A Popular History of England, From the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria; Vol. I

by François Guizot

Caractacus and his Wife before Claudius.

On the shore a great crowd awaited the advance of the enemy, "savage and diversified" in appearance, says Tacitus. The armed men were assembled in a mass; the women, attired in sombre dress, running about with dishevelled hair, like furies brandishing their torches; and the Druids were standing, clothed in their long white robes, as if about to sacrifice to their gods, their heads shaved, their beards long, their hands raised to heaven, while they pronounced the terrible maledictions of the Celtic races against the enemies of their people and their divinities. The Roman soldiers hesitated; their limbs seemed paralyzed by fear, and they exposed themselves, without resisting, to the blows of their enemies. Their general urged them to advance. At length, each encouraging the other to despise the infuriated cries of a band of priests and women, they rushed upon the Britons, and precipitated them upon the stakes which they had prepared in order to sacrifice the Roman prisoners to their gods. A garrison was placed on the island; the sacred grove was cut down; and the fugitive Druids disappeared, to seek an asylum among the tribes which still offered a resistance.

The number of these tribes had increased in the absence of the prætor. The infamous treatment inflicted upon Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, and her children, by order of the procurator Catus, had aroused the indignation of her neighbors as well as of her own subjects. By secret intrigues the malcontents from all quarters were invited to strike a great blow for the recovery of their liberty. The colony of Camalodunum was first attacked and put to fire and sword. Suetonius hastened from the isle of Mona, and marched first towards London, already an important and populous city. Defence was impossible. The prætor withdrew the garrison to protect the rest of the provinces, and all the citizens who had not been able to retire under the shelter of the Roman eagles were massacred. The Roman colony of Verulam suffered the same fate. It is said that more than 70,000 Romans and their allies had already perished under the blows of the insurgents, when the two armies found themselves confronted. Queen Boadicea rode along the ranks of the Britons, clothed in a robe of various colors, with a golden zone around her waist. She reminded her countrymen that she was not the first woman who had led them to battle, since the custom of the country often called to the throne the widow of a sovereign, passing over his children. She spoke of the irreparable insults which she had undergone, of the misfortunes of the nation, and she exhorted the warriors to immolate all the Romans to Andrasta, the goddess of victory. The Romans remained motionless; they were awaiting the attack of the Britons.

The barbarians, excited by the glowing words of the queen, rushed upon the legions; the Romans bestirred themselves at length, and their broad swords opened for them a passage through the midst of the mass of Britons. The latter fell without flinching; but their enemy advanced to the line of chariots, and put to the sword women and children. It is said, though no doubt, with the usual exaggeration of the time, that 80,000 Britons perished on that day. Boadicea, resolved not to survive her hopes of vengeance, poisoned herself upon the battle-field.

Successive prætors had failed to establish tranquillity in Britain, or to obtain the submission of the people, when Agricola, father-in-law of the celebrated historian Tacitus, arrived in his turn in this indomitable island. His brilliant exploits soon caused him to be respected; but, while pursuing year by year the course of his conquests, he endeavored to found the Roman rule upon the most durable basis. In his hands the civil administration became milder; the Britons governed with justice, became gradually less estranged from their conquerors. A taste for luxury and Roman civilization began to distinguish the chiefs admitted to the prætorian court; the Roman toga took the place of the British mantle; buildings arose upon the model of the Roman constructions; children began to speak Latin; and at the same time the spirit of liberty and resistance diminished among the inhabitants of the south of Britain. "The Britons willingly furnish recruits to our armies," wrote Tacitus; "they pay the taxes without murmuring, and they perform with zeal their duties towards the government, provided they have not to complain of oppression. When they are offended their resentment is prompt and violent; they may be conquered, but not tamed; they may be led to obedience, but not to servitude."

The military progress of the Roman general was no less important than his moral conquests. He had reached the Firth of Forth and the narrow isthmus which separates this river from the mouth of the Clyde. After every new victory he protected the subjected territory with forts. He even constructed a wall, the ruins of which, crossing the north of England from the Solway to the mouth of the Tyne, bear to this day his name. In the eighth and ninth year of his government he passed the line of the forts and penetrated into Scotland, the country of the Caledonians, savage tribes who had not yet beheld the Roman eagles. Scarcely had the conquerors invaded this new territory when the Caledonians, under the command of their chief, Galgacus, descended from the Grampian hills and fell upon the invader. On Ardoch Moor traces of the combat still exist, together with the lines of the Roman encampment. The struggle lasted all day, and the barbarians were defeated; but on the morrow at sunrise they had disappeared, and the Romans found themselves alone in the midst of a wild country. In their flight the Caledonians had set fire to their habitations, and with their own hands had slain their wives and children, to prevent their falling victims to the vengeance of the conqueror. The savage tribes had returned into their mountains, leaving, according to the chronicles, 10,000 dead upon the field of battle. Agricola made no effort to pursue them. Falling back towards the south, he despatched his vessels to make a voyage of exploration all round the island, the northern shores of which had not yet been visited. The mariners returned, reporting that no tongue of land connected Britain with the continent, that they had seen in the distance Thule (Iceland), enveloped in mists and eternal snow, and that the seas which they had traversed were of a sluggish kind, heavy under the oar, and never agitated by wind or storms. Agricola was recalled to Rome through the jealousy of the Emperor Domitian, but his wise government had appeased the passions of the Britons, and for thirty years afterwards the Roman annals contain no mention of British affairs—an evidence that peace reigned in the island.

An invasion of the Caledonians brought the Emperor Hadrian to Britain (120 A.D.). Having driven them back beyond the forts which connected the mouth of the Solway on the west with that of the Tyne on the eastern coast, he caused to be raised behind this rampart an enormous wall, fortified by a wide fosse and provided with towers which received a garrison. This redoubt is still partly in existence, as is the wall of Antoninus, constructed some years later across the isthmus of the Forth, after a fresh invasion of the barbarians.

No rampart, however, could resist the warlike ardor of these savage populations; and the disorganization which had attacked the vast body of the Empire began to make itself felt among the legions established in Britain. The soldiers often murmured; the general, Albinus, after having refused the title of Cæsar from the hands of the Emperor Commodus, accepted it upon the offer of Septimius Severus, and, suddenly rejecting his allegiance, he was proclaimed emperor by his troops. Crossing immediately into Gaul to sustain his pretensions by force of arms, he was defeated near Revoux, and paid for his ambition by the loss of his head; but he had brought with him and had sacrificed the best of the troops in Britain, both Roman and native. The Caledonians took advantage of this opportunity to redouble their efforts, and the case became so grave that the emperor left Rome to oppose them (207 A.D.).