. Each state was divided into factions within itself [e]: it was agitated with jealousy or animosity against the neighbouring states: and while the arts of peace were yet unknown, wars were the chief occupation, and formed the chief object of ambition among the people.

[FN [b] Diod. Sic. lib. 4. Mela, lib. 3. cap. 6. Strabo, lib. 4.

[c] Dion. Ca.s.sius, lib. 75 [d] Caesar. lib. 6. [e] Tacit. Agr.]

The religion of the Britons was one of the most considerable parts of their government; and the Druids, who were their priests, possessed great authority among them. Besides ministering at the altar, and directing all religious duties, they presided over the education of youth; they enjoyed an immunity from wars and taxes; they possessed both the civil and criminal jurisdiction; they decided all controversies among states as well as among private persons, and whoever refused to submit to their decree was exposed to the most severe penalties. The sentence of excommunication was p.r.o.nounced against him: he was forbidden access to the sacrifices or public worship: he was debarred all intercourse with his fellow-citizens, even in the common affairs of life: his company was universally shunned, as profane and dangerous. He was refused the protection of law [f]; and death itself became an acceptable relief from the misery and infamy to which he was exposed. Thus, the bands of government, which were naturally loose among that rude and turbulent people, were happily corroborated by the terrors of their superst.i.tion.

[FN [f] Caesar, lib. 6. Strabo, lib. 4.]

No species of superst.i.tion was ever more terrible than that of the Druids. Besides the severe penalties, which it was in the power of the ecclesiastics to inflict in this world, they inculcated the eternal transmigration of souls; and thereby extended their authority as far as the fears of their timorous votaries. They practised their rites in dark groves or other secret recesses [g]; and in order to throw a greater mystery over their religion, they communicated their doctrines only to the initiated, and strictly forbad the committing of them to writing, lest they should at any time be exposed to the examination of the profane vulgar. Human sacrifices were practised among them: the spoils of war were often devoted to their divinities; and they punished with the severest tortures whoever dared to secrete any part of the consecrated offering; these treasures they kept in woods and forests, secured by no other guard than the terrors of their religion [h]; and this steady conquest over human avidity may be regarded as more signal than their prompting men to the most extraordinary and most violent efforts. No idolatrous worship ever attained such an ascendant over mankind as that of the ancient Gauls and Britons; and the Romans, after their conquest, finding it impossible to reconcile those nations to the law and inst.i.tutions of their masters, while it maintained its authority, were at last obliged to abolish it by penal statutes; a violence which had never, in any other instance, been practised by those tolerating conquerors [i].

[FN [g] Plin. lib. 12. cap. 1. [h] Caesar, lib. 6. [i] Sueton. in vita Claudii.]

[MN The Romans.]

The Britons had long remained in this rude but independent state, when Caesar, having overrun all Gaul by his victories, first cast his eye on their island. He was not allured either by its riches or its renown; but being ambitious of carrying the Roman arms into a new world, then mostly unknown, he took advantage of a short interval in his Gaulic wars, and made an invasion on Britain. The natives, informed of his intention, were sensible of the unequal contest, and endeavoured to appease him by submissions, which, however, r.e.t.a.r.ded not the execution of his design. After some resistance, he landed, as is supposed, at Deal; [MN Anno Ante C. 55.] and having obtained several advantages over the Britons, and obliged them to promise hostages for their future obedience, he was constrained, by the necessity of his affairs, and the approach of winter, to withdraw his forces into Gaul. The Britons, relieved from the terror of his arms, neglected the performance of their stipulations; and that haughty conqueror resolved next summer to chastise them for this breach of treaty. He landed with a greater force; and though he found a more regular resistance from the Britons, who had united under Ca.s.sivelaunus, one of their petty princes, he discomfited them in every action. He advanced into the country; pa.s.sed the Thames in the face of the enemy; took and burned the capital of Ca.s.sivelaunus; established his ally, Mandubratius, in the sovereignty of the Trin.o.bantes; and having obliged the inhabitants to make him new submissions, he again returned with his army into Gaul, and left the authority of the Romans more nominal than real in this island.

The civil wars which ensued, and which prepared the way for the establishment of monarchy in Rome, saved the Britons from that yoke which was ready to be imposed upon them. Augustus, the successor of Caesar, content with the victory obtained over the liberties of his own country, was little ambitious of acquiring fame by foreign wars; and being apprehensive lest the same unlimited extent of dominion, which had subverted the republic, might also overwhelm the empire, he recommended it to his successors never to enlarge the territories of the Romans. Tiberius, jealous of the fame which might be acquired by his generals, made this advice of Augustus a pretence for his inactivity [k]. The mad sallies of Caligula, in which he menaced Britain with an invasion, served only to expose himself and the empire to ridicule: and the Britons had now, during almost a century, enjoyed their liberty unmolested; when the Romans, in the reign of Claudius began to think seriously of reducing them under their dominion.

