The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• A Defence of the People of England, In Answer to Salmasius’s Defence of the King. *
• A Treatise of Civil Power In Ecclesiastical Causes; Showing That It Is Not Lawful For Any Power On Earth to Compel In Matters of Religion.
• Considerations Touching the Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings Out of the Church. Wherein Is Also Discoursed of Tithes, Church-fees, and Church-revenues; and Whether Any Maintenance of Ministers Can Be Settled By Law.
• A Letter to a Friend Concerning the Ruptures of the Commonwealth.
• The Present Means and Brief Delineation of a Free Commonwealth, Easy to Be Put In Practice, and Without Delay.
• The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, and the Excellence Thereof, Compared With the Inconveniencies and Dangers of Readmitting Kingship In This Nation.
• Brief Notes Upon a Late Sermon, Titled, the Fear of God and the King.
• The History of Britain, That Part Especially Now Called England, From the First Traditional Beginning, Continued to the Norman Conquest:—collected Out of the Ancientest and Best Authors Thereof.
• The First Book.
• The Second Book.
• The Third Book.
• The Fourth Book.
• The Fifth Book.
• The Sixth Book.
• Of True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration; and What Best Means May Be Used Against the Growth of Popery.
• A Brief History of Moscovia, and of Other Less Known Countries Lying Eastward of Russia As Far As Cathay.
• The Preface.
• Moscovia: Or, Relations of Moscovia, As Far As Hath Been Discovered By English Voyages; Gathered From the Writings of Several Eye-witnesses: and the Other Less Known Countries Lying Eastward of Russia As Far As Cathay, Lately Discovered At Several Time
• Chapter I.: A Brief Description.
• Chapter II.: Of Samoëdia, Siberia, and Other Countries North-east, Subject to the Muscovites.
• Chapter III.: Of Tingoësia, and the Countries Adjoining Eastward, As Far As Cathay.
• Chapter IV.: The Succession of Moscovia Dukes and Emperors, Taken Out of Their Chroniles By a Polac, With Some Later Additions. †
• Chapter V.: The First Discovery of Russia By the North-east, 1553, With the English Embassies, and Entertainments At That Court, Until the Year 1604.
• A Declaration of Letters Patents, For the Election of This Present King of Poland, John the Third, Elected On the 22d of May Last Past, A. D. 1674.
• Letters of State to Most of the Sovereign Princes and Republics of Europe, During the Administration of the Commonwealth and the Protectors Oliver and Richard Cromwell.
• Letters Written In the Name of the Parliament.
• Letters Written In the Name of Oliver the Protector.
• Letters Written In the Name of Richard, Protector.
• A Manifesto of the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, Ireland, &c.
• The Second Defence of the People of England, Against an Anonymous Libel Entitled “the Royal Blood Crying to Heaven For Vengeance On the English Parricides.”
• Familiar Epistles, Translated From the Latin, By Robert Fellowes, A. M. Oxon.
• I.: To His Tutor Thomas Jure.
• II.: To Alexander Gill.
• III.: To the Same.
• IV.: To Thomas Jure.
• V.: To Alexander Gill.
• VI.: To Carolo Deodati.
• VII.: To the Same.
• VIII.: To Beneditto Bonomattai, a Florentine.
• IX.: To Luke Holstein, In the Vatican At Rome.
• X.: To Carolo Deodati, a Florentine Noble.
• XI.: To Hermann Milles, Secretary to the Count of Oldenburgh.
• XII.: To the Renowned Leonard Philara, the Athenian.
• XIII.: To Richard Heth.
• XIV.: To Henry Oldenburgh, Aulic Counsellor to the Senate of Bremen.
• XV.: To Leonard Philara, the Athenian.
• XVI.: To Leo of Aizema.
• XVII.: To Ezechiel Spanheim, of Geneva.
• XVIII.: To Henry Oldenburgh, Aulic Counsellor to the Senate of Bremen.
• XIX.: To the Noble Youth, Richard Jones.
• XX.: To the Accomplished Youth Peter Heinbach.
• XXI.: To the Accomplished Emeric Bigot.
• XXII.: To the Noble Youth Richard Jones.
• XXIII.: To the Illustrious Lord Henry De Bras.
• XXIV.: To Henry Oldenburgh.
• XXV.: To the Noble Youth Richard Jones.
• XXVI.: To the Illustrious Lord Henry De Bras.
• XXVII.: To the Accomplished Peter Heinbach.
• XXVIII.: To John Badiaus, Minister of the Church of Orange.
• XXIX.: To Henry Oldenburgh.
• XXX.: To the Noble Youth Richard Jones.
• XXXI.: To the Accomplished Peter Heinbach, Counsellor to the Elector of Brandenburg.

THE HISTORY OF BRITAIN,
THAT PART ESPECIALLY NOW CALLED ENGLAND,

FROM THE FIRST TRADITIONAL BEGINNING, CONTINUED TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST:—COLLECTED OUT OF THE ANCIENTEST AND BEST AUTHORS THEREOF.

THE FIRST BOOK.

The beginning of nations, those excepted of whom sacred books have spoken, is to this day unknown. Nor only the beginning, but the deeds also of many succeeding ages, yea, periods of ages, either wholly unknown, or obscured and blemished with fables. Whether it were that the use of letters came in long after, or were it the violence of barbarous inundations, or they themselves, at certain revolutions of time, fatally decaying, and degenerating into sloth and ignorance; whereby the monuments of more ancient civility have been some destroyed, some lost. Perhaps disesteem and contempt of the public affairs then present, as not worth recording, might partly be in cause. Certainly ofttimes we see that wise men, and of best ability, have foreborne to write the acts of their own days, while they beheld with a just loathing and disdain, not only how unworthy, how perverse, how corrupt, but often how ignoble, how petty, how below all history, the persons and their actions were; who, either by fortune or some rude election, had attained, as a sore judgment and ignominy upon the land, to have chief sway in managing the commonwealth. But that any law, or superstition of our philosophers, the Druids, forbad the Britons to write their memorable deeds, I know not why any out of Cæsar* should allege: he indeed saith, that their doctrine they thought not lawful to commit to letters; but in most matters else, both private and public, among which well may history be reckoned, they used the Greek tongue; and that the British Druids, who taught those in Gaul, would be ignorant of any language known and used by their disciples, or so frequently writing other things, and so inquisitive into highest, would for want of recording be ever children in the knowledge of times and ages, is not likely. Whatever might be the reason, this we find, that of British affairs, from the first peopling of the island to the coming of Julius Cæsar, nothing certain, either by tradition, history, or ancient fame, hath hitherto been left us. That which we have of oldest seeming, hath by the greater part of judicious antiquaries been long rejected for a modern fable.

Nevertheless there being others, besides the first supposed author, men not unread, nor unlearned in antiquity, who admit that for approved story, which the former explode for fiction; and seeing that ofttimes relations heretofore accounted fabulous have been after found to contain in them many footsteps and reliques of something true, as what we read in poets of the flood, and giants little believed, till undoubted witnesses taught us, that all was not feigned; I have therefore determined to bestow the telling over even of these reputed tales; be it for nothing else but in favour of our English poets and rhetoricians, who by their art will know how to use them judiciously.

I might also produce example, as Diodorus among the Greeks, Livy and others among the Latins, Polydore and Virunnius accounted among our own writers. But I intend not with controversies and quotations to delay or interrupt the smooth course of history; much less to argue and debate long who were the first inhabitants, with what probabilities, what authorities each opinion hath been upheld; but shall endeavour that which hitherto hath been needed most, with plain and lightsome brevity, to relate well and orderly things worth the noting, so as may best instruct and benefit them that read. Which, imploring divine assistance, that it may redound to his glory, and the good of the British nation, I now begin.

That the whole earth was inhabited before the flood, and to the utmost point of habitable ground from those effectual words of God in the creation, may be more than conjectured. Hence that this island also had her dwellers, her affairs, and perhaps her stories, even in that old world those many hundred years, with much reason we may infer. After the flood, and the dispersing of nations, as they journeyed leisurely from the east, Gomer the eldest son of Japhet, and his offspring, as by authorities, arguments, and affinity of divers names is generally believed, were the first that peopled all these west and northern climes. But they of our own writers, who thought they had done nothing, unless with all circumstance they tell us when, and who first set foot upon this island, presume to name out of fabulous and counterfeit authors a certain Samothes or Dis, a fourth or sixth son of Japhet, (who they make, about 200 years after the flood, to have planted with colonies, first the continent of Celtica or Gaul, and next this island; thence to have named it Samothea,) to have reigned here, and after him lineally four kings, Magus, Saron, Druis, and Bardus. But the forged Berosus, whom only they have to cite, no where mentions that either he, or any of those whom they bring, did ever pass into Britain, or send their people hither. So that this outlandish figment may easily excuse our not allowing it the room here so much as of a British fable.

That which follows, perhaps as wide from truth, though seeming less impertinent, is, that these Samotheans under the reign of Bardus were subdued by Albion, a giant, son of Neptune; who called the island after his own name, and ruled it forty-four years. Till at length passing over into Gaul, in aid of his brother Lestrygon, against whom Hercules was hasting out of Spain into Italy, he was there slain in fight, and Bergion also his brother.

Sure enough we are, that Britain hath been anciently termed Albion, both by the Greeks and Romans. And Mela, the geographer, makes mention of a stony shore in Languedoc, where by report such a battle was fought. The rest, as his giving name to the isle, or even landing here, depends altogether upon late surmises. But too absurd, and too unconscionably gross is that fond invention, that wafted hither the fifty daughters of a strange Dioclesian king of Syria; brought in, doubtless, by some illiterate pretender to something mistaken in the common poetical story of Danaus king of Argos, while his vanity, not pleased with the obscure beginning which truest antiquity affords the nation, laboured to contrive us a pedigree, as he thought, more noble. These daughters by appointment of Danaus on the marriage-night having murdered all their husbands, except Linceus, whom his wife’s loyalty saved, were by him, at the suit of his wife their sister, not put to death, but turned out to sea in a ship unmanned; of which whole sex they had incurred the hate: and as the tale goes, were driven on this island. Where the inhabitants, none but devils, as some write, or as others, a lawless crew left here by Albion, without head or governor, both entertained them, and had issue by them a second breed of giants, who tyrannized the isle, till Brutus came.

