The conquerors of the world! Time has passed rapidly on, and Rome, the vaunted mistress of the world, with difficulty grasps her own. Pierced by barbarian hordes, torn by intestine wars, weakened at heart and tottering to her ruin, her last legions have been recalled for her own defence, and the fair provinces of the West are abandoned to the Northern savages, who come, as Gildas relates, “like hungry and ravening wolves rushing with greedy jaws upon the fold.”
Yet once again, a change—and lo!
The Roman even himself must go;
While Dane and Saxon scatter wide
Each remnant of his power and pride.
Enfeebled by long submission to the Roman yoke, deprived of the protection of the forces of the empire, the flower of her youth drafted away to swell the armies of the Emperors Maximus and Constantine, Britain is left in a state of utter defencelessness, and speedily becomes a prey to those warlike hordes that come pouring in from the maritime provinces of Germany, Norway, and Sweden. The period that follows is one of anarchy and confusion, of Saxon conquest and Danish spoliation.
But we pass on. Another picture is shadowed forth, and what is this that meets the gaze? The scene of fierce war and angry passions, of conquest and oppression, of barbaric rudeness and pagan splendour, is now a desolate and deserted waste, where the frail creations of man are blended with the ever-enduring works of God. The relentless foot of Time has pressed heavily upon these wrecks of human greatness—a few straggling walls, a ruined temple, pavements worn down by the tread of many a Roman foot, broken columns, with fragments of masonry, are all the vestiges that remain to denote the ancient importance of the Roman Rigodunum—all the signs that are left to point out where merchants gathered and where warriors prepared for conquest and for fame.
The departure of the Roman legionaries inflicted a heavy blow on the fortunes of the city. The period of Saxon conquest was followed by the descent of the wild Scandinavian marauders—the Jarls and sea-kings of the North, who, with their piratical hordes, swept the country, leaving the red mark of death and desolation in their wake.
What time the Raven flapped his gory wing,
And scoured the White Horse o’er this harried realm;