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[Illustration: frontispiece.jpg PORTRAIT OF HUME.]
[Illustration: titlepage.jpg BOADICEA HARANGUING THE BRITONS]
THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND
FROM THE INVASION OF JULIUS CÆSAR
TO THE END OF THE REIGN OF JAMES THE SECOND,
BY DAVID HUME, ESQ.
1688
London: James S. Virtue, City Road and Ivy Lane
New York: 26 John Street
1860
And
Philadelphia:
J. B. Lippincott & Co.
March 17, 1901
In Three Volumes:
VOLUME ONE: The History Of England From The Invasion Of Julius Cæsar To
The End Of The Reign Of James The Second............ By David Hume, Esq.
VOLUME TWO: Continued from the Reign of William and Mary to the Death of
George II........................................... by Tobias Smollett.
VOLUME THREE: From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year
of the Reign of Queen Victoria............... by E. Farr and E.H. Nolan.
VOLUME ONE
Part A.
THE EARLY BRITONS TO KING JOHN
TO WHICH IS PREFIXED
A SHORT ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE.
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
THE LIFE OF DAVID HUME, ESQ.
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
MY OWN LIFE.
It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity;
therefore I shall be short. It may be thought an instance of vanity
that I pretend at all to write my life; but this narrative shall contain
little more than the history of my writings; as, indeed, almost all
my life has been spent in literary pursuits and occupations. The first
success of most of my writings was not such as to be an object of
vanity.
I was born the twenty-sixth of April, 1711, old style, at Edinburgh. I
was of a good family, both by father and mother: my father’s family is
a branch of the earl of Home’s, or Hume’s; and my ancestors had been
proprietors of the estate which my brother possesses, for several
generations. My mother was daughter of Sir David Falconer, president of
the college of justice; the title of Lord Halkerton came by succession
to her brother.
My family, however, was not rich; and being myself a younger brother,
my patrimony, according to the mode of my country, was of course very
slender. My father, who passed for a man of parts, died when I was an
infant, leaving me, with an elder brother and a sister, under the
care of our mother, a woman of singular merit, who, though young and
handsome, devoted herself entirely to the rearing and educating of
her children. I passed through the ordinary course of education with
success, and was seized very early with a passion for literature, which
has been the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of my
enjoyments. My studious disposition, my sobriety, and my industry, gave
my family a notion that the law was a proper profession for me; but
I found an insurmountable aversion to every thing but the pursuits of
philosophy and general learning; and while they fancied I was poring
upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which I was
secretly devouring.
My very slender fortune, however, being unsuitable to this plan of life,
and my health being a little broken by my ardent application, I was
tempted, or rather forced, to make a very feeble trial for entering
into a more active scene of life. In 1734, I went to Bristol, with some
recommendations to several eminent merchants; but in a few months found
that scene totally unsuitable to me. I went over to France, with a view
of prosecuting my studies in a country retreat; and I there laid that
plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued. I resolved
to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to
maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as
contemptible, except the improvement of my talents in literature.
During my retreat in France, first at Rheims, but chiefly at La Fleche,
in Anjou, I composed my Treatise of Human Nature. After passing three
years very agreeably in that country, I came over to London in 1737. In
the end of 1738, I published my Treatise, and immediately went down
to my mother and my brother, who lived at his country house, and was
employing himself very judiciously and successfully in the improvement
of his fortune.
Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of
Human Nature. It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such
distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots. But being
naturally of a cheerful and sanguine temper, I very soon recovered the
blow, and prosecuted with great ardor my studies in the country. In
1742, I printed at Edinburgh the first part of my Essays. The work
was favorably received, and soon made me entirely forget my former
disappointment. I continued with my mother and brother in the country,
and in that time recovered the knowledge of the Greek language, which I
had too much neglected in my early youth.
