Read Ebook: The Pageant of British History by Parrott Edward

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The next figure in our pageant to attract attention is again a Roman, but a man cast in a very different mould from the harsh and tyrannical Suetonius. In distant Rome the emperor has taken to heart the moral of the terrible rising led by Boadicea. He now knows that the Britons will never yield to severity. Consequently Agricola, the new governor, is a firm, just man, who strives by every means in his power to make the Roman yoke press as lightly as possible on British shoulders. He rules Britain much as a British Viceroy governs our Indian Empire to-day. He fosters the peaceful arts; he introduces the British nobles and their sons to the pastimes, the dress, the luxuries, and the manners of Rome. In course of time Britain sullenly submits to her bondage, though she is still held down by force of arms. The art and practice of war are now forbidden to the Britons, except to the flower of the youth, who are drafted into legions which garrison lands far from the call of home and kindred. The fiery Briton no longer wields the claymore; he becomes a skilled craftsman, a patient farmer, a delver in the mines.

Still, Agricola has his share of fighting. The Britons of North Wales are subdued in the first year of his governorship. In the second year several tribes in North Britain feel the weight of his hand; and in the succeeding year he pushes into Caledonia, and carries his "eagles" to the Tay. During the following summer he builds a chain of forts from the Clyde to the Firth of Forth, vainly hoping that by this means he will pen the fierce Caledonians in their northern fastnesses. His greatest campaign is undertaken in the year 84 A.D., when he pushes into what is now Forfarshire and inflicts a terrible defeat on a host of Caledonians under their doughty chief Galgacus.

Meanwhile his galleys are creeping northward along the coast. They touch at the Orkneys, they round Cape Wrath, run down the western coast with its maze of islands, see the Irish hills on the starboard, and follow the shores of South Britain until they espy Land's End, and find themselves once more in the familiar waters of the Channel. This voyage proves without a doubt that Britain is an island.

Agricola's government, wise, firm, and prosperous, comes to an untimely end. The emperor is jealous of him, and recalls him to Rome on a trumped-up charge. What befalls him we do not know, but probably he comes to a violent end. At all events, he fades out of our history, leaving behind him a fame which emperors cannot dim nor unjust tribunals take away. Farewell, Agricola! We salute thee as the greatest governor which Britain ever knew while Rome held sway.

And now the land is happy in having little history to record. A generation comes and goes, and all the time Rome is building up her government, carrying out her great military works, and bowing the neck of the enfeebled Briton to her yoke.

With the disappearance of the forests the weather has improved. No longer is the island wrapped in steaming mists; no longer is the sky always clouded. Many of the rivers which formerly lost themselves in reedy marshes are carefully banked in, and now flow on as broad, fair streams. The morasses are crossed by causeways, the fens are drained, the rivers are bridged, the fords are easy, and the Britons loudly complain that their hands and bodies are worn out in the toilsome work.

Look at the road beneath your feet. Broad and straight, it runs over hill and valley, across stream and moor and bog. British labourers, under the eye of Roman road-engineers--never surpassed before or since--have dug down to the rocky crust, and upon this have built three or four layers of squared or broken stones mixed with gravel, lime, and clay. The upper surface is closely paved, especially in the middle, with large flag-stones. This is one of the military highways, all spreading out, as our modern railways do, from London, and enabling the legions to pass with speed through the length and breadth of the province. Watling Street, Fosse Way, Hermen Street, Ikenild Street--the chief military roads of the island--may still be traced, and in parts are used to-day.

While we are examining the road, we hear the tramp of armed men, and a legion swings by. Swarthy Italian, yellow-haired German, and dusky Moor march side by side armed with brazen shield, heavy javelin, and short, thick sword. In the midst is the glittering "eagle," which the Roman would rather die than yield to a foe.