Without seeking any more justifiable reasons of hostility than were employed by the late Europeans in subjugating the Africans and Americans, [MN A.D. 43.] they sent over an army under the command of Plautius, an able general, who gained some victories, and made a considerable progress in subduing the inhabitants. Claudius himself, finding matters sufficiently prepared for his reception, made a journey into Britain, and received the submission of several British states, the Cantii, Atrebates, Regni, and Trin.o.bantes, who inhabited the south-east part of the island, and whom their possessions and more cultivated manner of life rendered willing to purchase peace at the expense of their liberty. The other Britons, under the command of Caractacus, still maintained an obstinate resistance, and the Romans made little progress against them, till Ostorius Scapula was sent over to command their armies. This general advanced the Roman conquests over the Britons; [MN A.D. 50.] pierced into the country of the Silures, a warlike nation who inhabited the banks of the Severn; defeated Caractacus in a great battle; took him prisoner, and sent him to Rome, where his magnanimous behaviour procured him better treatment than those conquerors usually bestowed on captive princes [l].

[FN [k] Tacit. Agr. [l] Tacit. Ann. lib. 12.]

Notwithstanding these misfortunes, the Britons were not subdued; and this island was regarded by the ambitious Romans as a field in which military honour might still be acquired. [MN A.D. 59.] Under the reign of Nero, Suetonius Paulinus was invested with the command, and prepared to signalize his name by victories over those barbarians.

Finding that the island of Mona, now Anglesey, was the chief seat of the Druids, he resolved to attack it, and to subject a place which was the centre of their superst.i.tion, and which afforded protection to all their baffled forces. The Britons endeavoured to obstruct his landing on this sacred island, both by the force of their arms and the terrors of their religion. The women and priests were intermingled with the soldiers upon the sh.o.r.e; and running about with flaming torches in their hands, and tossing their dishevelled hair, they struck greater terror into the astonished Romans by their howlings, cries, and execrations, than the real danger from the armed forces was able to inspire. But Suetonius, exhorting his troops to despise the menaces of a superst.i.tion which they despised, impelled them to the attack, drove the Britons off the field, burned the Druids in the same fires which those priests had prepared for their captive enemies, destroyed all the consecrated groves and altars; and, having thus triumphed over the religion of the Britons, he thought his future progress would be easy in reducing the people to subjection. But he was disappointed in his expectations. The Britons, taking advantage of his absence, were all in arms; and headed by Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, who had been treated in the most ignominious manner by the Roman tribunes, had already attacked with success several settlements of their insulting conquerors. Suetonius hastened to the protection of London, which was already a flourishing Roman colony; but he found, on his arrival, that it would be requisite for the general safety to abandon that place to the merciless fury of the enemy. London was reduced to ashes; such of the inhabitants as remained in it were cruelly ma.s.sacred; the Romans and all strangers, to the number of 70,000, were every where put to the sword without distinction; and the Britons, by rendering the war thus b.l.o.o.d.y, seemed determined to cut off all hopes of peace or com- position with the enemy. But this cruelty was revenged by Suetonius in a great and decisive battle, where 80,000 of the Britons are said to have .perished; and Boadicea herself; rather than fall into the hands of the enraged victor, put an end to her own life by poison [m].

Nero soon after recalled Suetonius from a government, where, by suffering and inflicting so many severities, he was judged improper for composing the angry and alarmed minds of the inhabitants. After some interval, Cerealis received the command from Vespasian, and by his bravery propagated the terror of the Roman arms. Julius Frontinus succeeded Cerealis both in authority and in reputation: but the general who finally established the dominion of the Romans in this island was Julius Agricola, who governed it in the reigns of Vespasian, t.i.tus, and Domitian, and distinguished himself in that scene of action.

[FN [m] Tacit. Ann. lib. 14]

This great commander formed a regular plan for subduing Britain, and rendering the acquisition useful to the conquerors. He carried his victorious arms northwards, defeated the Britons in every encounter, pierced into the inaccessible forests and mountains of Caledonia, reduced every state to subjection in the southern part of the island, and chased before him all the men of fiercer and more intractable spirits, who deemed war and death itself less intolerable than servitude under the victors. He even defeated them in a decisive action, which they fought under Galgacus, their leader; and having fixed a chain of garrisons between the firths of Clyde and Forth, he thereby cut off the ruder and more barren parts of the island, and secured the Roman province from the incursions of the barbarous inhabitants [n].