The eldest of these dames in their legend they call Albina; and from thence, for which cause the whole scene was framed, will have the name Albion derived. Incredible it may seem so sluggish a conceit should prove so ancient, as to be authorized by the elder Ninnius, reputed to have lived above a thousand years ago. This I find not in him: but that Histion, sprung of Japhet, had four sons; Francus, Romanus, Alemannus, and Britto, of whom the Britains;* as true, I believe, as that those other nations, whose names are resembled, came of the other three; if these dreams give not just occasion to call in doubt the book itself, which bears that title.

Hitherto the things themselves have given us a warrantable dispatch to run them soon over. But now of Brutus and his line, with the whole progeny of kings, to the entrance of Julius Cæsar, we cannot so easily be discharged; descents of ancestry long continued, laws and exploits not plainly seeming to be borrowed, or devised, which on the common belief have wrought no small impression; defended by many, denied utterly by few. For what though Brutus and the whole Trojan pretence were yielded up; (seeing they who first devised to bring us from some noble ancestor, were content at first with Brutus the consul; till better invention, although not willing to forego the name, taught them to remove it higher into a more fabulous age, and by the same remove lighting on the Trojan tales in affectation to make the Briton of one original with the Roman, pitched there;) yet those old and inborn names of successive kings, never any to have been real persons, or done in their lives at least some part of what so long hath been remembered, cannot be thought without too strict an incredulity.

For these, and those causes above mentioned, that which hath received approbation from so many, I have chosen not to omit. Certain or uncertain, be that upon the credit of those whom I must follow; so far as keeps aloof from impossible and absurd, attested by ancient writers from books more ancient, I refuse not, as the due and proper subject of story. The principal author is well known to be Geoffrey of Monmouth; what he was, and whence his authority, who in his age, or before him, have delivered the same matter, and such like general discourses, will better stand in a treatise by themselves. All† of them agree in this, that Brutus was the son of Silvius; he of Ascanius; whose father was Eneas, a Trojan prince, who at the burning of that city, with his son Ascanius, and a collected number that escaped, after long wandering on the sea, arrived in Italy. Where at length by the assistance of Latinus king of Latiam, who had given him his daughter Lavinia, he obtained to succeed in that kingdom, and left it to Ascanius, whose son Silvius (though Roman histories deny Silvius to be the son of Ascanius) had married secretly a niece of Lavinia.

She being with child, the matter became known to Ascanius. Who commanding his “magicians to inquire by art, what sex the maid had conceived,” had answer, “that it was one who should be the death of both his parents; and banished for the fact, should after all, in a far country, attain the highest honour.” The prediction failed not, for in travail the mother died. And Brutus (the child was so called) at fifteen years of age, attending his father to the chase, with an arrow unfortunately killed him.

Banished therefore by his kindred, he retires into Greece. Where meeting with the race of Helenus king Priam’s son, held there in servile condition by Pandrasus then king, with them he abides. For Pyrrhus, in revenge of his father slain at Troy, had brought thither with him Helenus, and many others into servitude. There Brutus among his own stock so thrives in virtue and in arms, as renders him beloved to kings and great captains above all the youth of that land. Whereby the Trojans not only began to hope, but secretly to move him, that he would lead them the way to liberty. They allege their numbers, and the promised help of Assaracus a noble Greekish youth, by the mother’s side a Trojan; whom for that cause his brother went about to dispossess of certain castles bequeathed him by his father. Brutus considering both the forces offered him, and the strength of those holds, not unwillingly consents.

First therefore having fortified those castles, he with Assaracus and the whole multitude betake them to the woods and hills as the safest place from whence to expostulate; and in the name of all sends to Pandrasus this message, “That the Trojans holding it unworthy their ancestors to serve in a foreign kingdom had retreated to the woods; choosing rather a savage life than a slavish: if that displeased him, that then with his leave they might depart to some other soil.”

As this may pass with good allowance that the Trojans might be many in these parts, (for Helenus was by Pyrrhus made king of the Chaonians, and the sons of Pyrrhus by Andromache Hector’s wife, could not but be powerful through all Epirus,) so much the more it may be doubted, how these Trojans could be thus in bondage, where they had friends and countrymen so potent. But to examine these things with diligence, were but to confute the fables of Britain, with the fables of Greece or Italy; for of this age, what we have to say, as well concerning most other countries, as this island, is equally under question. Be how it will, Pandrasus not expecting so bold a message from the sons of captives, gathers an army; and marching towards the woods, Brutus who had notice of his approach nigh to the town called Sparatinum, (I know not what town, but certain of no Greek name,) over night planting himself there with good part of his men, suddenly sets upon him, and with slaughter of the Greeks pursues him to the passage of a river, which mine author names Akalon, meaning perhaps Achelous or Acheron; where at the ford he overlays them afresh. This victory obtained, and a sufficient strength left in Sparatinum, Brutus with Antigonus, the king’s brother, and his friend Anacletus, whom he had taken in the fight, returns to the residue of his friends in the thick woods; while Pandrasus with all speed recollecting, besieges the town. Brutus to relieve his men besieged, who earnestly called him, distrusting the sufficiency of his force, bethinks himself of this policy. Calls to him Anacletus, and threatening instant death else, both to him and his friend Antigonus, enjoins him, that he should go at the second hour of night to the Greekish leagre, and tell the guards he had brought Antigonus by stealth out of prison to a certain woody vale, unable through the weight of his fetters to move him further, entreating them to come speedily and fetch him in.—Anacletus to save both himself and his friend Antigonus swears this, and at a fit hour sets on alone toward the camp; is met, examined, and at last unquestionably known. To whom, great profession of fidelity first made, he frames his tale, as had been taught him; and they now fully assured, with a credulous rashness leaving their stations, fared accordingly by the ambush that there awaited them. Forthwith Brutus divided his men into three parts, leads on in silence to the camp; commanding first each part at a several place to enter, and forbear execution, till he with his squadron possessed of the king’s tent, gave signal to them by trumpet. The sound whereof no sooner heard, but huge havoc begins upon the sleeping and unguarded enemy, whom the besieged also now sallying forth, on the other side assail. Brutus the while had special care to seize and secure the king’s person; whose life still within his custody, he knew was the surest pledge to obtain what he should demand. Day appearing, he enters the town, there distributes the king’s treasury, and leaving the place better fortified, returns with the king his prisoner to the woods. Straight the ancient and grave men he summons to council, what they should now demand of the king.

After long debate Mempricius, one of the gravest, utterly dissuading them from thought of longer stay in Greece, unless they meant to be deluded with a subtle peace, and the awaited revenge of those whose friends they had slain, advises them to demand first the king’s eldest daughter Innogen in marriage to their leader Brutus with a rich dowry, next shipping, money, and fit provision for them all to depart the land.

This resolution pleasing best, the king now brought in, and placed in a high seat, is briefly told, that on these conditions granted, he might be free; not granted he must prepare to die.

Pressed with fear of death, the king readily yields; especially to bestow his daughter on whom he confessed so noble and so valiant: offers them also the third part of his kingdom, if they like to stay; if not, to be their hostage himself, till he had made good his word.

The marriage therefore solemnized, and shipping from all parts got together, the Trojans in a fleet, no less written than three hundred four and twenty sail, betake them to the wide sea: where with a prosperous course, two days and a night bring them on a certain island long before dispeopled and left waste by sea-rovers, the name whereof was then Leogecia, now unknown. They who were sent out to discover, came at length to a ruined city, where was a temple and image of Diana that gave oracles: but not meeting first or last, save wild beasts, they return with this notice to their ships; wishing their general would inquire of that oracle what voyage to pursue.

Consultation had, Brutus taking with him Gerion his diviner, and twelve of the ancientest, with wanton ceremonies before the inward shrine of the goddess, in verse (as it seems the manner was) utters his request, “Diva potens nemorum,” &c.

• Goddess of shades, and huntress, who at will
• Walk’st on the rolling sphere, and through the deep
• On thy third reign the earth look now, and tell
• What land, what seat of rest thou bid’st me seek,
• What certain seat, where I may worship thee
• For aye, with temples vow’d, and virgin choirs.

To whom sleeping before the altar, Diana in a vision that night thus answered, “Brute sub occasum solis,” &c.

• Brutus, far to the west, in th’ ocean wide,
• Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies,
• Seagirt it lies, where giants dwelt of old,
• Now void, it fits thy people; thither bend
• Thy course, there shalt thou find a lasting seat,
• Where to thy sons another Troy shall rise;
• And kings be born of thee, whose dreaded might
• Shall awe the world, and conquer nations bold.

These verses originally Greek, were put in Latin, saith Virunnius, by Gildas a British poet and him to have lived under Claudius. Which granted true, adds much to the antiquity of this fable; and indeed the Latin verses are much better, than of the age for Geoffrey ap Arthur, unless perhaps Joseph of Exeter, the only smooth poet of those times, befriended him. In this, Diana overshot her oracle thus ending, “Ipsis totius terræ subditus orbis erit,” That to the race of Brute, kings of this island, the whole earth shall be subject.