Let us follow the legion towards yonder city. On we go, traversing the broad, white road, now crossing a stream by a bridge, now wading waist-deep through the ford of a broad river. Here and there amidst the trees we see the white buildings of a villa, the residence of some Roman official. Notice the beautiful garden as you pass, and admire the orchards of apples, plums, pears, and cherries, and the south wall where the clustering grapes are ripening in the sun. Anon we skirt the fringe of a cemetery with its mounds of earth marking the hollow graves, each with its urn of dark clay containing the ashes of the dead.

Make way for the governor! Before him march his lictors with the axe in its bundle of rods, and behind him follows a guard of honour. Now a gang of slaves is driven by; and here comes a shock-headed British chieftain who has been captured in border warfare, and anon will face the judgment seat.

Hard by is the amphitheatre, where the townsfolk throng to see plays performed, or better still to see the trained gladiators who fight to the death "to make a Roman holiday." Here on the seats, tier above tier, sit the wealthier Britons of the town, aping their masters in dress, speech, and manner. No longer do they delight in the battle and the chase; they love the pleasures of the town. Their golden locks are shorn and their beards are trimmed in the Roman fashion; they vie with each other in the fold of a toga and the fit of a sandal; their days are spent in a weary quest of amusement. They bathe; they drink their wine; they feast; they dice; they go to the shows; and consider themselves fine fellows indeed, because they can lisp the tongue of their masters.

The gleaming marble portico of the governor's residence invites us. Within, the ladies of his household sew and spin, while their lord directs the affairs of his town and sits on the judgment seat. On their dressing-tables are mirrors of polished steel, combs of boxwood, and pins of bone for their long tresses. They gird up their robes with brooches of gold and silver; they wear jewelled bracelets on their arms and dainty shoes of silk on their feet. Supper is at three. Then the gentlemen will join them, and they will recline on the couches and feast on the dainties of the island, which they will wash down with a favourite wine trodden out in the presses of the distant home-land.

Then we pass on to the "poor quarter," where the workshops of the multifarious workers are situated and the huts of the humblest part of the population abound. Here there are squalor and misery in plenty, but still a touch of Roman manners.

Such is the life of a Brito-Roman town in the palmy days of the Romans in Britain.

And now let the pageant move on to the closing scenes of Roman sway. Rome is sinking fast. Within, her citizens have lost their old courage and genius for government. Without, the fierce Goths and Vandals are assailing her provinces. Rome's grip on her Empire is being loosened more and more every day, and the wild hordes on her frontiers grow bolder and bolder as the Roman garrisons are withdrawn to defend the great city itself. So it is in Britain, where the Caledonians swarm over Hadrian's Wall and fall upon the Britons of the south. The Roman troops mutiny, and set up their general as emperor, and even follow him to Gaul, where stout-hearted Severus, who now appears on the scene, makes short work of them and their leader.

Meanwhile the ravages of the Caledonians increase, and to save the province old Severus, now sixty-two years of age and racked with the gout, crosses the Channel, and, carried in a litter before his army, sets his face for the border, in the hope of teaching the northern tribes a terrible lesson. Through the trackless swamps, the woods, the moorlands, and the wild mountains beyond the Wall, the old general hews his way until he reaches the shores of the Moray Firth, where the tribes make peace. Severus has accomplished nothing. His victory is a disaster; a few more such victories and he will have no army left. When the watchers on the Wall greet his approach with shouts of welcome, the bleaching bones of fifty thousand Romans mark his long line of march. He repairs the Wall, and then, grievously sick, retreats to York, where, on his deathbed, he plans a new campaign which will never be made.

His death is the beginning of the end. Two hundred years of misery and constant strife set in. General after general makes himself emperor; they come and go in blood; and all the time Britain, despoiled of her youth to rot on foreign fields, is the prey of a pitiless foe. The Caledonians, who are now known as Picts and Scots, actually march on London and carry off its citizens as slaves. A new and even more dreaded foe, the terrible Saxon pirate, has also appeared; there are desperate attempts at defence, but they are one and all in vain. The hour of doom has struck, alike for Empire and Province. The Goth is thundering at the very gates of Rome. All the available troops of the Empire, wherever stationed, are called in to defend the city.