In 1745, I received a letter from the marquis of Annandale, inviting me
to come and live with him in England; I found also that the friends and
family of that young nobleman were desirous of putting him under my care
and direction, for the state of his mind and health required it. I
lived with him a twelve-month. My appointments during that time made
a considerable accession to my small fortune. I then received an
invitation from General St. Clair to attend him as a secretary to his
expedition, which was at first meant against Canada, but ended in an
incursion on the coast of France. Next year, to wit, 1747, I received
an invitation from the general to attend him in the same station in
his military embassy to the courts of Vienna and Turin. I then wore the
uniform of an officer, and was introduced at these courts as aid-de-camp
to the general, along with Sir Harry Erskine and Captain Grant, now
General Grant. These two years were almost the only interruptions which
my studies have received during the course of my life: I passed them
agreeably, and in good company; and my appointments, with my frugality,
had made me reach a fortune which I called independent, though most of
my friends were inclined to smile when I said so: in short, I was now
master of near a thousand pounds.
I had always entertained a notion, that my want of success in publishing
the Treatise of Human Nature had proceeded more from the manner than
the matter, and that I had been guilty of a very usual indiscretion, in
going to the press too early. I, therefore, cast the first part of
that work anew in the Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, which was
published while I was at Turin. But this piece was at first little more
successful than the Treatise on Human Nature. On my return from Italy,
I had the mortification to find all England in a ferment, on account
of Dr. Middleton’s Free Inquiry, while my performance was entirely
overlooked and neglected, A new edition, which had been published at
London, of my Essays, moral and political, met not with a much better
reception.
Such is the force of natural temper, that these disappointments made
little or no impression on me. I went down, in 1749, and lived two years
with my brother at his country house, for my mother was now dead. I
there composed the second part of my Essay, which I called Political
Discourses, and also my Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals,
which is another part of my Treatise that I cast anew. Meanwhile, my
bookseller, A. Millar, informed me, that my former publications (all
but the unfortunate Treatise) were beginning to be the subject of
conversation; that the sale of them was gradually increasing, and that
new editions were demanded. Answers by reverends and right reverends
came out two or three in a year; and I found, by Dr. Warburton’s
railing, that the books were beginning to be esteemed in good company.
However, I had fixed a resolution, which I inflexibly maintained, never
to reply to any body; and not being very irascible in my temper, I have
easily kept myself clear of all literary squabbles. These symptoms of a
rising reputation gave me encouragement, as I was ever more disposed to
see the favorable than unfavorable side of things; a turn of mind
which it is more happy to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten
thousand a year.
In 1751, I removed from the country to the town, the true scene for a
man of letters. In 1752 were published at Edinburgh, where I then lived,
my Political Discourses, the only work of mine that was successful on
the first publication. It was well received at home and abroad. In the
same year was published, at London, my Inquiry concerning the Principles
of Morals; which, in my own opinion, (who ought not to judge on
that subject,) is, of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or
literary, incomparably the best, It came unnoticed and unobserved into
the world.
In 1752, the Faculty of Advocates chose me their librarian, an office
from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the
command of a large library, I then formed the plan of writing the
History of England; but being frightened with the notion of continuing a
narrative through a period of seventeen hundred years, I commenced with
the accession of the house of Stuart, an epoch when, I thought, the
misrepresentations of faction began chiefly to take place. I was, I own,
sanguine in my expectations of the success of this work. I thought
that I was the only historian that had at once neglected present power,
interest, and authority, and the cry of popular prejudices; and as the
subject was suited to every capacity, I expected proportional applause.
But miserable was my disappointment; I was assailed by one cry of
reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation; English, Scotch,
and Irish, whig and tory, churchman and sectary, freethinker and
religionist, patriot and courtier, united in their rage against the man
who had presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and
the earl of Stratford; and after the first ebullitions of their fury
were over, what was still more mortifying, the book seemed to sink
into oblivion. Mr. Millar told me that in a twelvemonth he sold only
forty-five copies of it. I scarcely, indeed head of one man in the three
kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the book.
I must only except the primate of England, Dr. Herring, and the primate
of Ireland, Dr. Stone, which seem two odd exceptions. These dignified
prelates separately sent me messages not to be discouraged.
I was, however, I confess, discouraged; and had not the war been at that
time breaking out between France and England, I had certainly retired
to some provincial town of the former kingdom, have changed my name, and
never more have returned to my native country. But as this scheme
was not now practicable, and the subsequent volume was considerably
advanced, I resolved to pick up courage and to persevere.