But Brutus, guided now, as he thought, by divine conduct, speeds him towards the west; and after some encounters on the Afric side, arrives at a place on the Tyrrhene sea; where he happens to find the race of those Trojans, who with Antenor came into Italy; and Corineus, a man much famed, was their chief: though by surer authors it be reported, that those Trojans with Antenor were seated on the other side of Italy, on the Adriatic, not the Tyrrhene shore. But these joining company, and past the Herculean Pillars, at the mouth of Ligeris in Aquitania cast anchor: where after some discovery made of the place, Corineus, hunting nigh the shore with his men, is by messengers of the king Goffarius Pictus met, and questioned about his errand there. Who not answering to their mind, Imbertus, one of them, lets fly an arrow at Corineus, which he avoiding, slays him: and the Pictavian himself hereupon levying his whole force, is overthrown by Brutus and Corineus; who with the battle-axe which he was wont to manage against the Tyrrhene giants, is said to have done marvels. But Goffarius having drawn to his aid the whole country of Gaul, at that time governed by twelve kings, puts his fortune to a second trial; wherein the Trojans, overborne by multitude, are driven back, and besieged in their own camp, which by good foresight was strongly situate. Whence Brutus unexpectedly issuing out, and Corineus in the meanwhile, whose device it was, assaulting them behind from a wood, where he had conveyed his men the night before: the Trojans are again victors, but with the loss of Turon a valiant nephew of Brutus: whose ashes, left in that place, gave name to the city of Tours, built there by the Trojans. Brutus finding now his powers much lessened, and this yet not the place foretold him, leaves Aquitain, and with an easy course arriving at Totness in Devonshire, quickly perceives here to be the promised end of his labours.

The island, not yet Britain but Albion, was in a manner desert and inhospitable; kept only by a remnant of giants, whose excessive force and tyranny had consumed the rest. Them Brutus destroys, and to his people divides the land, which with some reference to his own name he thenceforth calls Britain. To Corineus, Cornwall, as now we call it, fell by lot; the rather by him liked, for that the hugest giants in rocks and caves were said to lurk still there; which kind of monsters to deal with was his old exercise.

And here with leave bespoken to recite a grand fable, though dignified by our best poets: while Brutus, on a certain festival day solemnly kept on that shore, where he first landed, was with the people in great jollity and mirth, a crew of these savages breaking in upon them, began on a sudden another sort of game, than at such a meeting was expected. But at length by many hands overcome, Goemagog the hugest, in height twelve cubits, is reserved alive, that with him Corineus, who desired nothing more, might try his strength; whom in a wrestle the giant catching aloft, with a terrible hug broke three of his ribs: nevertheless Corineus enraged, heaving him up by main force, and on his shoulders bearing him to the next high rock, threw him headlong, all shattered, into the sea, and left his name on the cliff, called ever since Langoemagog, which is to say, the giant’s leap.

After this, Brutus in a chosen place builds Troja Nova, changed in time to Trinovantum, now London: and began to enact laws; Heli being then high priest in Judæa: and having governed the whole isle twenty-four years, died, and was buried in his new Troy. His three sons, Locrine, Albanact, and Camber, divide the land by consent. Locrine had the middle part Lœgria; Camber possessed Cambria, or Wales; Albanact, Albania, now Scotland. But he in the end by Humber king of the Hunds, who with a fleet invaded that land, was slain in fight, and his people drove back into Lœgria. Locrine and his brother go out against Humber; who now marching onward, was by them defeated, and in a river drowned, which to this day retains his name. Among the spoils of his camp and navy, were found certain young maids, and Estrildis above the rest, passing fair, the daughter of a king in Germany; from whence Humber, as he went wasting the sea coast, had led her captive: whom Locrine, though before contracted to the daughter of Corineus, resolves to marry. But being forced and threatened by Corineus, whose authority and power he feared, Guendolen the daughter he yields to marry, but in secret loves the other: and ofttimes retiring, as to some private sacrifice, through vaults and passages made under ground, and seven years thus enjoying her, had by her a daughter equally fair, whose name was Sabra. But when once his fear was off by the death of Corineus, not content with secret enjoyment, divorcing Guendolen, he makes Estrildes now his queen. Guendolen, all in a rage, departs into Cornwall, where Madan, the son she had by Locrine, was hitherto brought up by Corineus his grandfather. And gathering an army of her father’s friends and subjects, gives battle to her husband by the river Sture; wherein Locrine, shot with an arrow, ends his life. But not so ends the fury of Guendolen; for Estrildis, and her daughter Sabra, she throws into a river: and, to leave a monument of revenge, proclaims that the stream be thenceforth called after the damsel’s name; which, by length of time, is changed now to Sabrina, or Severn.

Fifteen years she governs in behalf of her son; then resigning to him at age, retires to her father’s dominion. This, saith my author, was in the days of Samuel. Madan hath the praise to have well and peacefully ruled the space of forty years, leaving behind him two sons, Mempricius, and Malim. Mempricius had first to do with the ambition of his brother, aspiring to share with him in the kingdom; whom therefore, at a meeting to compose matters, with a treachery, which his cause needed not, he slew.

Nor was he better in the sole possession, whereof he could so ill endure a partner, killing his nobles, and those especially next to succeed him; till lastly, given over to unnatural lust, in the twentieth of his reign, hunting in a forest, he was devoured by wolves.

His son Ebranc, a man of mighty strength and stature, reigned forty years. He first, after Brutus, wasted Gaul; and returning rich and prosperous, builded Caerebranc, now York; in Albania, Alclud, Mount Agned, or the Castle of Maidens, now Edinburg. He had twenty sons and thirty daughters by twenty wives. His daughters he sent to Silvius Alba into Italy, who bestowed them on his peers of the Trojan line. His sons, under the leading of Assaracus their brother, won them lands and signiories in Germany; thence called from these brethren, Germania; a derivation too hastily supposed, perhaps before the word Germanus, or the Latin tongue was in use. Some who have described Henault, as Jacobus Bergamas, and Lassabeus, are cited to affirm, that Ebranc, in his war there, was by Brunchildis, lord of Henault, put to the worse.

Brutus, therefore, surnamed Greenshield, succeeding, to repair his father’s losses, as the same Lessabeus reports, fought a second battle in Henault, with Brunchild, at the mouth of Scaldis, and encamped on the river Hania. Of which our Spencer also thus sings:

• Let Scaldis tell, and let tell Hania,
• And let the marsh of Esthambruges tell
• What colour were their waters that same day,
• And all the moor ’twixt Elversham and Dell,
• With blood of Henalois, which therein fell;
• How oft that day did sad Brunchildis see
• The Greenshield dyed in dolorous vermeil, &c.

But Henault, and Brunchild, and Greenshield, seem newer names than for a story pretended thus ancient.

Him succeeded Leil, a maintainer of peace and equity; but slackened in his latter end, whence arose some civil discord. He built, in the North, Cairliel;* and in the days of Solomon.

Rudhuddibras, or Hudibras, appeasing the commotions which his father could not, founded Caerkeynt or Canterbury, Caerguent or Winchester, and Mount Paladur, now Septonia or Shaftesbury: but this by others is contradicted.

Bladud his son built Caerbadus or Bath, and those medical waters he dedicated to Minerva; in whose temple there he kept fire continually burning. He was a man of great invention, and taught necromancy; till having made him wings to fly, he fell down upon the temple of Apollo in Trinovant, and so died after twenty year’s reign.

Hitherto, from father to son, the direct line hath run on: but Leir, who next reigned, had only three daughters, and no male issue: governed laudably, and built Caerleir, now Leicester, on the bank of Sora. But at last, falling through age, he determines to bestow his daughters, and so among them to divide his kingdom. Yet first, to try which of them loved him best, (a trial that might have made him, had he known as wisely how to try, as he seemed to know how much the trying behooved him,) he resolves a simple resolution, to ask them solemnly in order; and which of them should profess largest, her to believe. Gonorill the eldest, apprehending too well her father’s weakness, makes answer, invoking Heaven, “That she loved him above her soul.” “Therefore,” quoth the old man, overjoyed, “since thou so honourest my declining age, to thee and the husband whom thou shalt choose, I give the third part of my realm.” So fair a speeding, for a few words soon uttered, was to Regan, the second, ample instruction what to say. She, on the same demand, spares no protesting; and the gods must witness, that otherwise to express her thoughts she knew not, but that “She loved him above all creatures;” and so receives an equal reward with her sister. But Cordeilla, the youngest, though hitherto best loved, and now before her eyes the rich and present hire of a little easy soothing, the danger also, and the loss likely to betide plain dealing, yet moves not from the solid purpose of a sincere and virtuous answer. “Father,” saith she, “my love towards you is as my duty bids: what should a father seek, what can a child promise more? They, who pretend beyond this, flatter.” When the old man, sorry to hear this, and wishing her to recall those words, persisted asking; with a loyal sadness at her father’s infirmity, but something, on the sudden, harsh, and glancing rather at her sisters than speaking her own mind, “Two ways only,” saith she, “I have to answer what you require me: the former, your command is, I should recant; accept then this other which is left me; look how much you have, so much is your value, and so much I love you.” “Then hear thou,” quoth Leir, now all in passion, “what thy ingratitude hath gained thee; because thou hast not reverenced thy aged father equal to thy sisters, part in my kingdom, or what else is mine, reckon to have none.” And, without delay, gives in marriage his other daughters, Gonorill to Maglaunus duke of Albania, Regan to Henninus duke of Cornwall; with them in present half his kingdom; the rest to follow at his death. In the meanwhile, fame was not sparing to divulge the wisdom and other graces of Cordeilla, insomuch that Aganippus, a great king in Gaul, (however he came by his Greek name, not found in any register of French kings,) seeks her to wife; and nothing altered at the loss of her dowry, receives her gladly in such manner as she was sent him. After this, King Leir, more and more drooping with years, became an easy prey to his daughters and their husbands; who now, by daily encroachment, had seized the whole kingdom into their hands: and the old king is put to sojourn with his eldest daughter attended only by threescore knights. But they in a short while grudged at, as too numerous and disorderly for continual guests, are reduced to thirty. Not brooking that affront, the old king betakes him to his second daughter: but there also, discord soon arising between the servants of differing masters in one family, five only are suffered to attend him. Then back again he returns to the other; hoping that she his eldest could not but have more pity on his gray hairs: but she now refuses to admit him, unless he be content with one only of his followers. At last the remembrance of his youngest, Cordeilla, comes to his thoughts; and now acknowledging how true her words had been, though with little hope from whom he had so injured, be it but to pay her the last recompense she can have from him, his confession of her wise forewarning, that so perhaps his misery, the proof and experiment of her wisdom, might something soften her, he takes his journey into France. Now might be seen a difference between the silent, or downright spoken affection of some children to their parents, and the talkative obsequiousness of others; while the hope of inheritance overacts them, and on the tongue’s end enlarges their duty. Cordeilla, out of mere love, without the suspicion of expected reward, at the message only of her father in distress, pours forth true filial tears. And not enduring either that her own, or any other eye should see him in such forlorn condition as his messenger declared, discreetly appoints one of her trusted servants first to convey him privately towards some good seatown, there to array him, bathe him, cherish him, furnish him with such attendance and state as beseemed his dignity; that then, as from his first landing, he might send word of his arrival to her husband Aganippus. Which done, with all mature and requisite contrivance, Cordeilla, with the king her husband, and all the barony of his realm, who then first had news of his passing the sea, go out to meet him; and after all honourable and joyful entertainment, Aganippus, as to his wife’s father, and his royal guest, surrenders him, during his abode there, the power and disposal of his whole dominion: permitting his wife Cordeilla to go with an army, and set her father upon his throne. Wherein her piety so prospered, as that she vanquished her impious sisters, with those dukes; and Leir again, as saith the story, three years obtained the crown. To whom, dying, Cordeilla, with all regal solemnities, gave burial in the town of Leicester: and then, as right heir succeeding, and her husband dead, ruled the land five years in peace. Until Marganus and Cunedagius, her two sisters’ sons, not bearing that a kingdom should be governed by a woman, in the unseasonablest time to raise that quarrel against a woman so worthy, make war against her, depose her, and imprison her; of which impatient, and now long unexercised to suffer, she there, as is related, killed herself. The victors between them part the land; but Merganus, the eldest sister’s son, who held, by agreement, from the north side of Humber to Cathness, incited by those about him, to invade all as his own right, wars on Cunedagius, who soon met him, overcame, and overtook him in a town of Wales, where he left his life, and ever since his name to the place.