The last of the legions leaves British shores in the year 407 amidst the sighs and tears of the defenceless inhabitants, who are now as sheep without a shepherd. Pitiful appeals--"the groans of the Britons"--are sent to Rome; but the weak and indolent emperor merely pauses in the absorbing pastime of feeding his pigeons to tell the despairing islanders that they must provide for their own safety. Thus Britain is left to her fate, and for two long centuries darkness closes round her.

"The eagles have flown." Their glory has departed, and they disappear from the pageant of our history. Rome found the natives warlike, though untrained; she left them helpless and feeble. True, she gave them the benefits of peace; she taught them arts and crafts; she gave them education, and a measure of comfort and prosperity. But she did not teach them how to defend themselves, and so, when overwhelmed by hardier foes, they perished miserably by fire and sword.

KING ARTHUR AND THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE.

THE light burns low on our pageant, and the scene grows dim and confused; yet we know only too well that a desperate struggle is going on. The battle-cries of warriors and the shrieks of the wounded are ever in our ears. The glare of blazing roof-trees lights up for a moment the ghastly scene, and reveals the pitiless work of slaughter. As it flickers out all is gloom and silence; it is the only peace that the stricken land knows.

The scene shifts, but the drama is ever the same. There seems to be no end to the hordes of attackers. They come by sea and they come by land; most terrible of all are they whose serpent-headed ships are now seen faintly on the strand. The tide of war sets in their favour, though they are beaten back from time to time before the despairing onset of the Britons.

Now you see amidst the press the noble form of that gallant British prince who is the very soul of the island defence. Arthur, the peerless knight, steps before us, "every inch a king." He shines like a star in the gloom. Legend, song, and story have so woven themselves about his name and fame, so many fables have been told about him, so many wondrous deeds and miracles have been ascribed to him, that historians dispute his very existence.

What do the old chroniclers tell us of him? They tell us that he was the son of Uther Pendragon, a valiant British king, who kept the Saxons at bay through many hard-fought years. Arthur's birth had been kept a secret, and the child had been placed by the great wizard Merlin in the care of a knight named Sir Ector, who brought him up as his son. The ruin of the country seemed to be at hand, when Merlin induced the Archbishop of Canterbury to summon a meeting of all the great barons and nobles in London on Christmas Eve, in order that a king might be chosen. To this meeting came Sir Ector, his son Sir Kay, and Arthur.

While they were at prayers a huge block of marble uprose in the churchyard. On the top of it was an anvil of solid steel, in which was embedded by the point a sword of marvellous brightness, bearing on its jewelled hilt these words, "Whoso pulleth me out of this stone and anvil is rightwise king born of England." In vain did ambitious knights and squires, day after day, strive to draw forth the magic sword. All failed, and men despaired of discovering the rightful king. Now it chanced that on New Year's Day a tournament was held, and amongst the knights who rode to take part therein was Sir Kay, who was accompanied by Arthur as his squire. As they rode towards the field, Sir Kay discovered that he had left his sword behind him at his lodging. He prayed Arthur to ride back for his sword, and Arthur, as a dutiful squire, obeyed. When, however, he came to the lodging he found it closed, for all who dwelt there had gone to the jousting.

On his way Arthur had passed the churchyard where the sword was upstanding in the anvil. Thither he rode, and, seizing the sword, easily pulled it out and carried it to Sir Kay, who did many warlike feats with it. Then he showed it to his father, who knew the secret of Arthur's birth, and guessed what had taken place. The sword was replaced, but Arthur drew it forth as easily as before. On this the old knight and his son knelt before Arthur, and acknowledged him as "rightwise king born of England."