In this interval, I published, at London, my Natural History of
Religion, along with some other small pieces. Its public entry was
rather obscure, except only that Dr. Hurd wrote a pamphlet against
it, with all the illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility,
which distinguish the Warburtonian school. This pamphlet gave me some
consolation for the otherwise indifferent reception of my performance.
In 1756, two years after the fall of the first volume, was published
the second volume of my history, containing the period from the death of
Charles I. till the revolution. This performance happened to give less
displeasure to the whigs, and was better received. It not only rose
itself, but helped to buoy up its unfortunate brother.
But though I had been taught by experience that the whig party were in
possession of bestowing all places, both in the state and in Literature,
I was so little inclined to yield to their senseless clamor, that in
above a hundred alterations, which further study, reading, or reflection
engaged me to make in the reigns of the two first Stuarts, I have made
all of them invariably to the tory side. It is ridiculous to consider
the English constitution before that period as a regular plan of
liberty.
In 1759, I published my history of the house of Tudor. The clamor
against this performance was almost equal to that against the history
of the two first Stuarts. The reign of Elizabeth was particularly
obnoxious. But I was now callous against the impressions of public
folly, and continued very peaceably and contentedly, in my retreat at
Edinburgh, to finish, in two volumes, the more early part of the English
history, which I gave to the public in 1761, with tolerable, and but
tolerable, success.
But, notwithstanding this variety of winds and seasons, to which my
writings had been exposed, they had still been making such advances,
that the copy-money given me by the booksellers much exceeded any
thing formerly known in England; I was become not only independent, but
opulent. I retired to my native country of Scotland, determined never
more to set my foot out of it; and retaining the satisfaction of never
having preferred a request to one great man, or even making advances of
friendship to any of them. As I was now turned of fifty, I thought of
passing all the rest of my life in this philosophical manner: when I
received, in 1763, an invitation from the earl of Hertford, with whom I
was not in the least acquainted, to attend him on his embassy to Paris,
with a near prospect of being appointed secretary to the embassy; and,
in the mean while, of performing the functions of that office. This
offer, however inviting, I at first declined; both because I was
reluctant to begin connections with the great, and because I was afraid
that the civilities and gay company of Paris would prove disagreeable
to a person of my age and humor; but on his lordship’s repeating the
invitation, I accepted of it. I have every reason, both of pleasure and
interest; to think myself happy in my connections with that nobleman, as
well as afterwards with his brother, General Conway.
Those who have not seen the strange effects of modes, will never imagine
the reception I met with at Paris, from men and women of all ranks and
stations. The more I resiled from their excessive civilities, the more
I was loaded with them. There is, however, a real satisfaction in living
at Paris, from the great number of sensible, knowing, and polite company
with which that city abounds above all places in the universe. I thought
once of settling there for life.
I was appointed secretary to the embassy; and, in summer, 1765, Lord
Hertford left me, being appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland. I was
chargé d’affaires till the arrival of the duke of Richmond, towards the
end of the year. In the beginning of 1766, I left Paris, and next summer
went to Edinburgh, with the same view as formerly, of burying myself in
a philosophical retreat. I returned to that place, not richer, but with
much more money, and a much larger income, by means of Lord Hertford’s
friendship, than I left it; and I was desirous of trying what
superfluity could produce, as I had formerly made an experiment of a
competency. But in 1767, I received from Mr. Conway an invitation to be
under-secretary; and this invitation, both the character of the person,
and my connections with Lord Hertford, prevented me from declining. I
returned to Edinburgh in 1769, very opulent, (for I possessed a revenue
of one thousand pounds a year,) healthy, and though somewhat stricken
in years, with the prospect of enjoying long my ease, and of seeing the
increase of my reputation.
In spring, 1775, I was struck with a disorder in my bowels, which at
first gave me no alarm, but has since, as I apprehend it, become mortal
and incurable. I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution. I have suffered
very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have,
notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a
moment’s abatement of my spirits; insomuch, that were I to name a period
of my life which I should most choose to pass over again, I might be
tempted to point to this later period. I possess the same ardor as ever
in study, and the same gayety in company. I consider, besides, that a
man of sixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a few years of infirmities;
and though I see many symptoms of my literary reputation’s breaking out
at last with additional lustre, I know that I could have but few years
to enjoy it. It is difficult to be more detached from life than I am at
present.