Cunedagius was now sole king, and governed with much praise many years, about the time when Rome was built.

Him succeeded Rivallo his son, wise also and fortunate; save what they tell us of three days raining blood and swarms of stinging flies, whereof men died. In order then Gurgustius, Jago or Lago, his nephew; Sisilius, Kinmarcus. Then Gorbogudo, whom others name Gorbodego, and Gorbodion, who had two sons, Ferrex, and Porrex. They, in the old age of their father, falling to contend who should succeed, Porrex, attempting by treachery his brother’s life, drives him into France; and in his return, though aided with the force of that country, defeats and slays him. But by his mother Videna, who less loved him, is himself, with the assistance of her women, soon after slain in his bed: with whom ended, as is thought, the line of Brutus. Whereupon the whole land, with civil broils, was rent into five kingdoms, long time waging war each on other; and some say fifty years. At length Dunwallo Molmutius, the son of Cloten king of Cornwal, one of the foresaid five, excelling in valour and goodliness of person, after his father’s decease, found means to reduce again the whole island into a monarchy; subduing the rest at opportunities. First, Ymner king of Loegria, whom he slew; then Rudaucus of Cambria, Staterius of Albania, confederate together. In which fight Dunwallo is reported, while the victory hung doubtful, to have used this art. He takes with him 600 stout men, bids them put on the armour of their slain enemies; and so unexpectedly approaching the squadron, where those two kings had placed themselves in fight, from that part which they thought securest, assaults and dispatches them. The displaying his own ensigns, which before he had concealed, and sending notice to the other part of his army what was done, adds to them new courage, and gains a final victory. This Dunwallo was the first in Britain that wore a crown of gold; and therefore by some reputed the first king. He established the Molmutine laws, famous among the English to this day; written long after in Latin by Gildas, and in Saxon by King Alfred: so saith Geoffrey, but Gildas denies to have known ought of the Britons before Cæsar; much less knew Alfred. These laws, whoever made them, bestowed on temples the privilege of sanctuary; to cities also, and the ways thither leading, yea to plows, granted a kind of like refuge; and made such riddance of thieves and robbers, that all passages were safe. Forty years he governed alone, and was buried nigh to the temple of Concord; which he, to the memory of peace restored, had built in Trinovant.

His two sons, Belinus and Brennus, contending about the crown, by decision of friends, came at length to an accord: Brennus to have the north of Humber, Belinus the sovereignty of all. But the younger not long so contented, that he, as they whispered to him, whose valour had so oft repelled the invasions of Ceulphus the Morine duke, should now be subject to his brother, upon new design sails into Norway; enters league and affinity with Elsing that king: which Belinus perceiving, in his absence dispossesses him of all the north. Brennus, with a fleet of Norwegians, makes towards Britain; but encountered by Guithlac, the Danish king, who, laying claim to his bride, pursued him on the sea, his haste was retarded, and he bereft of his spouse; who, from the fight, by a sudden tempest, was with the Danish king driven on Northumberland, and brought to Belinus. Brennus, nevertheless, finding means to recollect his navy, lands in Albania, and gives battle to his brother in the wood Calaterium; but losing the day, escapes, with one single ship, into Gaul. Meanwhile the Dane, upon his own offer to become tributary, sent home with his new prize, Belinus returns his thoughts to the administering of justice, and the perfecting of his father’s law. And to explain what highways might enjoy the foresaid privileges, he caused to be drawn out and paved four main roads to the utmost length and breadth of the island, and two others athwart; which are since attributed to the Romans. Brennus, on the other side, soliciting to his aid the kings of Gaul, happens at last on Seginus duke of the Allobroges; where his worth, and comeliness of person, won him the duke’s daughter and heir. In whose right he shortly succeeding, and, by obtained leave, passing with a great host through the length of Gaul, gets footing once again in Britain. Now was Belinus unprepared: and now the battle ready to join, Conuvenna, the mother of them both, all in a fright, throws herself between, and calling earnestly to Brennus her son, whose absence had so long deprived her of his sight, after embracements and tears, assails him with such a motherly power, and the mention of things so dear and reverend, as irresistibly wrung from him all his enmity against Belinus.

Then are hands joined, reconciliation made firm, and counsel held to turn their united preparations on foreign parts. Thence that by these two all Gallia was overrun, the story tells; and what they did in Italy, and at Rome, (if these be they, and not Gauls, who took that city,) the Roman authors can best relate. So far from home I undertake not for the Monmouth Chronicle; which here, against the stream of history, carries up and down these brethren, now into Germany, then again to Rome, pursuing Gabius and Porsena, two unheard-of consuls. Thus much is more generally believed, that both this Brennus, and another famous captain, Britomarus, whom the epitomist Florus and others mention, were not Gauls, but Britons; the name of the first in that tongue signifying a king, and of the other a great Briton. However, Belinus, after a while, returning home, the rest of his days ruled in peace, wealth, and honour, above all his predecessors; building some cities, of which one was Caerose upon Osca, since Caerlegion; beautifying others, as Trinovant, with a gate, haven, and a tower, on the Thames, retaining yet his name; on the top whereof his ashes are said to have been laid up in a golden urn.

After him Gurguntius Barbirus was king, mild and just; but yet, inheriting his father’s courage, he subdued the Dacian, or Dane, who refused to pay the tribute covenanted to Belinus for his enlargement. In his return, finding about the Orkneys thirty ships of Spain, or Biscay, fraught with men and women for a plantation, whose captain also Bartholinus, wrongfully banished, as he pleaded, besought him that some part of his territory might be assigned them to dwell in, he sent with them certain of his own men to Ireland which then lay unpeopled, and gave them that island, to hold of him as in homage. He was buried in Caerlegion, a city which he had walled about.

Guitheline his son is also remembered as a just and good prince; and his wife Martia to have excelled so much in wisdom, as to venture upon a new institution of laws. Which King Alfred translating, called Marchen Leage; but more truly thereby is meant the Mercian law, not translated by Alfred, but digested or incorporated with the West-Saxon. In the minority of her son she had the rule; and then, as may be supposed, brought forth these laws, not herself, for laws are masculine births, but by the advice of her sagest counsellors; and therein she might do virtuously, since it befell her to supply the nonage of her son; else nothing more awry from the law of God and nature, than that a woman should give laws to men.

Her son Sisilius coming to years, received the rule; then, in order, Kimarus; then Danius, or Elanius, his brother. Then Morindus, his son by Tanguestela, a concubine, who is recorded a man of excessive strength, valiant, liberal, and fair of aspect, but immanely cruel; not sparing, in his anger, enemy or friend, if any weapon were in his hand. A certain king of the Morines, or Picards, invaded Northumberland; whose army this king, though not wanting sufficient numbers, chiefly by his own prowess overcame; but dishonoured his victory by the cruel usage of his prisoners, whom his own hands, or others in his presence, put all to several deaths: well fitted to such a bestial cruelty was his end; for hearing of a huge monster, that from the Irish sea infested the coast, and, in the pride of his strength, foolishly attempting to set manly valour against a brute vastness, when his weapons were all in vain, by that horrible mouth he was catched up and devoured.

Gorbonian, the eldest of his five sons, than whom a juster man lived not in his age, was a great builder of temples, and gave to all what was their due: to his gods, devout worship; to men of desert, honour and preferment; to the commons, encouragement in their labours and trades, defence and protection from injuries and oppressions; so that the land flourished above her neighbours; violence and wrong seldom was heard of. His death was a general loss: he was buried in Trinovant.

Archigallo, the second brother, followed not his example; but depressed the ancient nobility; and, by peeling the wealthier sort, stuffed his treasury, and took the right way to be deposed.