On Twelfth Day, in the presence of all the kings and lords of the land, Arthur again drew the sword from the anvil, though no one else could move it. Still the great lords were loath to recognize the boy as king; and Merlin, seeing that Arthur's right would not be admitted without bloodshed, gathered as many as he could of the best knights of the realm, and used all his magic arts to aid the good cause. On one occasion the kings and barons besieged Arthur in a strong tower, but when he was in the direst peril he sallied forth and attacked his besiegers. His horse was slain under him, and he was at the mercy of his foes. Then he drew the magic sword which he had taken from the anvil, and the fortune of war instantly turned in his favour. His sword--the far-famed Excalibur--gleamed like the radiance of thirty torches. Its flashing beams half-blinded Arthur's foes--they could not see to strike; and so he vanquished them, and gained his first victory.

"Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May; Blow trumpet, the long night hath rolled away! Blow through the living world. Let the king reign!

"Shall Rome or heathen rule in Arthur's realm? Flash brand and lance, fall battle-axe on helm; Fall battle-axe and flash brand! Let the king reign!"

So Arthur leads on the Britons, with the image of the Virgin on his shield, and points his sword Excalibur towards the swarming foe. Twelve great battles he fights with the English, and for a time holds them at bay. Then some of his followers desert to the enemy, and he is sore beset. One by one his knights fall around him, and then he, too, is stricken to the ground. Sore wounded, Arthur calls the last of his knights, and bids him throw Excalibur into a lake. The sword is flung high into the air, and as it falls, lo, a hand comes out of the water and catches the magic brand by the hilt. Three times it is brandished, and then it vanishes for ever beneath the waves.

"Alas!" cries Arthur, "my end draws near. Carry me to the edge of the water." The knight does so, and there, awaiting the dying king, is a black barge, his destined bier. On the deck are three queens, with black hoods and crowns of gold. "Now, put me in the barge," says Arthur; and when this is done, the queens receive him with great mourning and wailing, and one of them cries, "Ah, my dear brother, why hast thou tarried so long?" Then Arthur bids the knight farewell, and the barge slowly moves across the water. Sad and lonely, the knight watches it disappear

"Down that long water, opening on the deep, Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go From less to less, and vanish into light, And the new sun rose bringing the new year."

So fades Arthur from our view, a dim and mystical figure in life, a vision of undying splendour in death. Let the historians say what they will, men will still believe in him; they will still see the wearer of his mantle in every true knight, and still hold him a shining example to all who "bear without abuse the grand old name of gentleman."

What warriors be these who now pass by? Tall, big-boned, blue-eyed men they are, with long yellow hair falling upon their shoulders from beneath their winged helmets.

Their home is a sad, barren, overcrowded country, and their poverty drives them to a life of plunder on the seas and to the shores of more favoured lands. They love fighting as the breath of their nostrils; and now, in their long ships, these dreaded pirates harry Britain at a hundred points. Death frights them not, for he who falls gloriously in battle rides Odin's horse to Valhalla, where his days will be spent in cleaving the helmets and hacking the limbs of like heroes with himself, and his nights in feasting on a great boar whose flesh never grows less and in drinking great draughts of mead out of the skulls of his enemies. For the "niddering" coward who dies ingloriously in his bed these English pirates have nothing but scorn and contempt. To avoid the shame of a peaceful death they will hurl themselves from the cliffs, or push out in a frail craft into tempestuous seas, and perishing amidst the wind and the waves, win the right to enter Odin's halls. A Roman poet says of them: "Fierce are they beyond other foes; the sea is their school of war and the storm their friend; they are sea-wolves that live on the plunder of the world." Such are the foes against whom Arthur fights and falls.

The warriors whom we now greet are Hengist and Horsa, the two English chiefs who first won a foothold for themselves on the soil of Britain. An old legend tells us that they were scouring the coasts of Kent what time Vortigern, the British king, was sore beset by the Picts and Scots. Half beside himself with terror at their raids, he calls on these adventurers to aid him. If they will drive back the northern barbarians, they shall have food and pay for their services. The bargain is struck. Hengist and Horsa beach their keels on the gravel spit at Ebbsfleet and land their warriors. The Picts and Scots are driven back, and the victorious English return from the fray. Then they ask a whimsical boon--namely, as much land as a bull's hide can encompass. The request is granted, and Hengist cuts his bull's hide into long strips, and with them engirdles a rocky place, whereon he erects a fortress. Thus the English secure their first foothold in Britain.