To conclude historically with my own character: I am, or rather was,
(for that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself, which
imboldens me the more to speak my sentiments;) I was, I say, a man of
mild disposition, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful
humor, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of
great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of literary fame,
my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent
disappointments. My company was not unacceptable to the young and
careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a
particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to
be displeased with the reception I met with from them. In a word, though
most men, anywise eminent, have found reason to complain of Calumny, I
never was touched, or even attacked, by her baleful tooth; and though
I wantonly exposed myself to the rage of both civil and religious
factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my behalf of their wonted fury.
My friends never had occasion to vindicate any one circumstance of my
character and conduct; not but that the zealots, we may well
suppose, would have been glad to invent and propagate any story to my
disadvantage, but they could never find any which they thought would
wear the face of probability. I cannot say there is no vanity in making
this funeral oration of myself, but I hope it is not a misplaced one;
and this is a matter of fact which is easily cleared and ascertained.
April 18, 1776.
LETTER FROM ADAM SMITH, LL. D. TO WILLLIAM STRAHAN, ESQ.
Kirkaldy, Fifeshire, Nov. 9, 1778.[**]
DEAR SIR,
It is with a real, though a very melancholy pleasure, that I sit down to
give you some account of the behavior of our late excellent friend, Mr.
Hume, during his last illness.
Though, in his own judgment, his disease was mortal and incurable, yet
he allowed himself to be prevailed upon, by the entreaty of his friends,
to try what might be the effects of a long journey. A few days before he
set out, he wrote that account of his own life, which, together with
his other papers, he has left to your care. My account, therefore, shall
begin where his ends.
He set out for London towards the end of April, and at Morpeth met with
Mr. John Home and myself, who had both come down from London on purpose
to see him, expecting to have found him at Edinburgh. Mr. Home returned
with him, and attended him during the whole of his stay in England,
with that care and attention which might be expected from a temper so
perfectly friendly and affectionate. As I had written to my mother that
she might expect me in Scotland, I was under the necessity of continuing
my journey. His disease seemed to yield to exercise and change of air;
and when he arrived in London, he was apparently in much better health
than when he left Edinburgh. He was advised to go to Bath to drink the
waters, which appeared for some time to have so good an effect upon him,
that even he himself began to entertain, what he was not apt to do, a
better opinion of his own health. His symptoms, however, soon returned
with their usual violence; and from that moment he gave up all thoughts
of recovery, but submitted with the utmost cheerfulness, and the most
perfect complacency and resignation. Upon his return to Edinburgh,
though he found himself much weaker, yet his cheerfulness never abated,
and he continued to divert himself, as usual, with correcting his own
works for a new edition, with reading books of amusement, with the
conversation of his friends; and, sometimes in the evening, with a party
at his favorite game of whist. His cheerfulness was so great, and his
conversation and amusements ran so much in their usual strain, that,
notwithstanding all bad symptoms, many people could not believe he was
dying. “I shall tell your friend, Colonel Edmonstone,” said Dr. Dundas,
to him one day, “that I left you much better, and in a fair way of
recovery.” “Doctor,” said he, “as I believe you would not choose to tell
any thing but the truth, you had better tell him that I am dying as fast
as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and as easily and cheerfully
as my best friends could desire.” Colonel Edmonstone soon afterwards
came to see him, and take leave of him; and on his way home he could not
forbear writing him a letter, bidding him once more an eternal adieu,
and applying to him, as to a dying man, the beautiful French verses in
which the abbé Chaulieu in expectation of his own death, laments his
approaching separation from his friend the marquis de la Fare. Mr.
Hume’s magnanimity and firmness were such, that his most affectionate
friends knew that they hazarded nothing in talking or writing to him as
to a dying man, and that so far from being hurt by this frankness, he
was rather pleased and flattered by it. I happened to come into his room
while he was reading this letter, which he had just received, and which
he immediately showed me. I told him, that though I was sensible how
very much he was weakened, and that appearances were in many respects
very bad, yet his cheerfulness was still so great, the spirit of
life seemed still to be so very strong in him, that I could not help
entertaining some faint hopes. He answered, “Your hopes are groundless.
