"And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's,
And many an orphan's water-standing eye,—
Men for their sons', wives for their husbands' fate,
And orphans for their parents' timeless death,—
Did rue the hour that ever thou wert born."
Shakspere.
For nearly a century after the departure of Cæsar, we have no records of the events which transpired in England; that the inhabitants made some progress in civilization during that period is all we know; for there can be but little doubt that a few of the Roman soldiers remained behind, and settled in the island after the first invasion, and introduced some degree of refinement amongst the tribes with whom they peaceably dwelt. No attempt, however, was made, during this long interval, to fortify the island against any future invasion; and when the Roman commander, Plautius, landed, about ninety-seven years after the retirement of Cæsar, he met with no resistance until he had led his army some distance into the inland country. After a time a few skirmishes took place—some of the tribes submitted—but nothing like a determined resistance seems to have been offered to the Roman arms, until Plautius had extended his victories beyond the Severn, and compelled the Britons to retreat into the marshes beside the Thames. Here it was that the Roman commander first learned to estimate aright the valour of the force he had to contend against; for the bogs and swamps which had so often checked the meditated movements of Cæsar, proved nearly fatal to the force headed by Plautius, who, after suffering a severe loss, retreated to a secure position beside the Thames. In this strong encampment he calmly awaited the arrival of the Emperor Claudius, who, after a time, joined him with a considerable reinforcement—just stayed long enough to look round him—received the submission of a few petty states—and then returned most triumphantly to Rome; for it is questionable whether he ever fought a single battle. It is at this period that the figure of Caractacus heaves up slowly above the scene; we see him but dimly and indistinctly at first, but, after a time, he towers above all his compeers, as Cassivellaunus did in the days of Cæsar. We see him moving now and then between the divided legions commanded by Vespasian and Plautius, but nothing of importance is done on either side. The Isle of Wight is for a short time subdued; a small portion of the island south of the Thames is occupied by the invaders; then Plautius is recalled to Rome, and before he well arrives at the imperial city, the whole camp is in disorder; the Roman legions can no longer protect the states that have submitted to them. Caractacus is up, armed, and in earnest. Ostorius Scapula next appears, and places himself at the head of the Roman ranks, strikes an unexpected blow in the midst of winter, and gains some advantage over the Britons. About this time it appears that the Romans first commenced the erection of forts in the island, thus keeping the conquered states within well-guarded lines, and protecting them from the attacks of the unsubdued tribes, taking good care, at the same time, that they did not escape and join their independent countrymen. His next step was to disarm all the states within these limits; and as some of them had become willing allies, rebellion soon broke out within these circumscribed bounds. Once disarmed, it will readily be imagined how easily they were beaten. Ostorius had now work enough on his hands; the tribes that occupied the present counties of York and Lancashire next arose, attacked the Roman legions, and were defeated. It was then that the ancient Silures sprang up, the bravest of all the British tribes, the true Cimbrii of early renown. The battle-ground now shifts into Wales, and Caractacus is the commander. Almost every mountain-pass and ford were familiar to him; his renown already rang through the island; wherever the Roman eagle had bowed its haughty neck, he had been present; the Roman general knew with whom he had to deal, and moved forward with all his available force. Around the standard of Caractacus had rallied every tribe from the surrounding country, who refused to bow their necks to the invaders. Tacitus says that he chose his ground with great skill, in the centre of steep and difficult hills, raising ramparts of massive stones, where the ascent was possible; while between his army and the road by which the Romans must approach, there flowed a river which it was difficult to ford. As the enemy drew near, he exhorted his soldiers to remember how their forefathers had driven Cæsar from Britain, spake to them of freedom, their homes, their wives and children, in a style which the Roman historians would have pronounced eloquent, had the address flowed from the mouth of one of their own generals. The Britons again were conquered, though they fought bravely—their naked bosoms and helmetless heads were sure marks for every well-tempered Roman blade, while their own copper swords bent back at the first thrust they made at their mail-clad enemies. Caractacus was not slain, though he only escaped to be given up in chains to the Romans by his treacherous stepmother, Cartismanda, after having for nine years waged war against the invaders of Britain. The British leader was dragged (with his wife and children) a prisoner to Rome; his fame had flown before him, and the Romans, who ever respected valour, crowded round to look at the renowned island chief. He alone, of all the British captives, shrunk not when brought before the Roman emperor, Claudius. There was a noble bearing about the man: that eye which had never quailed before the keen edge of the uplifted blade in battle—that heart which had never sunk, though it was the last to retreat from the hard fought field, buoyed him up in the presence of his enemy, and the noble Roman ordered his chains to be struck off, an act which did honour to the successor of Cæsar. Caractacus would have done the same, had Claudius obtained the same renown, and so stood a captive before him. Whether the brave barbarian died in some contest with a gladiator in the arena of Rome, "butchered to make a holiday" in a later day, before Nero, or returned to his country, or joined the legions of his conquerors, and fell fighting in some foreign land, we know not—we see his chains struck off before the Emperor Claudius, then he vanishes for ever from the page of history.