Elidure, the next brother, surnamed the Pious, was set up in his place: a mind so noble, and so moderate, as almost is incredible to have been ever found. For, having held the sceptre five years, hunting one day in the forest of Calater, he chanced to meet his deposed brother, wandering in a mean condition; who had been long in vain beyond the seas, importuning foreign aids to his restorement; and was now, in a poor habit, with only ten followers, privately returned to find subsistence among his secret friends. At the unexpected sight of him, Elidure himself also then but thinly accompanied, runs to him with open arms; and, after many dear and sincere welcomings, conveys him to the city Alclud; there hides him in his own bedchamber. Afterwards feigning himself sick, summons all his peers, as about greatest affairs; where admitting them one by one, as if his weakness endured not the disturbance of more at once, causes them, willing or unwilling, once more to swear allegiance to Archigallo. Whom, after reconciliation made on all sides, he leads to York; and, from his own head, places the crown on the head of his brother. Who thenceforth, vice itself dissolving in him, and forgetting her firmest hold, with the admiration of a deed so heroic, became a true converted man; ruled worthily ten years, died, and was buried in Caerleir. Thus was a brother saved by a brother, to whom love of a crown, the thing that so often dazzles and vitiates mortal men, for which thousands of nearest blood have destroyed each other, was in respect of brotherly dearness, a contemptible thing.

Elidure now in his own behalf re-assumes the goverement, and did as was worthy such a man to do. When Providence, that so great a virtue might want no sort of trial to make it more illustrious, stirs up Vigenius and Peredure, his youngest brethren, against him who had deserved so nobly of that relation, as least of all by a brother to be injured. Yet him they defeat, him they imprison in the tower of Trinovant, and divide his kingdom; the North to Peredure, the South to Vigenius. After whose death Peredure obtaining all, so much the better used his power, by how much the worse he got it: so that Elidure now is hardly missed. But yet, in all right owing to his elder the due place whereof he had deprived him, fate would that he should die first: and Elidure, after many years’ imprisonment, is now the third time seated on the throne; which at last he enjoyed long in peace, finishing the interrupted course of his mild and just reign, as full of virtuous deeds as days to his end.

After these five sons of Morindus, succeeded also their sons in order. * Regin of Gorbonian, Marganus of Archigallo, both good kings. But Enniaunus, his brother, taking other courses, was after six years deposed. Then Idwallo, taught by a near example, governed soberly. Then Runno, then Geruntius, he of Peredure, this last the son of Elidure. From whose loins (for that likely is the durable and surviving race that springs of just progenitors) issued a long descent of kings, whose names only for many successions, without other memory, stand thus registered: Catellus, Coillus, Porrex, Cherin, and his three sons, Fulgenius, Eldadus, and Andragius, his son Urianus; Eliud, Eledaucus, Clotenus, Gurguntius, Merianus, Bleduno, Capis, Oenus, Sisillius; twenty kings in a continued row, that either did nothing, or lived in ages that wrote nothing; at least, a foul pretermission in the author of this, whether story or fable; himself weary, as seems, of his own tedious tale.

But to make amends for this silence, Blegabredus next succeeding, is recorded to have excelled all before him in the art of music; opportunely, had he but left us one song of his twenty predecessors’ doings.

Yet after him nine more succeeded in name; his brother Archimailus, Eldol, Redion, Rederchius, Samulius, Penissel, Pir, Capoirus; but Cliguellius, with the addition of modest, wise, and just.

His son Heli reigned forty years, and had three sons, Lud, Cassibelan, and Nennius. This Heli seems to be the same whom Ninius, in his Fragment, calls Minocan; for him he writes to be the father of Cassibelan. Lud was he who enlarged and walled about Trinovant; there kept his court, made it the prime city, and called it from his own name Caerlud, or Lud’s town, now London. Which, as is alleged out of Gildas, became matter of great dissension betwixt him and his brother Nennius; who took it heinously that the name of Troy, their ancient country, should be abolished for any new one. Lud was hardy, and bold in war; in peace a jolly feaster. He conquered many islands of the sea, saith Huntingdon,† and was buried by the gate, which from thence we call Ludgate.‡ His two sons, Androgeus and Tenuantius, were left to the tuition of Cassibelan; whose bounty and high demeanor so wrought with the common people, as got him easily the kingdom transferred upon himself. He nevertheless, continuing to favour and support his nephews, confers freely upon Androgeus London with Kent; upon Tenuantius, Cornwal; reserving a superiority both over them, and all the other princes to himself, till the Romans for awhile circumscribed his power. Thus far, though leaning only on the credit of Geoffrey Monmouth, and his assertors, I yet, for the specified causes, have thought it not beneath my purpose to relate what I found. Whereto I neither oblige the belief of other person, nor overhastily subscribe mine own. Nor have I stood with others computing or collating years and chronologies, lest I should be vainly curious about the time and circumstance of things, whereof the substance is so much in doubt. By this time, like one who had set out on his way by night, and travelled through a region of smooth or idle dreams, our history now arrives on the confines, where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at a far distance, true colours and shapes. For albeit Cæsar, whose authority we are now first to follow, wanted not who taxed him of misrepresenting in his Commentaries, yea in his civil war against Pompey, much more, may we think, in the British affairs, of whose little skill in writing he did not easily hope to be contradicted; yet now, in such variety of good authors, we can hardly miss, from one hand or other, to be sufficiently informed, as of things past so long ago. But this will better be referred to a second discourse.

THE SECOND BOOK.

I am now to write of what befel the Britons from fifty and three years before the birth of our Saviour, when first the Romans came in, till the decay and ceasing of that empire; a story of much truth, and for the first hundred years and somewhat more, collected without much labour. So many and so prudent were the writers, which those two, the civilest and the wisest of European nations, both Italy and Greece, afforded to the actions of that puissant city. For worthy deeds are not often destitute of worthy relators: as by a certain fate, great acts and great eloquence have most commonly gone hand in hand, equalling and honouring each other in the same ages. It is true, that in obscurest times, by shallow and unskilful writers, the indistinct noise of many battles and devastations of many kingdoms, overrun and lost, hath come to our ears. For what wonder, if in all ages ambition and the love of rapine hath stirred up greedy and violent men to bold attempts in wasting and ruining wars, which to posterity have left the work of wild beasts and destroyers, rather than the deeds and monuments of men and conquerors? But he whose just and true valour uses the necessity of war and dominion not to destroy, but to prevent destruction, to bring in liberty against tyrants, law and civility among barbarous nations, knowing that when he conquers all things else, he cannot conquer Time or Detraction, wisely conscious of this his want, as well as of his worth not to be forgotten or concealed, honours and hath recourse to the aid of eloquence, his friendliest and best supply; by whose immortal record his noble deeds, which else were transitory, become fixed and durable against the force of years and generations, he fails not to continue through all posterity, over Envy, Death, and Time also victorious. Therefore when the esteem of science and liberal study waxes low in the commonwealth, we may presume that also there all civil virtue and worthy action is grown as low to a decline: and then eloquence as it were consorted in the same destiny, with the decrease and fall of virtue, corrupts also and fades; at least resigns her office of relating to illiterate and frivolous historians, such as the persons themselves both deserve, and are best pleased with; whilst they want either the understanding to choose better, or the innocence to dare invite the examining and searching style of an intelligent and faithful writer to the survey of their unsound exploits, better befriended by obscurity than fame. As for these, the only authors we have of British matters, while the power of Rome reached hither, (for Gildas affirms that of the Roman times no British writer was in his days extant, or if any were, either burnt by enemies or transported with such as fled the Pictish and Saxon invasions,) these therefore only Roman authors there be, who in the Latin tongue have laid together as much, and perhaps more than was requisite to a history of Britain. So that were it not for leaving an unsightly gap so near to the beginning, I should have judged this labour, wherein so little seems to be required above transcription, almost superfluous. Notwithstanding since I must through it, if aught by diligence may be added or omitted, or by other disposing may be more explained or more expressed, I shall assay.

Julius Cæsar (of whom, and of the Roman free state more than what appertains, is not here to be discoursed) having subdued most part of Gallia, which by a potent faction he had obtained of the senate as his province for many years, stirred up with a desire of adding still more glory to his name, and the whole Roman empire to his ambition; some* say, with a far meaner and ignobler, the desire of British pearls, whose bigness he delighted to balance in his hand; determines, and that upon no unjust pretended occasion, to try his force in the conquest also of Britain. For he understood that the Britons in most of his Gallian wars had sent supplies against him; had received fugitives of the Bellovaci his enemies; and were called over to aid the cities of Armorica, which had the year before conspired all in a new rebellion. Therefore Cæsar,† though now the summer well nigh ending, and the season unagreeable to transport a war, yet judged it would be great advantage, only to get entrance into the isle, knowledge of men, the places, the ports, the accesses; which then, it seems, were even to the Gauls our neighbours almost unknown. For except merchants and traders, it is not oft,‡ saith he, than any use to travel thither; and to those that do, besides the sea-coast, and the ports next to Gallia, nothing else is known. But here I must require, as Pollio did, the diligence, at least the memory, of Cæsar: for if it were true, as them of Rhemes told him, that Divitiacus, not long before a puissant king of the Soissons, had Britain also under his command, besides the Belgian colonies which he affirms to have named, and peopled many provinces there; if also the Britons had so frequently given them aid in all their wars; if lastly, the Druid learning, honoured so much among them, were first taught them out of Britain, and they who soonest would attain that discipline, sent hither to learn;§ it appears not how Britain at that time should be so utterly unknown in Gallia, or only known to merchants, yea to them so little, that being called together from all parts, none could be found to inform Cæsar of what bigness the isle, what nations, how great, what use of war they had, what laws, or so much as what commodious havens for bigger vessels. Of all which things as it were then first to make discovery, he sends Caius Volusenus, in a long galley, with command to return as soon as this could be effected. He in the meantime with his whole power draws nigh to the Morine coast, whence the shortest passage was into Britain. Hither his navy, which he used against the Armoricans, and what else of shipping can be provided, he draws together.