[FN [n] Tacit Agr.]

During these military enterprises, he neglected not the arts of peace.

He introduced laws and civility among the Britons, taught them to desire and raise all the conveniences of life, reconciled them to the Roman language and manners, instructed them in letters and science, and employed every expedient to render those chains which he had forged both easy and agreeable to them [o]. The inhabitants, having experienced how unequal their own force was to resist that of the Romans, acquiesced in the dominion of their masters, and were gradually incorporated as a part of that mighty empire.

[FN [o] Ibid.]

This was the last durable conquest made by the Romans; and Britain, once subdued, gave no farther inquietude to the victor. Caledonia alone, defended by its barren mountains, and by the contempt which the Romans entertained for it, sometimes infested the more cultivated parts of the island by the incursions of its inhabitants. The better to secure the frontiers of the empire, Adrian, who visited this island, built a rampart between the river Tyne and the firth of Solway: Lollius Urbicus, under Antoninus Pius, erected one in the place where Agricola had formerly established his garrisons: Severus, who made an expedition into Britain, and carried his arms to the more northern extremity of it, added new fortifications to the walls of Adrian; and, during the reigns of all the Roman emperors, such a profound tranquillity prevailed in Britain, that little mention is made of the affairs of that island by any historian. The only incidents which occur are some seditions or rebellions of the Roman legions quartered there, and some usurpations of the Imperial dignity by the Roman governors. The natives, disarmed, dispirited, and submissive, had lost all desire, and even idea of their former liberty and independence.

But the period was now come when that enormous fabric of the Roman empire, which had diffused slavery and oppression, together with peace and civility, over so considerable a part of the globe, was approaching towards it final dissolution. Italy and the centre of the empire, removed, during so many ages, from all concern in the wars, had entirely lost the military spirit, and were peopled by an enervated race, equally disposed to submit to a foreign yoke, or to the tyranny of their own rulers. The emperors found themselves obliged to recruit their legions from the frontier provinces, where the genius of war, though languishing, was not totally extinct; and these mercenary forces, careless of laws, and civil inst.i.tutions, established a military government, no less dangerous to the sovereign than to the people. The further progress of the same disorders introduced the bordering barbarians into the service of the Romans; and those fierce nations, having now added discipline to their native bravery, could no longer be restrained by the impotent policy of the emperors, who were accustomed to employ one in the destruction of the others. Sensible of their own force, and allured by the prospect of so rich a prize, the northern barbarians, in the reign of Arcadius and Honorius, a.s.sailed at once all the frontiers of the Roman empire; and having first satiated their avidity by plunder, began to think of fixing a settlement in the wasted provinces. The more distant barbarians, who occupied the deserted habitations of the former, advanced in their acquisitions, and pressed with their inc.u.mbent weight the Roman state, already unequal to the load which it sustained. Instead of arming the people in their own defence, the emperors recalled all the distant legions, in whom alone they could repose confidence; and collected the whole military force for the defence of the capital and centre of the empire. The necessity of self-preservation had superseded the ambition of power; and the ancient point of honour never to contract the limits of the empire could no longer be attended to in this desperate extremity.

Britain by its situation was removed from the fury of these barbarous incursions; and being also a remote province, not much valued by the Romans, the legions which defended it were carried over to the protection of Italy and Gaul. But that province, though secured by the sea against the inroads of the greater tribes of barbarians, found enemies on its frontiers, who took advantage of its present defenceless situation. The Picts and Scots, who dwelt in the northern parts, beyond the wall of Antoninus, made incursions upon their peaceable and effeminate neighbours; and besides the temporary depredations which they committed, these combined nations threatened the whole province with subjection, or what the inhabitants more dreaded, with plunder and devastation. The Picts seem to have been a tribe of the native British race, who, having been chased into the northern parts by the conquest of Agricola, had there intermingled with the ancient inhabitants: the Scots were derived from the same Celtic origin, had first been established in Ireland, had migrated to the north-west coasts of this island, and had long been accustomed, as well from their old as their new seats, to infest the Roman province by piracy and rapine [p]. These tribes, finding their more opulent neighbours exposed to invasion, soon broke over the Roman wall, no longer defended by the Roman arms; and, though a contemptible enemy in themselves, met with no resistance from the unwarlike inhabitants.