The news is wafted across the sea, and a new swarm of "sea-wolves" appears. They come in seventeen ships, and on the stern of the leading vessel the banner of the White Horse waves in the breeze. With the newcomers arrives a new conqueror, wearing no helmet and carrying no battle-axe, but armed only with a pair of beautiful blue eyes and a face of surpassing loveliness. She is Hengist's fair daughter Rowena, the English princess who is destined to win more British acres by her bright glances than the "sea-wolves" have won by their swords and numberless forays. Vortigern feasts with her father, and she hands him the cup of greeting which she has kissed, and bids him "Waes hael." He falls a willing victim to her charms; he woos and wins her, and as a marriage gift Vortigern bestows upon her brothers a large part of his kingdom.

Bitterly resenting this gift, the jealous Britons gather in arms and attack the English. Horsa is slain at the battle of the Fort-of-the-Eagles, and for a time the banner of the White Horse is trailed in the dust. Hengist, driven to his ships, returns with reinforcements, offering peace to the British chiefs, whom he invites to a feast. Both sides are to come unarmed to the hospitable board; but Hengist orders his followers to conceal their swords beneath their garments, and when the wine-cup has gone round, the fatal signal is given, and they fall upon their guests and slaughter every Briton present save Vortigern. The legends vary, but the truth remains that the English mastered the Britons on the south and east coasts, and established large settlements. Hengist's success was the signal for a host of other English adventurers to put their fortune to the test. They swarmed across the North Sea, and the work of conquest and settlement began.

Little boots it to tell of the savage and gory strife that raged in this island during the century and a half which followed. "Some of the Britons," says an old chronicler, "were caught in the hills and slaughtered; others were worn out with hunger, and yielded to a life-long slavery. Some passed across the sea; others trusted their lives to the clefts of the mountains, to the forests, and to the rocks of the sea." One hundred and fifty years after Hengist and Horsa landed on the Isle of Thanet the English ruled in this land from the North Sea to the Severn, and from the English Channel to the Firth of Forth.

Britain had become England. No longer was it the land of the Britons but the land of the English. In the wild, rugged western part of the island the Britons alone remained independent. Gradually their land was shorn from them till only the hills and valleys of Wales were left to them. There they remain to this day, speaking the speech of Arthur, and singing the lays of those far-off ages when the whole fair land of Britain was theirs from sea to sea.

ETHELBERT AND BERTHA.

Hand in hand a king and queen pass by, linked in wedded love and in undying fame. She is a sweet Frankish princess, with the light of tender affection in her eye, and the sweet serenity of an uplifting faith on her brow. He is a tall, bearded Saxon, with the martial air of one who has fought battles from his youth up; yet withal he is calm and reflective, equally at home on the battlefield, in the council chamber, and on the judgment seat. He is a pagan and she is a Christian; he bows before Odin, she before Christ.

Well-nigh a century and a half have gone since Hengist and Horsa sped their keels to these shores as the advance-guard of those great invasions which planted a new race on the soil. Generations of English men and women have come and gone since their sires with battle-axe and brand reft the land from its old inhabitants. No longer do the English war with the Britons, the remnant of whom dwell safely in the wild mountains and valleys of the west, or serve their new masters as slaves. They now war with each other. Ambitious kings strive to make themselves supreme in the land, and many a fierce fight is fought between the rivals. Now and then a powerful king reduces his fellow-kings to obedience, but frequently the conqueror of one month is the hunted fugitive of the next. Ethelbert, the king who now passes by with Bertha his wife, has made himself overlord of all the land except Northumbria. With this exception, his sceptre is supreme from the Forth to the English Channel.