This known in Britain, the embassadors are sent from many of the states there, who promise hostages and obedience to the Roman empire. Them, after audience given, Cæsar as largely promising and exhorting to continue in that mind, sends home, and with them Comius of Arras, whom he had made king of that country, and now secretly employed to gain a Roman party among the Britons, in as many cities as he found inclinable, and to tell them that he himself was speeding thither. Volusenus, with what discovery of the island he could make from aboard his ship, not daring to venture on the shore, within five days returns to Cæsar. Who soon after, with two legions, ordinarily amounting, of Romans and their allies, to about 25,000 foot, and 4500 horse, the foot in 80 ships of burden, the horse in 18, besides what galleys were appointed for his chief commanders, sets off, about the third watch of night, with a good gale to sea; leaving behind him Sulpitius Rufus to make good the port with a sufficient strength. But the horse, whose appointed shipping lay windbound eight mile upward in another haven, had much trouble to embark.

Cæsar, now within sight of Britain, beholds on every hill multitudes of armed men ready to forbid his landing; and * Cicero writes to his friend Atticus, that the accesses of the island were wondrously fortified with strong works or moles. Here from the fourth to the ninth hour of day he awaits at anchor the coming up of his whole fleet. Meanwhile, with his legates and tribunes, consulting and giving order to fit all things for what might happen in such a various and floating water-fight as was to be expected. This place, which was a narrow bay, close environed with hills, appearing no way commodious, he removes to a plain and open shore eight miles distant; commonly supposed about Deal in Kent.† Which when the Britons perceived, their horse and chariots, as then they used in fight scowering before, their main power speeding after, some thick upon the shore, others not tarrying to be assailed, ride in among the waves to encounter, and assault the Romans even under their ships, with such a bold and free hardihood, that Cæsar himself between confessing and excusing that his soldiers were to come down from their ships, to stand in water heavy armed, and to fight at once, denies not but that the terror of such new and resolute opposition made them forget their wonted valour. To succour which he commands his galleys, a sight unusual to the Britons, and more apt for motion, drawn from the bigger vessels, to row against the open side of the enemy, and thence with slings, engines, and darts, to beat them back. But neither yet, though amazed at the strangeness of those new seacastles, bearing up so near, and so swiftly as almost to overwhelm them, the hurtling of oars, the battering of fierce engines against their bodies barely exposed, did the Britons give much ground, or the Romans gain; till he who bore the eagle of the tenth legion, yet in the galleys, first beseeching his gods, said thus aloud, “Leap down soldiers, unless you mean to betray your ensign; I for my part will perform what I owe to the commonwealth and my general.” This uttered, overboard he leaps, and with his eagle fiercely advanced runs upon the enemy; the rest heartening one another not to admit the dishonour of so nigh losing their chief standard, follow him resolutely. Now was fought eagerly on both sides. Ours who well knew their own advantages, and expertly used them, now in the shallows, now on the sand, still as the Romans went trooping to their ensigns, received them, dispatched them, and with the help of their horse, put them every where to great disorder. But Cæsar causing all his boats and shallops to be filled with soldiers, commanded to ply up and down continually with relief where they saw need; whereby at length all the foot now disembarked, and got together in some order on firm ground, with a more steady charge put the Britons to flight: but wanting all their horse, whom the winds yet withheld from sailing, they were not able to make pursuit. In this confused fight,* Scæva a Roman soldier having pressed too far among the Britons, and beset round, after incredible valour shown, single against a multitude, swam back safe to his general; and in the place that rung with his praises, earnestly besought pardon for his rash adventure against discipline; which modest confessing after no bad event, for such a deed, wherein valour and ingenuity so much outweighed transgression, easily made amends and preferred him to be a centurion. Cæsar also is brought in by Julian,† attributing to himself the honour (if it were at all an honour to that person which he sustained) of being the first that left his ship, and took land: but this were to make Cæsar less understand what became him that Scæva.

The Britons finding themselves mastered in fight, forthwith send ambassadors to treat of peace, promising to give hostages, and to be at command. With them Comius of Arras also returned; whom hitherto, since his first coming from Cæsar, they had detained in prison as a spy: the blame whereof they lay on the common people; for whose violence, and their own imprudence, they crave pardon. Cæsar complaining they had first sought peace, and then without cause had begun war, yet content to pardon them, commands hostages: whereof part they bring in straight, others, far up in the country to be sent for, they promise in a few days. Meanwhile the people disbanded and sent home, many princes and chief men from all parts of the isle submit themselves and their cities to the dispose of Cæsar, who lay then encamped, as is thought, on Barham down. Thus had the Britons made their peace; when suddenly an accident unlooked for put new counsels into their minds.

Four days after the coming of Cæsar, those eighteen ships of burden, which from the upper haven had taken in all the Roman horse, borne with a soft wind to the very coast, in sight of the Roman camp, were by a sudden tempest scattered and driven back, some to the port from whence they loosed, others down into the west country; who finding there no safety either to land or to cast anchor, chose rather to commit themselves again to the troubled sea; and, as Orosius reports, were most of them cast away. The same night, it being full moon, the galleys left upon dry land, were, unaware to the Romans, covered with a springtide, and the greater ships, that lay off at anchor, torn and beaten with waves, to the great perplexity of Cæsar, and his whole army; who now had neither shipping left to convey them back, nor any provision made to stay here, intending to have wintered in Gallia. All this the Britons well perceiving, and by the compass of his camp, which without baggage appeared the smaller, guessing at his numbers, consult together, and one by one slyly withdrawing from the camp, where they were waiting the conclusion of a peace, resolve to stop all provisions, and to draw out the business till winter. Cæsar, though ignorant of what they intended, yet from the condition wherein he was, and their other hostages not sent, suspecting what was likely, begins to provide apace, all that might be, against what might happen; lays in corn, and with materials fetched from the continent, and what was left of those ships which were past help, he repairs the rest. So that now by the incessant labour of his soldiers, all but twelve were again made serviceable.

While these things are doing, one of the legions being sent out to forage, as was accustomed, and no suspicion of war, while some of the Britons were remaining in the country about, others also going and coming freely to the Roman quarters, they who were in station at the camp gates sent speedily word to Cæsar, that from that part of the country, to which the legion went, a greater dust than usual was seen to rise. Cæsar guessing the matter, commands the cohorts of guard to follow him thither, two others to succeed in their stead, the rest all to arm and follow. They had not marched long, when Cæsar discerns his legion sore overcharged: for the Britons not doubting but that their enemies on the morrow would be in that place, which only they had left unreaped of all their harvest, had placed an ambush; and while they were dispersed and busiest at their labour, set upon them, killed some, and routed the rest. The manner of their fight was from a kind of chariots; wherein riding about and throwing darts, with the clutter of their horse, and of their wheels, they ofttimes broke the rank of their enemies; then retreating among the horse, and quitting their chariots, they fought on foot. The charioteers in the meanwhile somewhat aside from the battle, set themselves in such order that their masters at any time oppressed with odds, might retire safely thither, having performed with one person both the nimble service of a horseman, and the steadfast duty of a foot soldier. So much they could with their chariots by use and exercise, as riding on the speed down a steep hill, to stop suddenly, and with a short rein turn swiftly, now running on the beam, now on the yoke, then in the seat. With this sort of new skirmishing the Romans now over-matched and terrified, Cæsar with opportune aid appears; for then the Britons make a stand: but he considering that now was not fit time to offer battle, while his men were scarce recovered of so late a fear, only keeps his ground, and soon after leads back his legions to the camp. Further action for many days following was hindered on both sides by foul weather; in which time the Britons dispatching messengers round about, learn to how few the Romans were reduced, what hope of praise and booty, and now, if ever, of freeing themselves from the fear of like invasions hereafter, by making these an example, if they could but now uncamp their enemies; at this intimation multitudes of horse and foot coming down from all parts, make towards the Romans. Cæsar foreseeing that the Britons, though beaten and put to flight, would easily evade his foot, yet with no more than thirty horse, which Comius had brought over, draws out his men to battle, puts again the Britons to flight, pursues with slaughter, and returning burns and lays waste all about. Whereupon embassadors the same day being sent from the Britons to desire peace, Cæsar as his affairs at present stood, for so great a breach of faith, only imposes on them double the former hostages to be sent after him into Gallia: and because September was nigh half spent, a season not fit to tempt the sea with his weather-beaten fleet, the same night with a fair wind he departs towards Belgia; whither two only of the British cities sent hostages, as they promised, the rest neglected. But at Rome when the news came of Cæsar’s acts here, whether it were esteemed a conquest or a fair escape, supplication of twenty days is decreed by the senate, as either for an exploit done, or a discovery made, wherein both Cæsar and the Romans gloried not a little, though it brought no benefit either to him or to the commonwealth.

The winter following,* Cæsar, as his custom was, going into Italy, whenas he saw that most of the Britons regarded not to send their hostages, appoints his legates whom he left in Belgia, to provide what possible shipping they could either build, or repair. Low built they were to be, as thereby easier both to freight, and to haul ashore; nor needed to be higher, because the tide so often changing, was observed to make the billows less in our sea than those in the Mediterranean: broader likewise they were made, for the better transporting of horses, and all other freightage, being intended chiefly to that end. These all about six hundred in a readiness, with twenty-eight ships of burden, and what with adventurers, and other hulks about two hundred, Cotta one of the legates wrote them, as Athenæus affirms, in all one thousand; Cæsar from port Iccius, a passage of some thirty mile over, leaving behind him Labienus to guard the haven, and for other supply at need, with five legions, though but two thousand horse, about sunset hoisting sail with a slack south-west, at midnight was becalmed. And finding when it was light, that the whole navy lying on the current, had fallen off from the isle, which now they could descry on their left hand; by the unwearied labour of his soldiers, who refused not to tug the oar, and keep course with ships under sail, he bore up as near as might be, to the same place where he had landed the year before; where about noon arriving,† no enemy could be seen. For the Britons, which in great number, as was after known, had been there, at sight of so huge a fleet durst not abide. Cæsar forthwith landing his army, and encamping to his best advantage, some notice being given him by those he took, where to find his enemy; with the whole power, save only ten cohorts, and three hundred horse, left to Quintus Atrius for the guard of his ships, about the third watch of the same night, marches up twelve miles into the country. And at length by a river, commonly thought the Stowre in Kent, espies embattled the British forces. They with their horses and chariots advancing to the higher banks, oppose the Romans in their march, and begin the fight; but repulsed by the Roman cavalry, give back into the woods to a place notably made strong both by art and nature; which, it seems, had been a fort, or hold of strength raised heretofore in time of wars among themselves. For entrance, and access on all sides, by the felling of huge trees overthwart one another, was quite barred up; and within these the Britons did their utmost to keep out the enemy. But the soldiers of the seventh legion locking all their shields together like a roof close over head, and others raising a mount, without much loss of blood took the place, and drove them all to forsake the woods. Pursuit they made not long, as being through ways unknown; and now evening came on, which they more wisely spent in choosing out where to pitch and fortify their camp that night.