Caractacus carried captive to Rome.
Even this undoubted victory was of but little advantage to the Roman arms. The Silures proved themselves worthy descendants of the ancient Cymry, the terror of whose name, as we have before shown, had in former times carried consternation even to the very gates of Rome. They broke up the enemy's camp, fell upon their lines and forts, drove the Roman legions back to their old intrenchments, and, but for the timely arrival of a party of foragers, would have cut up every soldier within the Roman encampment in Wales. Nor could Ostorius, when he brought up all his legions to battle, conquer them again. One skirmish was but the forerunner of another; the Britons but retreated to-day, to advance with stronger force on the morrow; until at last, harassed and vexed, ever fighting but obtaining no advantage, the commander, who had conquered Caractacus, fortified himself within his camp, and died. He was the bravest general that the Britons had ever looked upon since the days of Cæsar. Pass we by Frontinus, Didius, and Veranius; there are other shadows to pass over this dimly-lighted stage of our history, who "will do strange deeds and then depart."
Wearied and harassed by such a succession of invasions, the chiefs of the druids, with many of the Britons who refused to submit to the Roman yoke, retired to the island of Anglesey, that they might, amid its shadowy groves and deep passes, follow their religious rites without molestation, and sleep securely without being aroused by the din of arms which was ever awakening the echoes that dwelt amongst gloomy Albion's white cliffs. To this island, guarded more by the terrors of superstition than the substantial array of arms, the Roman commander, Paulinus Suetonius, determined to cross; and to accomplish his purpose, he built a number of flat-bottomed boats in which he placed his troops. As the invading force neared the opposite shore, they were struck with terror by the strange scene which rose before them, and many a Roman heart that had never before quailed in the stormy front of battle, stood appalled before the dreaded array which had there congregated. It seemed as if they had reached the shores of the fabulous Hades of their ancient poets; for there women were seen rushing in every direction in dresses on which were woven the forms of dismal objects; and while their long dishevelled hair streamed out in the sea-breeze, they brandished their flaming torches aloft as they rushed to and fro, their eyes glaring wildly out of the dense smoke, as it blew back again in their angry faces, while they looked out "fierce as the furies, terrible as hell." Behind them were the grim druids collected, with hands and eyes uplifted, as they invoked the curses of the gods upon the heads of the Roman legions; before them the huge fires which were already kindled, blazed and crackled, and shot out their consuming tongues of flame, as if they were hungry for their prey, while the druids pointed to the invading force, and bade their warriors hasten and bring their victims to the sacrifice. The Roman soldiers seemed paralysed; they stood almost motionless, as if they had not power to strike a blow. They fell back affrighted before the lighted torches of the women, and the curses of the druids, which struck more terror into their souls than if the thunder of a thousand war-chariots had borne down upon them, in all their headlong array. Aroused at last by the voice of their leader, who bade them to despise a force of frantic women and praying priests, they rushed boldly on, even to the very foot of the dreaded fires; and many a bearded druid was that day driven before the points of the Roman spears into the devouring flames which they had kindled for the destruction of their invaders. Dreadful was the carnage that ensued; even the sacred groves were fired or cut down; if the Britons escaped the flames, it was but to rush back again upon the points of the Roman swords—the sun sunk upon a scene of desolation and death—a landscape blackened with ashes—fires that had been extinguished by blood, whose grey embers faded and died out, as the last sobs of the expiring victims subsided into the eternal silence of death.
The spirit of British vengeance, though asleep, was not yet dead, and at the rumour of these dreadful deeds it sprang up, awake and armed, on the opposite shore; as if the blow which struck down their sacred groves, and overthrew their ancient altars, had sent a shock across the straits of Menai, which had been felt throughout the whole length and breadth of the land; as if at the fall of the sacred groves of Mona the spirits of the departed dead had rushed across, while the voices of the murdered druids filled all the air with their wailing cries of lamentation, until even women sprang up demanding vengeance, and Boadicea leaped into her war-chariot, as if to rebuke the British warriors by her presence, and to show them that the soul of a woman, loathing their abject slavery, was ready to lead them on to either liberty or death, and to place her fair form in the dangerous front of battle—for her white shoulders had not escaped the mark of the Roman scourge. Her daughters had been violated before her eyes, her subjects driven from their homes, the whole territory of the Iceni over which she reigned as queen groaned again beneath the weight of cruelty, and oppression, and wrong; her subjects were made slaves; her relations were dragged into captivity by the haughty conquerors; her priests slaughtered; her altars overthrown, and another creed thrust into the throats of those over whom she ruled, at the points of the Roman swords. Her sufferings, her birth, the death of her husband king Prasutagus, her towering spirit, her bold demeanour, and the energy of her address, struck like an electric shock throughout all the surrounding tribes, and many a state which had bowed in abject submission beneath the haughty feet of the conquerors, now sprang up, and as if endowed with a new life, rushed onward to the great mustering ground of battle, like clouds hastening up to join the dark mass which gathers about the dreaded thunder-storm, before the deafening explosion bursts forth.