An habitual diarrhoea of more than a year’s standing, would be a very
bad disease at any age; at my age it is a mortal one. When I lie down in
the evening, I feel myself weaker than when I rose in the morning; and
when I rise in the morning, weaker than when I lay down in the evening.
I am sensible besides, that some of my vital parts are affected, so that
I must soon die.” “Well,” said I, “if it must be so, you have at least
the satisfaction of leaving all your friends, your brother’s family in
particular, in great prosperity.” He said that he felt that satisfaction
so sensibly, that when he was reading, a few days before, Lucian’s
Dialogues of the Dead, among all the excuses which are alleged to Charon
for not entering readily into his boat, he could not find one that
fitted him: he had no house to finish, he had no daughter to provide for
he had no enemies upon whom he wished to revenge himself. “I could not
well imagine,” said he, “what excuse I could make to Charon in order to
obtain a little delay. I have done every thing of consequence which I
ever meant to do; and I could at no time expect to leave my relations
and friends in a better situation than that in which I am now likely
to leave them: I, therefore, have all reason to die contented.” He
then diverted himself with inventing several jocular excuses, which
he supposed he might make to Charon, and with imagining the very surly
answers which it might suit the character of Charon to return to them.
“Upon further consideration,” said he, “I thought I might say to him,
‘Good Charon, I have been correcting my works for a new edition.
Allow me a little time, that I may see how the public receives the
alterations.’ But Charon would answer, ‘When you have seen the effect of
these, you will be for making other alterations. There will be no end of
such excuses; so, honest friend, please step into the boat.’ But I
might still urge, ‘Have a little patience, good Charon: I have been
endeavoring to open the eyes of the public. If I live a few years
longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of
the prevailing systems of superstition.’ But Charon would then lose all
temper and decency. ‘You loitering rogue, that will not happen these
many hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for so long a
term? Get into the boat this instant, you lazy, loitering rogue.’”
But, though Mr. Hume always talked of his approaching dissolution
with great cheerfulness, he never affected to make any parade of his
magnanimity. He never mentioned the subject but when the conversation
naturally led to it, and never dwelt longer upon it than the course
of the conversation happened to require; it was a subject indeed which
occurred pretty frequently, in consequence of the inquiries which his
friends, who came to see him, naturally made concerning the state of his
health. The conversation which I mentioned above, and which passed on
Thursday the eighth of August, was the last, except one, that I ever had
with him. He had now become so very weak, that the company of his most
intimate friends fatigued him; for his cheerfulness was still so great,
his complaisance and social disposition were still so entire, that
when any friend was with him, he could not help talking more, and with
greater exertion, than suited the weakness of his body. At his own
desire, therefore, I agreed to leave Edinburgh, where I was staying
partly upon his account and returned to my mother’s house here at
Kirkaldy, upon condition that he would send for me whenever he wished
to see me; the physician who saw him most frequently, Dr. Black,
undertaking, in the mean time, to write me occasionally an account of
the state of his health.
On the twenty-second of August, the doctor wrote me the following
letter;--
“Since my last, Mr. Hume has passed his time pretty easily, but is much
weaker. He sits up, goes down stairs once a day, and amuses himself with
reading, but seldom sees any body. He finds that even the conversation
of his most intimate friends fatigues and oppresses him; and it is happy
that he does not need it, for he is quite free from anxiety, impatience,
or low spirits, and passes his time very well with the assistance of
amusing books.”
I received, the day after, a letter from Mr. Hume himself, of which the
following is an extract:--
“Edinburgh, 23d August, 1776.
“MY DEAREST FRIEND,
“I am obliged to make use of my nephew’s hand
in writing to you, as I do not rise to-day.
“I go very fast to decline, and last night had a
small fever, which I hoped might put a quicker period
to this tedious illness; but unluckily it has, in a
great measure, gone off. I cannot submit to your
coming over here on my account, as it is possible for
me to see you so small a part of the day; but Dr.
Black can better inform you concerning the degree of
strength which may from time to time remain with
me. Adieu, etc.”