The next morning Cæsar had but newly sent out his men in three bodies to pursue, and the last no further gone than yet in sight, when horsemen all in post from Quintus Atrius bring word to Cæsar, that almost all his ships in a tempest that night had suffered wreck, and lay broken upon the shore. Cæsar at this news recalls his legions, himself in all haste riding back to the seaside, beheld with his eyes the ruinous prospect. About forty vessels were sunk and lost, the residue so torn and shaken, as not to be new-rigged without much labour. Straight he assembles what number of shipwrights either in his own legions or from beyond sea could be summoned; appoints Labienus on the Belgian side to build more; and with a dreadful industry of ten days, not respiting the soldiers day or night, drew up all his ships, and intrenched them round within the circuit of his camp. This done, and leaving to their defence the same strength as before, he returns with his whole forces to the same wood, where he had defeated the Britons; who preventing him with greater powers than before, had now repossessed themselves of the place, under Cassibelan their chief leader: whose territory from the states bordering on the sea was divided by the river Thames about eighty miles inward. With him formerly other cities had continual war; but now in the common danger had all made choice of him to be their general. Here the British horse and charioteers meeting with the Roman cavalry fought stoutly; and at first, something overmatched, they retreat to the near advantage of their woods and hills, but still followed by the Romans, made head again, cut off the forwardest among them, and after some pause, while Cæsar, who thought the day’s work had been done, was busied about the intrenching of his camp, march out again, give fierce assault to the very stations of his guards and sentries; and while the main cohorts of two legions, that were sent to the alarm, stood within a small distance of each other, terrified at the newness and boldness of their fight, charged back again through the midst, without loss of a man. Of the Romans that day was slain Quintus Laberius Durus a tribune; the Britons having fought their fill at the very entrance of Cæsar’s camp, and sustained the resistance of his whole army intrenched, gave over the assault. Cæsar here acknowledges, that the Roman way both of arming, and of fighting, was not so well fitted against this kind of enemy; for that the foot in heavy armour could not follow their cunning flight, and durst not by ancient discipline stir from their ensign; and the horse alone disjoined from the legions, against a foe that turned suddenly upon them with a mixed encounter both of horse and foot, were in equal danger both following and retiring. Besides their fashion was, not in great bodies, and close order, but in small divisions and open distances to make their onset; appointing others at certain spaces, now to relieve and bring off the weary, now to succeed and renew the conflict; which argued no small experience, and use of arms. Next day the Britons afar off upon the hills begin to show themselves here and there, and though less boldly than before, to skirmish with the Roman horse. But at noon Cæsar having sent out three legions, and all his horse, with Trebonius the legate, to seek fodder, suddenly on all sides they set upon the foragers, and charge up after them to the very legions, and their standards. The Romans with great courage beat them back, and in the chase, being well seconded by the legions, not giving them time either to rally, to stand, or to descend from their chariots as they were wont, slew many. From this overthrow, the Britons that dwelt farther off betook them home, and came no more after that time with so great a power against Cæsar. Whereof advertised, he marches onward to the frontiers of Cassibelan,* which on this side was bounded by the Thames, not passable except in one place, and that difficult, about Coway-stakes near Oatlands, as is conjectured. Hither coming he descries on the other side great forces of the enemy, placed in good array; the bank set all with sharp stakes, others in the bottom, covered with water; whereof the marks, in Beda’s time, were to be seen, as he relates. This having learned by such as were taken, or had run to him, he first commands his horse to pass over; then his foot, who wading up to the neck, went on so resolutely and so fast, that they on the other side, not enduring the violence, retreated and fled. Cassibelan no more now in hope to contend for victory, dismissing all but four thousand of those charioteers, through woods and intricate ways attends their motion; where the Romans are to pass, drives all before him; and with continual sallies upon the horse, where they least expected, cutting off some and terrifying others, compels them so close together, as gave them no leave to fetch in prey or booty without ill success. Whereupon Cæsar strictly commanding all not to part from the legions, had nothing left him in his way but empty fields and houses, which he spoiled and burnt.

Meanwhile the Trinobantes, a state or kingdom, and perhaps the greatest then among the Britons, less favouring Cassibelan, send embassadors, and yield to Cæsar upon this reason. Immanuentius had been their king; him Cassibelan had slain, and purposed the like to Mandubratius his son, whom Orosius calls Androgorius, Beda Androgius; but the youth escaping by flight into Gallia, put himself under the protection of Cæsar. These entreat, that Mandubratius may be still defended, and sent home to succeed in his father’s right. Cæsar sends him, demands forty hostages and provision for his army, which they immediately bring in, and have their confines protected from the soldiers. By their example the Cenimagni, Segontiaci, Ancalites, Bibroci, Cassi (so I write them, for the modern names are but guessed) on like terms make their peace. By them he learns that the town of Cassibelan, supposed to be Verulam, was not far distant; fenced about with woods and marshes, well stuffed with men and much cattle. For towns then in Britain were only woody places ditched round, and with a mud wall encompassed against the inroads of enemies. Thither goes Cæsar with his legions, and though a place of great strength both by art and nature, assaults it in two places. The Britons after some defence fled out all at another end of the town; in the flight many were taken, many slain, and great store of cattle found there. Cassibelan for all these losses yet deserts not himself; nor was yet his authority so much impaired, but that in Kent, though in a manner possessed by the enemy, his messengers and commands find obedience enough to raise all the people. By his direction, Cingetorix, Carvilius, Taximagulus, and Segonax, four kings reigning in those countries which lie upon the sea, lead them on to assault that camp, wherein the Romans had entrenched their shipping; but they whom Cæsar left there issuing out slew many, and took prisoner Cingetorix a noted leader, without loss of their own. Cassibelan after so many defeats, moved especially by revolt of the cities from him, their inconstancy and falsehood one to another, uses mediation by Comius of Arras to send embassadors about treaty of yielding. Cæsar, who had determined to winter in the continent, by reason that Gallia was unsettled, and not much of the summer now behind, commands him only hostages, and what yearly tribute the island should pay to Rome, forbids him to molest the Trinobantes, or Mandubratius; and with his hostages, and a great number of captives, he puts to sea, having at twice embarked his whole army. At his return to Rome, as from a glorious enterprise, he offers to Venus, the patroness of his family, a corslet of British pearls.*

Howbeit other ancient writers have spoken more doubtfully of Cæsar’s victories here; and that in plain terms he fled from hence; for which the common verse in Lucan, with divers passages here and there in Tacitus, is alleged. Paulus Orosius,* who took what he wrote from a history or Suetonius now lost, writes, that Cæsar in his first journey, entertained with a sharp fight, lost no small number of his foot, and by tempest nigh all his horse. Dion affirms, that once in the second expedition all his foot were routed; Orosius that another time all his horse. The British author, whom I use only then when others are all silent, hath many trivial discourses of Cæsar’s being here, which are best omitted. Nor have we more of Cassibelan, than what the same story tells, how he warred soon after with Androgeus, about his nephew slain by Evelinus nephew to the other; which business at length composed, Cassibelan dies, and was buried in York, if the Monmouth book fable not. But at Cæsar’s coming hither, such likeliest were the Britons, as the writers of those times,† and their own actions represent them; in courage and warlike readiness to take advantage by ambush or sudden onset, not inferior to the Romans, nor Cassibelan to Cæsar; in weapons, arms, and the skill of encamping, embattling, fortifying, overmatched; their weapons were a short spear and light target, a sword also by their side, their fight sometimes in chariots fanged at the axle with iron sithes, their bodies most part naked, only painted with woad in sundry figures, to seem terrible,‡ as they thought; but, pursued by enemies, not nice of their painting to run into bogs worse than wild Irish up to the neck, and there to stay many days holding a certain morsel in their mouths no bigger than a bean, to suffice hunger;§ but that receipt, and the temperance it taught, is long since unknown among us: their towns and strong holds were spaces of ground fenced about with a ditch, and great trees felled overthwart each other, their buildings within were thatched houses for themselves and their cattle: in peace the upland inhabitants, besides hunting, tended their flocks and herds, but with little skill of country affairs; the making of cheese they commonly knew not, wool or flax they spun not, gardening and planting many of them knew not; clothing they had none, but what the skins of beasts afforded them,∥ and that not always; yet gallantry they had,¶ painting their own skins with several portraitures of beast, bird or flower, a vanity which hath not yet left us, removed only from the skin to the skirt behung now with as many coloured ribands and gewgaws: towards the seaside they tilled the ground and lived much after the manner of the Gauls their neighbors, or first planters:** their money was brazen pieces or iron rings, their best merchandize tin, the rest trifles of glass, ivory, and such like:†† yet gems and pearls they had, saith Mela, in some rivers: their ships of light timber wickered with ozier between, and covered over with leather, served not therefore to transport them far, and their commodities were fetched away by foreign merchants: their dealing, saith Diodorus, plain and simple without fraud; their civil government under many princes and states,‡‡ not confederate or consulting in common, but mistrustful, and ofttimes warring one with the other, which gave them up one by one an easy conquest to the Romans: their religion was governed by a sort of priests or magicians, called Druids, from the Greek name of an oak, which tree they had in great reverence, and the mistletoe especially growing thereon. Pliny writes them skilled in magic no less than those of Persia; by their abstaining from a hen, a hare, and a goose, from fish also saith Dion, and their opinion of the soul’s passing after death into other bodies,§§ they may be thought to have studied Pythagoras; yet philosophers I cannot call them, reported men factious and ambitious, contending sometimes about the archpriesthood not without civil war and slaughter; nor restrained they the people under them from a lewd, adulterous, and incestuous life, ten or twelve men, absurdly against nature, possessing one woman as their common wife, though of nearest kin, mother, daughter, or sister; progenitors not to be gloried in. But the gospel, not long after preached here, abolished such impurities, and of the Romans we have cause not to say much worse, than that they beat us into some civility; likely else to have continued longer in a barbarous and savage manner of life. After Julius (for Julius before his death tyrannously had made himself emperor of the Roman commonwealth, and was slain in the senate for so doing) he who next obtained the empire, Octavianus Cæsar Augustus, either contemning the island, as Strabo* would have us think, whose neither benefit was worth the having nor enmity worth the fearing; or out of a wholesome state-maxim, as some say to moderate and bound the empire from growing vast and unwieldy, made no attempt against the Britons. But the truer cause was party civil war among the Romans, partly other affairs more urging. For about twenty years after,† all which time the Britons had lived at their own dispose, Augustus, in imitation of his uncle Julius, either intending or seeming to intend an expedition hither, was come into Gallia, when the news of a revolt in Pannonia diverted him:‡ about seven years after in the same resolution, what with the unsettledness of Gallia, and what with embassadors from Britain which met him there, he proceeded not. The next year, difference arising about covenants, he was again prevented by other new commotions in Spain. Nevertheless some of the British potentates omitted not to seek his friendship by gifts offered in the Capitol, and other obsequious addresses. Insomuch that the whole island§ became even in those days well known to the Romans; too well perhaps for them, who from the knowledge of us were so like to prove enemies. But as for tribute, the Britons paid none to Augustus, except what easy customs were levied on the slight commodities wherewith they traded into Gallia.