The Britons, accustomed to have recourse to the emperors for defence as well as government, made supplications to Rome; and one legion was sent over for their protection. This force was an overmatch for the barbarians, repelled their invasion, routed them in every engagement, and having chased them into their ancient limits, returned in triumph to the defence of the southern provinces of the empire [q]. Their retreat brought on a new invasion of the enemy. The Britons made again an application to Rome, and again obtained the a.s.sistance of a legion, which proved effectual for their relief: but the Romans, reduced to extremities at home, and fatigued with those distant expeditions, informed the Britons that they must no longer look to them for succour, exhorted them to arm in their own defence, and urged that, as they were now their own masters, it became them to protect by their valour that independence which their ancient lords had conferred upon them [r]. That they might leave the island with the better grace, the Romans a.s.sisted them in erecting anew the wall of Severus, which was built entirely of stone, and which the Britons had not at that time artificers skilful enough to repair [s]. And having done this last good office to the inhabitants, they bid a final adieu to Britain, about the year 448; after being masters of the more considerable part of it during the course of near four centuries.

[FN [p] See note [A] at the end of the volume. [q] Gildas. Bede, lib. 1. cap. 12. Paul. Diacon. [r] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 12 [s] Ibid.]

[MN The Britons.]

The abject Britons. regarded this present of liberty as fatal to them; and were in no condition to put in practice the prudent counsel given them by the Romans to arm in their own defence. Unaccustomed both to the perils of war and to the cares of civil government, they found themselves incapable of forming or executing any measures for resisting the incursions of the barbarians. Gratian also and Constantine, two Romans who had a little before a.s.sumed the purple in Britain, had carried over to the continent the flower of the British youth; and having perished in their unsuccessful attempts on the imperial throne, had despoiled the island of those who, in this desperate extremity, were best able to defend it. The Picts and Scots, finding that the Romans had finally relinquished Britain, now regarded the whole as their prey, and attacked the northern wall with redoubled forces. The Britons already subdued by their own fears, found the ramparts but a weak defence for them; and deserting their station, left the country entirely open to the inroads of the barbarous enemy. The invaders carried devastation and ruin along with them; and exerted to the utmost their native ferocity, which was not mitigated by the helpless condition and submissive behaviour of the inhabitants [t]. The unhappy Britons had a third time recourse to Rome, which had declared its resolution for ever to abandon them.

Aetius, the patrician, sustained at that time, by his valour and magnanimity, the tottering ruins of the empire, and revived for a moment, among the degenerate Romans, the spirit as well as discipline of their ancestors. The British amba.s.sador carried to him the letter of their countrymen, which was inscribed, THE GROANS OF THE BRITONS.

The tenor of the epistle was suitable to its superscription. THE BARBARIANS, say they, ON THE ONE HAND, CHASE US INTO THE SEA; THE SEA, ON THE OTHER, THROWS US BACK UPON THE BARBARIANS; AND WE HAVE ONLY THE HARD CHOICE LEFT US, OF PERISHING BY THE SWORD OR BY THE WAVES [u].

But Aetius, pressed by the arms of Attila, the most terrible enemy that ever a.s.sailed the empire, had no leisure to attend to the complaints of allies, whom generosity alone could induce him to a.s.sist [v]. The Britons thus rejected were reduced to despair, deserted their habitations, abandoned tillage, and flying for protection to the forests and mountains, suffered equally from hunger and from the enemy. The barbarians themselves began to feel the pressure of famine in a country which they had ravaged; and being hara.s.sed by the dispersed Britons, who had not dared to resist them in a body, they retreated with their spoils into their own country [w].

[FN [t] Gildas. Bede, lib. 1. Ann. Beverl. p. 45. [u] Gildas.

Bede, lib. 1. cap. 13. Malmesbury, lib. 1. cap. 1. Ann. Beverl. p.

45. [v] Chron. Sax. p. 11 edit. 1692. [w] Ann. Beverl. p. 45.]

The Britons, taking advantage of this interval, returned to their usual occupations; and the favourable seasons which succeeded seconded their industry, made them soon forget their past miseries, and restored to them great plenty of all the necessaries of life. No more can be imagined to have been possessed by a people so rude, who had not, without the a.s.sistance of the Romans, art of masonry sufficient to raise a stone rampart for their own defence; yet the Monkish historians [x], who treat of those events, complain of the luxury of the Britons during this period, and ascribe to that vice, not to their cowardice or improvident counsels, all their subsequent calamities.

[FN [x] Gildas. Bede, lib. 1. cap. 14.]