Three days after, I received the following letter from Dr. Black:--
“Edinburgh, Monday, 26th August, 1776.
“DEAR SIR,
“Yesterday, about four o’clock, afternoon, Mr. Hume expired.
The near approach of his death became evident in the night
between Thursday and Friday, when his disease became
excessive, and soon weakened him so much, that he could no
longer rise out of his bed He continued to the last
perfectly sensible, and free from much pain or feelings of
distress. He never dropped the smallest expression of
impatience; but when he had occasion to speak to the people
about him, always did it with affection and tenderness. I
thought it improper to write to bring you over, especially
as I heard that he had dictated a letter to you, desiring
you not to come. When he became very weak, it cost him an
effort to speak; and he died in such a happy composure of
mind, that nothing could exceed it.”
Thus died our most excellent and never to be forgotten friend;
concerning whose philosophical opinions men will, no doubt, judge
variously, every one approving or condemning them, according as they
happen to coincide or disagree with his own; but concerning whose
character and conduct there can scarce be a difference of opinion. His
temper, indeed, seemed to be more happily balanced, if I may be allowed
such an expression, than that perhaps of any other man I have ever
known. Even in the lowest state of his fortune, his great and necessary
frugality never hindered him from exercising, upon proper occasions,
acts both of charity and generosity. It was a frugality founded not upon
avarice, but upon the love of independency. The extreme gentleness
of his nature never weakened either the firmness of his mind or the
steadiness of his resolutions. His constant pleasantry was the genuine
effusion of good nature and good humor, tempered with delicacy and
modesty, and without even the slightest tincture of malignity, so
frequently the disagreeable source of what is called wit in other men.
It never was the meaning of his raillery to mortify; and therefore, far
from offending, it seldom failed to please and delight, even those who
were the objects of it. To his friends who were frequently the objects
of it, there was not perhaps any one of all his great and amiable
qualities which contributed more to endear his conversation. And
that gayety of temper, so agreeable in society, but which is so often
accompanied with frivolous and superficial qualities, was in him
certainly attended with the most severe application, the most extensive
learning, the greatest depth of thought, and a capacity in every respect
the most comprehensive. Upon the whole, I have always considered him,
both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to
the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of
human frailty will permit.
I ever am, dear sir,
Most affectionately yours,
ADAM SMITH.
HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
THE BRITONS.
The curiosity entertained by all civilized nations, of inquiring into
the exploits and adventures of their ancestors, commonly excites a
regret that the history of remote ages should always be so much involved
in obscurity, uncertainty, and contradiction. Ingenious men, possessed
of leisure, are apt to push their researches beyond the period in which
literary monuments are framed or preserved; without reflecting, that the
history of past events is immediately lost or disfigured when intrusted
to memory and oral tradition, and that the adventures of barbarous
nations, even if they were recorded, could afford little or no
entertainment to men born in a more cultivated age. The convulsions of
a civilized state usually compose the most instructive and most
interesting part of its history; but the sudden, violent, and unprepared
revolutions incident to barbarians, are so much guided by caprice, and
terminate so often in cruelty, that they disgust us by the uniformity of
their appearance; and it is rather fortunate for letters that they are
buried in silence and oblivion. The only certain means by which nations
can indulge their curiosity in researches concerning their remote
origin, is to consider the language, manners, and customs of their
ancestors, and to compare them with those of the neighboring nations.
The fables, which are commonly employed to supply the place of true
history, ought entirely to be disregarded; or if any exception be
admitted to this general rule, it can only be in favor of the ancient
Grecian fictions, which are so celebrated and so agreeable, that they
will ever be the objects of the attention of mankind. Neglecting,
therefore, all traditions, or rather tales, concerning the more early
history of Britain, we shall only consider the state of the inhabitants
as it appeared to the Romans on their invasion of this country: we shall
briefly run over the events which attended the conquest made by that
empire, as belonging more to Roman than British story: we shall hasten
through the obscure and uninteresting period of Saxon annals; and shall
reserve a more full narration for those times, when the truth is both
so well ascertained, and so complete, as to promise entertainment and
instruction to the reader.
