A short history of social life in England. Margaret Bertha Synge
ancient Briton was a man of fine build and strong physique, ever ready to do and dare. True, he was short-lived in comparison with modern man, as he died about the age of fifty-five, but he was longer-lived than his predecessors, who had died for the most part at forty-five: so presumably the conditions of life were already improving.
The ancient Briton wore his hair long and shaggy, the women arranging theirs in shocks or pyramids held together by metal hairpins twenty inches long.
Though the skins of animals may still have clothed a number of the primitive inhabitants of these islands, yet the majority probably dressed in cloaks of wool or garments of linen. Woollen caps, woollen shawls with fringe at the end, and woollen gaiters have been found in graves belonging to this period, suggestive, it has been pointed out, of Dr. Jaeger's modern manufacture. Remains of leather, representing some sort of primitive boots, have likewise been found, together with other interesting relics of the period. Their occupations were more varied than those of their predecessors. They made a rough sort of badly burnt pottery, decorating it skilfully with various patterns, composed for the most part of dots and straight lines arranged in geometrical crosses, network, or zigzag. Their skill in carpentering, too, is somewhat surprising, and their wheels, ladders, doors, buckets, and bowls are ornamented with cut patterns of great exactitude.
Their preparations for inter-tribal warfare were still distinctly barbaric; the hilts of their huge, pointless swords were adorned with the teeth of animals; on the axles of their chariot wheels were attached scythes to mow down their enemies.
They faced death fearlessly, and, with the characteristics of their descendants, never knew when they were beaten. Perhaps this courage in the presence of danger was due to the fact that to these warriors of old death was merely the passing of the spirit that had prompted life into another body. And the deification of ancestors arose in addition to the deification of Nature. Honour to the dead was intensified, and to this period possibly belong the mysterious and hardly yet explained monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury. Whether these colossal memorials were temples for tombs of great men, surrounded as they are by three hundred barrows in the neighbourhood, they are marvellous in the skill of their workmanship, and they testify to a past which is still pitifully speechless and yet, with all its barbaric attributes, contains the embryonic characteristics of our modern existence to-day.
CHAPTER II
Circa B.C. 55—A.D. 410
A GREAT CIVILISATION
"And left their usages, their arts and laws
To disappear by a slow gradual death,
To dwindle and to perish one by one,
Starved in these narrow bounds: but not the soul
Of Liberty."
Wordsworth.
WITH the invasion of Julius Cæsar and the occupation of England by the Romans a hundred years later, a very highly developed civilisation was brought to our shores. And though we no longer regard the dwellers in this land at that period as half-naked savages, painted blue and madly hurling immense stones at the orderly Roman legions as they endeavoured to step on to British soil, yet there is no doubt the newcomers were very far in advance of the inhabitants of the island they sought to conquer. Arrayed in short tunics of cloth or linen, with bare heads and legs, armed with broadswords and lances, standing in war-chariots drawn by well-trained ponies accustomed to the roughest country, each tribe under its own chief—these ancient Britons gallantly defended their land against the foreign foe. But very different were the organised legions against which they had to fight Each Roman soldier was armed with a well-tempered blade of steel, each head was protected by a lofty-crested helmet, while mail breastplates, greaves, and shields embossed with plates of iron, completed the equipment. Commanded by men chosen for their military skill, it is small wonder that they conquered the British tribes, even as those very British tribes—the Celts—had triumphed over the Iberians of old by means of a superior metal weapon.
The Britons fought with true courage, and for the first time in this land's social history we get glimpses of individual heroes rejoicing in elaborate names, few of which are less than four syllables. Stronger than his fellow's, Cassivelaunus, King of the Catuvelauni, keeps a large tract of country* free from the Roman, while his descendant Cunobelinus—the Cymbeline of Shakspere—defends his stronghold of Camalodunum, on the site of our modern Colchester, as some maintain. The defence of the old country was carried on by his son Caractacus, the stirring account of whose defeat and subsequent appearance in Rome are well known. Women, too, sprang up to defend the land against Roman invaders, and amongst them we get a mention of one of the first-named Queens in old British history. A glimpse of her conduct illumines for a moment these barbaric times.
Boadicea, the widowed Queen of Prasutagus, King of the Iceni tribe, inhabiting Norfolk, burned with indignation at the insults offered to herself and her daughters by the Roman governors. Her own fierce courage inspired her people, and she proudly led the tribes, over which she still held sway, against Colchester, the headquarters of the Romans in the east. Her ranks were soon swollen by other discontented Britons, until she found herself at the head of something like 80,000 native warriors. A vivid picture of the Queen before the battle has been handed down by a Roman historian, as, standing up in her war-chariot, where sat her weeping daughters, her bare arms raised on high, her long, yellow hair floating over her shoulders, from which hung a tunic of many colours, her golden necklace and bracelets glistening in the sun, she resolutely addressed her faithful troops:
"Not as a Queen, the descendant of noble ancestors, possessed of great riches and wealth, but as one of the community, I lead you to avenge the loss of our liberty. The Roman army now opposed to us will never stand the shouts and clamour of so many thousands, much less their shock and fury. To-day, we conquer or we die. This is the last resource for me—a woman. Let the men live—if they please—as slaves."
The angry hosts made their way to Colchester, which was, as yet, unwalled, burst in and slaughtered the Romans with savage fury, and hastened on to further destruction. It was not until the Roman Governor himself advanced against the British Queen that the massacre was stopped, and at the last it is said that some 80,000 Britons lay dead on the battlefield, including women and children.
The tragic end of Boadicea, by suicide, throws a lurid light on her strength of character. Impulsive and fearless, with a passionate love of liberty, we learn that in those days of small opportunities there were women of this type in early Britain, a type which survived the Roman assimilation as well as the Teutonic invasions that swept over the country in later days.
The conquest more or less complete, the Romans found it easy to introduce into the newly acquired country all that had made life comfortable in their far-off Italian homes.
Their first great work was to convert the old British tracks into broad military highways, thus enabling their soldiers to march easily from one end of the island to another, as well as simplifying commercial intercourse. These roads were carried over the rivers by an extensive system of bridges built of timber on stone piers. Distances were made known by means of milestones, which were stone pillars on which were engraved the distance in numbers, the places between which the road extended, the name of the constructor, and the Roman Emperor in whose reign the stone was erected. At regular intervals of a day's journey were posting stations, where refreshments were obtainable. Indeed, the County Councillor of to-day might well make a study of the very complete system of road communication inaugurated by the Roman of old. The roads were the property of the State, which had entire control and supplied funds for their construction and maintenance. Each main line of road was under an inspector-in-chief, who held an important office, one filled by many a Roman princeling of repute. Nevertheless we get glimpses of fraudulent contractors and negligent magistrates prosecuted for the bad condition of the roads, which were finally so well constructed that many of them remained in England till the sixteenth century.
It