Rome, once the proud and ruthless "mistress of the world," has lost for ever her ancient sway. No longer does the wide world stand in awe of her. But on the ruins of her lost dominion a new, a merciful, and a blessed power is springing up. She has become the centre of the Christian religion, and ere long she stretches out her missionary arms to the isles of the west. St. Patrick is commissioned as the ambassador of God to convert the Scots in Ireland to the new faith. Devoted men in skin-clad boats of wicker-work cross the channel from the Emerald Isle to carry the good news to the natives of south-west Scotland. Amongst them is the great Columba of Donegal, prince in the eyes of his fellows, but in his own a meek bondsman of Christ. With his twelve companions he steers for the rising sun, and his barks run ashore on the little bare island of Iona, where he lands and builds his wattled church and the rude huts of his infant monastery. From this retreat, which has become one of the most sacred spots on earth, Columba's friends go fearlessly through the land into the wildest glens and the remotest clachans, preaching the gospel, and slowly and surely winning the Picts and Scots to Christianity.

But England is still in her pagan darkness; she knows nothing except by vague rumour of the new faith which is slowly transforming the world. The English still worship their fierce old deities; still swear by oak, thorn, and ash; still look to Valhalla as the meed of the warrior who dies in hard-fought battle. Men of kindred blood still struggle for mastery under their kings, and the vanquished are still found in the slave-markets of the Continent.

It is the sight of English lads exposed for sale in Rome which touches the heart of a young deacon, and stirs him to cherish the conversion of these islanders as the great ideal of his life. He sees the white limbs, the fair faces, the blue eyes, and the yellow hair of the lads, and asks the merchant whence they come. "From Britain," is the answer. "Are they Christians or pagans?" is his next question; and when he learns that they are pagans, he sighs heavily and exclaims, "Ah! grief of griefs that the prince of darkness should lay claim to beings of such fair form; that there should be so much grace in the countenance, yet none in the soul."

The long-looked-for opportunity soon arrives. Ethelred of Kent weds the fair daughter of the King of the Franks, and the marriage contract guarantees the Christian princess the right to exercise her religion unmolested. She brings in her train a single priest, and in the little church of St. Martin's, Canterbury--built in Roman times, and still remaining as the oldest Christian church in the land--she kneels before the altar, and prays oft and earnestly that the land of her adoption may be won for Christ. She pleads with her noble-minded husband to forsake his gods and embrace the new faith. He hears, and he ponders, and at length, in answer to her prayers, sends a message to Rome, inviting Gregory to send the mission which he has long contemplated.

And now let the pageant proceed. Splendid and imposing it is. Somewhere on the Isle of Thanet, where Caesar's legions had landed, and Hengist and Horsa had drawn their keels ashore, a double throne is set up beneath the open sky. Ethelbert and his chiefs will meet the monks under no roof, lest witchcraft should prevail. Beneath the canopy of heaven king and queen--he willing to be convinced, but withal calmly critical; she, prayerfully expectant--seat themselves. They have hardly done so before the voices of the monks chanting a psalm are borne on the breeze. Louder and louder it swells as the procession draws near, headed by a picture of the Saviour and a silver crucifix.

Halting at the foot of the throne, the head of the mission, Augustine, begins to declare with all the fervour of his nature the blessings and hopes of the new faith, and earnestly beseeches the king to forswear his gods. Ethelbert listens, but the hour of his conversion is not yet. His answer reveals his clear judgment and his open mind. "Your promises are fair, but new and uncertain. I cannot abandon the rites which my people have hitherto observed, but I will hold you harmless and treat you hospitably. Nor will I forbid any one whom you can convince to join in your faith." No fairer answer can be expected, and Augustine begins his labours under happy auspices. Ere long Ethelbert is baptized with ten thousand of his subjects, and Augustine has done his greatest and most enduring work; he has won a kingdom for his Master.

Pass on, Ethelbert and Bertha, linked in wedded love and in undying fame! It is your blessed privilege to plant the cross of Christ in the southern shires of this our England. Long and sore will be the struggle ere its beams irradiate the whole land, but it will conquer at last, and in the long roll of saints and martyrs who have striven valiantly in the divine work your twin names shall stand proud and high.

THE SINGER OF THE FIRST ENGLISH SONG.

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