All ancient writers agree in representing the first inhabitants of
Britain as a tribe of the Gauls or Celtæ, who peopled that island from
the neighboring continent. Their language was the same, their manners,
their government, their superstition; varied only by those small
differences which time or a communication with the bordering nations
must necessarily introduce. The inhabitants of Gaul, especially in those
parts which lie contiguous to Italy, had acquired, from a commerce with
their southern neighbors, some refinement in the arts, which gradually
diffused themselves northwards, and spread but a very faint light over
this island. The Greek and Roman navigators or merchants (for there
were scarcely any other travellers in those ages) brought back the most
shocking accounts of the ferocity of the people, which they magnified,
as usual, in order to excite the admiration of their countrymen. The
south-east parts, however, of Britain had already, before the age
of Cæsar, made the first and most requisite step towards a civil
settlement; and the Britons, by tillage and agriculture, had there
increased to a great multitude.[*]
[* Cæsar, lib. iv.]
The other inhabitants of the island still maintained themselves by
pasture: they were clothed with skins of beasts: they dwelt in huts,
which they reared in the forests and marshes, with which the country was
covered: they shifted easily their habitation, when actuated either by
the hopes of plunder or the fear of an enemy: the convenience of feeding
their cattle was even a sufficient motive for removing their seats and
as they were ignorant of all the refinements of life, their wants and
their possessions were equally scanty and limited.
The Britons were divided into many small nations or tribes and being a
military people, whose sole property was then arms and their cattle, It
was impossible, after they had acquired a relish of liberty for their
princes or chieftains to establish any despotic authority over them.
Their governments, though monarchical,[*] were free, as well as those of
all the Celtic nations; and the common people seem even to have enjoyed
more liberty among them,[**] than among the nations of Gaul,[***] from
whom they were descended. Each state was divided into factions within
itself:[****] it was agitated with jealousy or animosity against the
neighboring states: and while the arts of peace were yet unknown, wars
were the chief occupation, and formed the chief object of ambition,
among the people.
[* Diod. Sic. lib. iv. Mela, lib. iii. cap. 6.
Strabo, lib. iv.]
[** Dion Cassius, lib. lxxv.]
[*** Cæsar, lib. vi.]
[**** Tacit. Agr.]
The religion of the Britons was one of the most considerable parts of
their government; and the druids, who were their priests, possessed
great authority among them. Besides ministering at the altar, and
directing all religious duties, they presided over the education of
youth; they enjoyed an immunity from wars and taxes; they possessed
both the civil and criminal jurisdiction; they decided all controversies
among states as well as among private persons, and whoever refused to
submit to their decree was exposed to the most severe penalties. The
sentence of excommunication was pronounced against him: he was forbidden
access to the sacrifices or public worship: he was debarred all
intercourse with his fellow-citizens, even in the common affairs of
life: his company was universally shunned, as profane and dangerous:
he was refused the protection of law:[*] and death itself became an
acceptable relief from the misery and infamy to which he was exposed.
Thus the bands of government, which were naturally loose among that rude
and turbulent people, were happily corroborated by the terrors of their
superstition.
[* Cæsar, lib. vi. Strabo, lib. iv.]
No species of superstition was ever more terrible than that of the
druids. Besides the severe penalties, which it was in the power of the
ecclesiastics to inflict in this world, they inculcated the eternal
transmigration of souls; and thereby extended their authority as far as
the fears of their timorous votaries. They practised their rites in
dark groves or other secret recesses;[*] and in order to throw a greater
mystery over their religion, they communicated their doctrines only to
the initiated, and strictly forbade the committing of them to writing,
lest they should at any time be exposed to the examination of the
profane vulgar.
[* Plin. lib. xii. cap. 1.]
Human sacrifices were practised among them: the spoils of war were
often devoted to their divinities; and they punished with the severest
tortures whoever dared to secrete any part of the consecrated offering:
these treasures they kept in woods and forests, secured by no other
guard than the terrors of their religion;[*] and this steady conquest
over human avidity may be regarded as more signal than their prompting
men to the most extraordinary and most violent efforts. No idolatrous
worship ever attained such an ascendant over mankind as that of the
ancient Gauls and Britons; and the Romans, after their conquest, finding
it impossible to reconcile those nations to the laws and institutions of
their masters, while it maintained its authority, were at last obliged
to abolish it by penal statutes; a violence which had never, in any
other instance, been practised by those tolerating conquerors.[**]
[* Cæsar, lib. vi.]
