The Leading Facts of English History Part 3

But if the condition of the British servile cla.s.ses was hard, many who were free were but little better off, for nearly all that they could earn was swallowed up in taxes. The standing army of Britain, which the people of the country had to support, rarely numbered less than forty thousand. Great numbers of Britons were forced into the ranks, but most of them appear to have been sent away to serve abroad. Their life was one of perpetual exile. In order to meet the civil and military expenses entailed upon him, every farmer had to pay a third of all that his farm could produce, in taxes. Furthermore, he had to pay duty on every article that he sold, last of all, he was obliged to pay a duty or poll tax on his own head.

On the Continent there was a saying that it was better for a property owner to fall into the hands of savages than into those of the Roman a.s.sessors. When they went round, they counted not only every ox and sheep, but every plant, and registered them as well as the owners.

"One heard nothing," says a writer of that time, speaking of the days when revenue was collected, "but the sound of flogging and all kinds of torture. The son was compelled to inform against the father, men were forced to give evidence against themselves, and were a.s.sessed according to the confession they made to escape torment."[1]

[1] Lactantius, cited in Elton's "Origins of English History,"

p. 334. It should be noted, however, that Professor C. Oman in his "England before the Norman Conquest," pp. 175-176, takes a moer favorable view of the condition of Britain under the Romans than that which most authorities maintain.

So great was the misery of the land that sometimes parents destroyed their children, rather than let them grow up to a life of suffering.

This vast system of organized oppression, like all tyranny, "was not so much an inst.i.tution as a dest.i.tution," undermining and impoveris.h.i.+ng the country. It lasted until time brought its revenge, and Rome, which had crushed so many nations of barbarians, was in her turn threatened with a like fate, by bands of northern barbarians stronger than herself.

33. The Romans compelled to abandon Britain, 410.

When Caesar returned from his victorious campaigns in Gaul in the first century B.C., Cicero exultantly exclaimed, "Now let the Alps sink! the G.o.ds raised them to shelter Italy from the barbarians; they are no longer needed." For nearly five centuries that continued true; then the tribes of northern Europe could no longer be held back. When the Roman emperors saw that the crisis had arrived, they recalled their troops from Britain in 410 The rest of the Roman colonists soon followed.

At this time we find this brief but expressive entry in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" (SS46, 99): "After this the Romans never ruled in Britain." A few years later this entry occurs: "418. This year the Romans collected all the treasures in Britain; some they hid in the earth, so that no one since has been able to find them, and some they carried with them into Gaul."

34. Remains of Roman Civilization.

In the course of the next three generations the political and social elements of Roman civilization in Britain seem to have disappeared. A few words, such as "port" and "street," which may or may not have been derived from the Latin, have come down to us. But there was nothing left, of which we can speak with absolute certainty, save the material sh.e.l.l,--the walls, roads, forts, villas, arches, gateways, altars, and tombs, whose ruins are still seen scattered throughout the land.

The soil, also, is full of relics of the same kind. Twenty feet below the surface of the London of to-day lie the remains of the London of the Romans. In digging in the "City,"[1] the laborer's shovel every now and then brings to light pieces of carved stone with Latin inscriptions, bits of rusted armor, broken swords, fragments of statuary, and gold and silver ornaments.

[1] The "City": This is the name given to that part of central London, about a mile square, which was formerly enclosed by Roman walls. It contains the Bank of England, the Royal Exchange, and other very important business buildings. Its limit on the west is the site of Temple Bar; on the east, the Tower of London.

So, likewise, several towns, long buried in the earth, and the foundations of upwards of a hundred country houses have been discovered; but these seem to be about all. If Rome left any traces of her literature, law, and methods of government, they are

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FOURTH PERIOD[1]

"The happy ages of history are never the productive ones." -- Hegel

THE COMING OF THE SAXONS, OR ENGLISH 449(?) A.D.

THE BATTLES OF THE TRIBES--BRITAIN BECOMES ENGLAND

36. The Britons beg for Help; Coming of the Jutes, 449 (?).

The Britons were in perilous condition after the Romans had left the island (S33). They had lost their old spirit (SS2, 18).[2] They were no longer brave in war or faithful in peace. The Picts and Scots[3]

attacked them on the northwest, and the Saxon pirates (S29) a.s.sailed them on the southeast. These terrible foes cut down the Britons, says an old writer, as "reapers cut down grain ready for the harvest."

[1] Reference Books on this Period will be found in the Cla.s.sified List of Books in the Appendix. The p.r.o.nunciation of names will be found in the Index. The Leading Dates stand unenclosed; all others are in parentheses.

[2] Gildas, in Bohn's "Six Old English Chronicles"; but compare Professor C. Oman's "England before the Norman Conquest," pp. 175-176.

[3] The Picts and Scots were ancient savage tribes of Scotland.

At length the chief men wrote to the Roman consul, begging him to help them. They ent.i.tled their piteous and pusillanimous appeal, "The Groans of the Britons." They said, "The savages drive us to the sea, the sea casts us back upon the savages; between them we are either slaughtered or drowned." But the consul was busy fighting enemies at home, and he left the groaning Britons to s.h.i.+ft for themselves.

Finally, the courage of despair forced them to act. They seemed to have resolved to fight fire with fire. Acting on this resolution, they accordingly invited a band of sea rovers to come and help them against the Picts and Scots. The chiefs of these Jutes[1] or Saxon pirates did not wait for a second invitation. Seizing their "rough-handled spears and bronze swords," they set sail for the s.h.i.+ning chalk cliffs of Britain, 449(?). They put an end to the ravages of the Picts and Scots. Then instead of going back to their own country, they took possession of the best lands of Kent and refused to give them up. (See map opposite.)