The Britons, entirely occupied in the enjoyment of the present interval of peace, made no provision for resisting the enemy, who, invited by their former timid behaviour, soon threatened them with a new invasion. We are not exactly informed what species of civil government the Romans on their departure had left among the Britons; but it appears probable, that the great men in, the different districts a.s.sumed a kind of regal though precarious authority; and lived in a great measure independent of each other [y]. To this disunion of counsels were also added the disputes of theology; and the disciples of Pelagius, who was himself a native of Britain, having increased to a great mult.i.tude, gave alarm to the clergy, who seem to have been more intent on suppressing them, than on opposing the public enemy [z]. Labouring under these domestic evils, and menaced with a foreign invasion, the Britons attended only to the suggestions of their present fears; and following the counsels of Vortigern, Prince of Dumnonium, who, though stained with every vice, possessed the chief authority among them [a], they sent into Germany a deputation to invite over the Saxons for their protection and a.s.sistance.

[FN [y] Gildas. Usher, Ant. Brit. p. 248, 347. [z] Gildas. Bede, lib. 1. cap. 17. Constant. in vita Germ. [a] Gildas. Gul. Malm. p 8.]

[MN The Saxons.]

Of all the barbarous nations, known either in ancient or modern times, the Germans seem to have been the most distinguished both by their manners and political inst.i.tutions, and to have carried to the highest pitch the virtues of valour and love of liberty; the only virtues which can have place among an uncivilized people, where justice and humanity are commonly neglected. Kingly government, even when established among the Germans, (for it was not universal,) possessed a very limited authority; and though the sovereign was usually chosen from among the royal family, he was directed in every measure by the common consent of the nation over whom he presided. When any important affairs were transacted, all the warriors met in arms; the men of greatest authority employed persuasion to engage their consent; the people expressed their approbation by rattling their armour, or their dissent by murmurs; there was no necessity for a nice scrutiny of votes among a mult.i.tude, who were usually carried with a strong current to one side or the other; and the measure thus suddenly chosen by general agreement, was executed with alacrity and prosecuted with vigour. Even in war, the princes governed more by example than by authority; but in peace the civil union was in a great measure dissolved, and the inferior leaders administered justice after an independent manner, each in his particular district. These were elected by the votes of the people in their great councils; and though regard was paid to n.o.bility in the choice, their personal qualities, chiefly their valour, procured them, from the suffrages of their fellow-citizens, that honourable but dangerous distinction. The warriors of each tribe attached themselves to their leader with the most devoted affection and most unshaken constancy. They attended him as his ornament in peace, as his defence in war, as his council in the administration of justice. Their constant emulation in military renown dissolved not that inviolable friendship which they professed to their chieftain and to each other: to die for the honour of their band was their chief ambition: to survive its disgrace, or the death of their leader, was infamous. They even carried into the field their women and children, who adopted all the martial sentiments of the men: and being thus impelled by every human motive, they were invincible; where they were not opposed either by the similar manners and inst.i.tutions of the neighbouring Germans, or by the superior discipline, arms, and numbers of the Romans [b].

[FN [b] Caesar, lib. 6. Tacit. de Mor. Germ.]

The leaders and their military companions were maintained by the labour of their slaves, or by that of the weaker and less warlike part of the community, whom they defended. The contributions which they levied went not beyond a bare subsistence; and the honours, acquired by a superior rank, were the only reward of their superior dangers and fatigues. All the refined arts of life were unknown among the Germans: tillage itself was almost wholly neglected: they even seem to have been anxious to prevent any improvements of that nature; and the leaders, by annually distributing anew all the land among the inhabitants of each village, kept them from attaching themselves to particular possessions, or making such progress in agriculture as might divert their attention from military expeditions, the chief occupation of the community [c].

[FN [c] Caesar, lib. 6. Tacit. de Mor. Germ.]

The Saxons had been for some time regarded as one of the most warlike tribes of this fierce people, and had become the terror of the neighbouring nations [d]. They had diffused themselves from the northern parts of Germany and the Cimbrian Chersonesus, and had taken possession of all the sea-coast from the mouth of the Rhine to Jutland; whence they had long infested by their piracies all the eastern and southern parts of Britain, and the northern of Gaul [e].

In order to oppose their inroads, the Romans had established an officer, whom they called COUNT OF THE SAXON Sh.o.r.e; and as the naval arts can flourish among a civilized people alone, they seem to have been more successful in repelling the Saxons, than any of the other barbarians by whom they were invaded. The dissolution of the Roman power invited them to renew their inroads; and it was an acceptable circ.u.mstance, that the deputies of the Britons appeared among them, and prompted them to undertake an enterprise, to which they were of themselves sufficiently inclined [f].

[FN d Amm. Marcell. lib. 28. Orosius. [e] Marcell. lib. 27. cap. 7.

lib. 28. cap. 7. [f] Will. Malm. p. 8.]

Hengist and Horsa, two brothers, possessed great credit among the Saxons, and were much celebrated both for their valour and n.o.bility.