After Cassibelan, Tenantius the younger son of Lud, according to the Monmouth story, was made king. For Androgeus the elder, conceiving himself generally hated for siding with the Romans, forsook his claim here, and followed Cæsar’s fortune. This king is recorded just and warlike.

His son Kymbeline, or Cunobeline, succeeding, was brought up, as is said, in the court of Augustus, and with him held friendly correspondences to the end; was a warlike prince; his chief seat Camalodunum, or Maldon, as by certain of his coins, yet to be seen, appears. Tiberius, the next emperor, adhering always to the advice of Augustus, and of himself less caring to extend the bounds of his empire, sought not the Britons; and they as little to incite him, sent home courteously the soldiers of Germanicus, that by shipwreck had been cast on the British shore.∥ But Caligula,¶ his successor, a wild and dissolute tyrant, having passed the Alps with intent to rob and spoil those provinces, and stirred up by Adminius the son of Cunobeline; who, by his father banished, with a small number fled thither to him, made semblance of marching toward Britain; but being come to the ocean, and there behaving himself madly and ridiculously, went back the same way: yet sent before him boasting letters to the senate, as if all Britain had been yielded him. Cunobeline now dead, Adminius the eldest by his father banished from his country, and by his own practice against it from the crown, though by an old coin seeming to have also reigned; Togodumnus, and Caractacus the two younger, uncertain whether unequal or subordinate in power, were advanced into his place. But through civil discord, Bericus (what he was further, is not known) with others of his party flying to Rome,* persuaded Claudius the emperor to an invasion. Claudius now consul the third time, and desirous to do something, whence he might gain the honour of a triumph, at the persuasion of these fugitives, whom the Britons demanding, he had denied to render, and they for that cause had denied further amity with Rome, makes choice of this island for his province:† and sends before him Aulus Plautius the prætor, with this command, if the business grew difficult, to give him notice. Plautius with much ado persuaded the legions to move out of Gallia, murmuring that now they must be put to make war beyond the world’s end, for so they counted Britain; and what welcome Julius the dictator found there, doubtless they had heard. At last prevailed with, and hoisting sail from three several ports, lest their landing should in any one place be resisted, meeting cross winds, they were cast back and disheartened; till in the night a meteor shooting flames from the East, and as they fancied directing their course, they took heart again to try the sea, and without opposition landed. For the Britons, having heard of their unwillingness to come, had been negligent to provide against them; and retiring to the woods and moors, intended to frustrate and wear them out with delays, as they had served Cæsar before.

Plautius, after much trouble to find them out, encountering first with Caractacus, then with Togodumnus, overthrew them; and receiving into conditions part of the Boduni, who were then subject to the Catuellani, and leaving there a garrison, went on toward a river: where the Britons not imagining that Plautius without a bridge could pass, lay on the further side careless and secure. But he sending first the Germans, whose custom was, armed as they were to swim with ease the strongest current, commands them to strike especially at the horses, whereby the chariots, wherein consisted their chief art of fight, became unserviceable. To second them he sent Vespasian, who in his latter days obtained the empire, and Sabinus his brother; who unexpectedly assailing those who were least aware, did much execution. Yet not for this were the Britons dismayed; but reuniting the next day, fought with such a courage, as made it hard to decide which way hung the victory: till Caius Sidius Geta, at point to have been taken, recovered himself so valiantly, as brought the day on his side; for which at Rome he received high honours. After this the Britons drew back towards the mouth of Thames, and, acquainted with those places, crossed over; where the Romans following them through bogs and dangerous flats, hazarded the loss of all. Yet the Germans getting over, and others by a bridge at some place above, fell on them again with sundry alarms and great slaughter; but in the heat of pursuit running themselves again into bogs and mires, lost as many of their own. Upon which ill success, and seeing the Britons more enraged at the death of Togodumnus, who in one of these battles had been slain, Plautius fearing the worst, and glad that he could hold what he held, as was enjoined him, sends to Claudius. He who waited ready with a huge preparation, as if not safe enough amidst the flower of all his Romans, like a great Eastern king, with armed elephants marches through Gallia. So full of peril was this enterprise esteemed, as not without all this equipage, and stranger terrors than Roman armies, to meet the native and the naked British valour defending their country. Joined with Plautius, who encamping on the bank of Thames attended him, he passes the river. The Britons who had the courage, but not the wise conduct of old Cassibelan, laying all stratagem aside, in downright manhood scruple not to affront in open field almost the whole power of the Roman empire. But overcome and vanquished, part by force, others by treaty come in and yield. Claudius therefore, who took Camalodunum, the royal seat of Cunobeline, was often by the army saluted Imperator; a military title which usually they gave their general after any notable exploit; but to others, not above once in the same war; as if Claudius, by these acts, had deserved more than the laws of Rome had provided honour to reward. Having therefore disarmed the Britons, but remitted the confiscation of their goods,* for which they worshipped him with sacrifice and temple as a god, leaving Plautius to subdue what remained; he returns to Rome, from whence he had been absent only six months, and in Britain but sixteen days; sending the news before him of his victories, though in a small part of the island. By which is manifestly refuted that which Eutropius and Orosius write of his conquering at that time also the Orcades islands, lying to the North of Scotland; and not conquered by the Romans (for aught found in any good author) till above forty years after, as shall appear. To Claudius the senate, as for achievements of highest merit, decreed excessive honours; arches, triumphs, annual solemnities, and the surname of Britannicus both to him and his son.

Suetonius writes, that Claudius found here no resistance, and that all was done without stroke: but this seems not probable. The Monmouth writer names these two sons of Cunobeline, Guiderius and Arviragus; that Guiderius being slain in fight, Arviragus, to conceal it, put on his brother’s habiliments, and in his person held up the battle to a victory; the rest, as of Hano the Roman captain, Genuissa the emperor’s daughter, and such like stuff, is too palpably untrue to be worth rehearsing in the midst of truth. Plautius after this, employing his fresh forces to conquer on, and quiet the rebelling countries, found work enough to deserve at his return a kind of triumphant riding into the Capitol side by side with the emperor.† Vespasian also under Plautius had thirty conflicts with the enemy; in one of which encompassed, and in great danger, he was valiantly and piously rescued by his son Titus:‡ two powerful nations he subdued here, above twenty towns and the Isle of Wight; for which he received at Rome triumphal ornaments, and other great dignities. For that city in reward of virtue was ever magnificent; and long after when true merit was ceased among them, lest any thing resembling virtue should want honour, the same rewards were yet allowed to the very shadow and ostentation of merit. Ostorius in the room of Plautius viceprætor met with turbulent affairs;§ the Britons not ceasing to vex with inroads all those countries that were yielded to the Romans; and now the more eagerly,∥ supposing that the new general, unacquainted with his army, and on the edge of winter, would not hastily oppose them. But he weighing that first events were most available to breed fear or contempt, with such cohorts as were next at hand, sets out against them: whom having routed, so close he follows, as one who meant not to be every day molested with the cavils of a slight peace, or an emboldened enemy. Lest they should make head again, he disarms whom he suspects; and to surround them, places many garrisons upon the rivers of Antona and Sabrina. But the Icenians, a stout people, untouched yet by these wars, as having before sought alliance with the Romans, were the first that brooked not this. By their example others rise; and in a chosen place, fenced with high banks of earth and narrow lanes to prevent the horse, warily encamp. Ostorius though yet not strengthened with his legions, causes the auxiliar bands, his troops also alighting, to assault the rampart. They within, though pestered with their own number, stood to it like men resolved, and in a narrow compass did remarkable deeds. But overpowered at last, and others by their success quieted, who till then wavered, Ostorius next bends his force upon the Cangians, wasting all even to the sea of Ireland, without foe in his way, or them, who durst, ill handled; when the Brigantes, attempting new matters drew him back to settle first what was unsecure be