[1] The Jutes, Saxons, and Angles appear to have belonged to the same Teutonic or German race. They inhabited the seacoast and vicinity, from the mouth of the Elbe, northward along the coast of Denmark or Jutland. These tribes which conquered England, and settled there, remained for a long time hostile to each other, but eventually, they united and came to be known as Anglo-Saxons or English. (See map opposite.)

37. The Saxons and Angles conquer Britain.

The success of the first band of sea robbers in Britain (S36) stimulated other bands to invade the island (477-541). They slaughtered mult.i.tudes of Britons and made slaves of many more. The conquerors named the parts of the country which they settled, from themselves. Each independent settlement was hostile to every other.

Thus Suss.e.x was the home of the South Saxons, Wess.e.x of the West Saxons, Ess.e.x of the East Saxons. (See map opposite.) Finally, a band of Angles came from a little corner, south of the peninsula of Denmark, which still bears the name of Angeln. They took possession of all of eastern Britain not already appropriated. Eventually, they came to control the greater part of the land, and from them, all the other tribes, when fused together, got the name of Angles or English (S50). (See map opposite.)

38. Resistance made by the Britons; King Arthur.

Meanwhile the Britons had plucked up courage and made the best fight they could. They were naturally a brave people (SS2, 18). The fact that it took the Saxons more than a hundred years to get a firm grip on the island shows that fact. The legend of King Arthur's exploits also ill.u.s.trates the valor of the race to which he belonged.

According to tradtion this British Prince, who had become a convert to Christianity (S25), met and checked the invaders in their isolent march of triumph. The battle, it is said, was fought at Mount Badon or Badbury in Dorsets.h.i.+re. There, with his irresistable sword, "Excalibur," and his stanch British spearmen, Arthur compelled his foes to acknowledge that he was not a myth but a man[1] able "to break the heathen and uphold the Christ."

[1] See "Arthur" in the "Dictionary of National British Biography"; and Professor Rowley in Low and Pulling's "Dictionary of English History," p. 434. See also Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the Britons" and Tennyson's "Idylls of the King."

39. The Saxons or English force the Britons to retreat.

But though King Arthur may have checked the pagan Saxon invaders, he could not drive them out of the country. They had come to stay. On the other hand, many Britons were forced to take refuge among the hills of Wales. There they continued to abide. That ancient stock never lost its love of liberty. More than eleven centuries later their spirit helped to shape the destinies of the New World. Thomas Jefferson andseveral of the other signers of the Declaration of American Independence were either of Welsh birth or of direct Welsh descent.

40. Gregory and the English Slaves.

The next period, of nearly eighty years, is a dreary record of constant battles and bloodshed. Out of this very barbarism a regenerating influence finally arose.

In their greed for grain, some of the English tribes did not hesitate to sell their own children into bondage. A number of these slaves, exposed in the market place in Rome, attracted the attention of a monk named Gregory.

Struck with the beauty of their clear, ruddy complexions and fair hair, he inquired from what country they came. "They are Angles"

(S37), was the dealer's answer. "No, not Angles, but angels,"

answered the monk; and he resolved that, when he could, he would send missionaries to convert a race of so much promise.[2]

[2] Bede's "Ecclesiastical History."

41. Coming of Saint Augustine, 597.

When Gregory (S40) became Pope he fulfilled his resolution, and sent Augustine with a band of forty monks to Britain. In 597 they landed on the very spot where the first Saxon war band had set foot on English soil nearly one hundred and fifty years before. Like Caesar and his legions, Augustine and his monks brought with them the power of Rome. But this time that power did not come armed with the sword to force men to submit or die, but inspired with a persuasive voice to cheer them with new hope.

41. Augustine converts the King of Kent and his People (597).

The English at that time were wholly pagan, and had, in all probability, destroyed every vesetige of the faith for which the British martyrs gave their lives (S25). But the King of Kent had married a French princess who was a devout Christian. Through the Queen's influence, the King was induced to receive Augustine. He was afraid, however, of some magical practice, so he insisted that their meeting should take place in the open air and on the island of Thanet. (See map facing p. 32.)

The historian Bede tells us that the monks, holding a tall silver cross and a picture of Christ in their hands, advanced and saluted the King. Augustine delivered his message, was well received, and invited to Canterbury, the capital of Kent. There the King became a convert to his preaching, and before the year had pa.s.sed ten thousand of his subjects had received baptism; for to gain the King was to gain his tribe as well.

43. Augustine builds the First Monastery.

At Canterbury Augustine became the first archbishop over the first cathedral. There, too, he established the first monastery in which to train missionaries to carry on the work which he had begun (S45).

Part of the original monastery of St. Augustine is now used as a Church of England missionary college, and it continues to bear the name of the man who brought Christianity to that part of Britain. The example of the ruler of Kent was not without its effect on others.

44. Conversion of the North.

The north of England, however, owed its conversion chiefly to the Irish monks of an earlier age. They had planted monasteries in Ireland and Scotland from which colonies went forth, one of which settled in Durham. Cuthbert, a Saxon monk of that monastery in the seventh century, traveled as a missionary throughout Northumbria, and was afterward recognized as the saint of the North. Through his influence that kingdom was induced to accept Christianity. Other missionaries went to other districts to carry the "good tidings of great joy."