On the Roman colony of Camaladonum did this terrible tempest first break, scattering before it a whole Roman legion, and scarcely leaving one alive behind to tell the tale. The voices of pity and mercy were unheard amid that dire and revengeful din; no quarter was given, no prisoners were made; blinded with revenge, stung to madness by the remembrance of their grievous wrongs, the assailants rushed forward, sparing neither age nor sex; destruction seemed to have set all her dreadful instruments at once to work, and in a few days upwards of seventy thousand Romans perished by the gibbet, the fire, and the sword. Such of the Roman officers as could escape, fled to their galleys, and hurried off to Gaul. Even Suetonius, who had hastened back at the first rumour of this dreadful carnage, was compelled to abandon London, already a place of some distinction, in despair, and hurry off with his legions into the open provinces. As he retreated, the Britons entered; and out of the vast multitude which a few hours before those walls had inclosed, scarcely a soul remained alive. The Roman soldiers rushed into their temples to avoid the assailants; the figure of the goddess of Victory which they worshipped fell to the ground; the females ran wailing and shrieking into the streets, into the council chambers, into the theatres, with their children in their arms. In the red sunsets of the evening sky their heated imagination traced moving and blood-coloured phantoms, colonies in ruins, and overthrown temples, whose pillars were stained with human gore, and in the ridges which the receding tide left upon the shore, their fancies conjured up the carcases of the dead. Before the desolating forces of the stern Boadicea ran Fear and Terror, with trembling steps and pale looks; by her side grim Destruction, and blood-dyed Carnage stalked, while behind marched Death, taking no note of Sorrow, and Grief, and Silence, whom he left together to mourn amid the solitude of those unpeopled ruins. Meantime, Suetonius, having strengthened his army to a force which now amounted to upwards of ten thousand men, chose the most favourable position for his troops, where he awaited the arrival of the Britons to commence the battle. Nor had he to wait long; for, flushed with victory, and reeking fresh from the carnage, the assailants came up, with Boadicea, thundering in her war-chariot, at their head, and soon drew together in the order of battle. The Romans were now actuated by feelings of revenge.
With her long yellow hair unbound, and falling in clusters far below the golden chain which encircled her waist, her dark eyes flashing vengeance as she glanced angrily aside to where the Roman legions were drawn up in the distance, (an impenetrable mass, looking in their coats of mail like a wall of steel, bristling with swords and spears,) and with the curved crimson of her cruel lip haughtily upturned, Boadicea rose tall and queen-like from the war-chariot in which her weeping daughters were seated, and turning to the assembled tribes who hemmed her round with a forest of tall spears, she raised her hand to command silence; and when the busy murmur of subdued applause which acknowledged her bravery had died away, she bade them remember the wrongs they had to revenge, the weight of oppression which had so long bowed their necks to the dust; the sword, and fire, and famine, which had desolated their fair land; their sons and daughters carried off and doomed to all the miseries of slavery; their priests ruthlessly butchered at the foot of the altar; their ancient groves hewn to the ground by sacrilegious hands, and consumed by fire; she pointed to her daughters whom the invaders had violated, and raising her white and rounded arm, showed the marks which the scourge of the ruffianly Catus had left behind; then brandishing her spear aloft, she shook the loosened reins over her restive steeds, and was soon lost in the thickest of the battle. But the lapse of a century, and the many battles in which they had fought, had not yet enabled the Britons to stand firm before the shock of the Roman legions. They were defeated with tremendous slaughter; and the queen, who had so nobly revenged her country's wrongs, only escaped the carnage to perish by her own hand. Even down the dim vista of time we can yet perceive her; the flower of her army lying around dead; the remnant routed and pursued by the merciless Romans, while she, heartbroken, hopeless, and alone, sacrifices her own life; and though but a heathen, does a deed which in that barbarous age would have ennobled her had she been born in the country of her civilized invaders, who would proudly have erected a statue to her memory in that city whose haughty emperors proclaimed themselves the conquerors of the world. Little did the vanquishers dream a woman would spring up and emulate the deeds of their most renowned warriors, and that the fair barbarian would in after ages leave behind her a more than Roman name.