[* Sueton. in vita Claudii.]
THE ROMANS.
The Britons had long remained in this rude but independent state, when
Cæsar, having overrun all Gaul by his victories, first cast his eye on
their island. He was not allured either by its riches or its renown; but
being ambitious of carrying the Roman arms into a new world, then mostly
unknown, he took advantage of a short interval in his Gaulic wars, and
made an invasion on Britain. The natives, informed of his intention,
were sensible of the unequal contest, and endeavored to appease him by
submissions, which, however, retarded not the execution of his design.
After some resistance, he landed, as is supposed, at Deal, [Anno ante,
C. 55;] and having obtained several advantages over the Britons, and
obliged them to promise hostages for their future obedience, he was
constrained, by the necessity of his affairs, and the approach of
winter, to withdraw his forces into Gaul. The Britons relieved, from the
terror of his arms, neglected the performance of their stipulations; and
that haughty conqueror resolved next summer to chastise them for this
breach of treaty. He landed with a greater force; and though he found
a more regular resistance from the Britons, who had united under
Cassivelaunus, one of their petty princes, he discomfited them in every
action. He advanced into the country; passed the Thames in the face of
the enemy; took and burned the capital of Cassivelaunus; established his
ally, Mandubratius, in the sovereignty of the Trinobantes; and having
obliged the inhabitants to make him new submissions, he again returned
with his army into Gaul, and left the authority of the Romans more
nominal than real in this island.
The civil wars which ensued, and which prepared the way for the
establishment of monarchy in Rome, saved the Britons from that yoke
which was ready to be imposed upon them. Augustus, the successor of
Cæsar, content with the victory obtained over the liberties of his own
country, was little ambitious of acquiring fame by foreign wars; and
being apprehensive lest the same unlimited extent of dominion, which had
subverted the republic, might also overwhelm the empire, he recommended
it to his successors never to enlarge the territories of the Romans.
Tiberius, jealous of the fame which might be acquired by his generals,
made this advice of Augustus a pretence for his inactivity.[*]
[* Tacit. Agr.]
The mad sallies of Caligula, in which he menaced Britain with an
invasion, served only to expose himself and the empire to ridicule;
and the Britons had now, during almost a century, enjoyed their liberty
unmolested, when the Romans, in the reign of Claudius, began to think
seriously of reducing them under their dominion. Without seeking any
more justifiable reasons of hostility than were employed by the late
Europeans in subjecting the Africans and Americans, they sent over an
army, [A. D. 43,] under the command of Plautius, an able general, who
gained some victories, and made a considerable progress in subduing the
inhabitants. Claudius himself, finding matters sufficiently prepared for
his reception, made a journey into Britain, and received the
submission of several British states, the Cantii, Atrebates, Regni, and
Trinobantes, who inhabited the south-east parts of the island, and whom
their possessions and more cultivated manner of life rendered willing to
purchase peace at the expense of their liberty. The other Britons, under
the command of Caractacus, still maintained an obstinate resistance, and
the Romans made little progress against them; till Ostorius Scapula was
sent over to command their armies. [A. D. 50.] This general advanced
the Roman conquests over the Britons; pierced into the country of
the Silures, a warlike nation, who inhabited the banks of the Severn;
defeated Caractacus in a great battle; took him prisoner, and sent him
to Rome, where his magnanimous behavior procured him better treatment
than those conquerors usually bestowed on captive princes.[*]
[* Tacit. Ann lib. xii.]
Notwithstanding these misfortunes, the Britons were not subdued; and
this island was regarded by the ambitious Romans as a field in which
military honor might still be acquired. [A. D. 59.] Under the reign of
Nero, Suetonius Paulinus was invested with the command, and prepared to
signalize his name by victories over those barbarians. Finding that
the island of Mona, now Anglesey, was the chief seat of the druids, he
resolved to attack it, and to subject a place which was the centre of
their superstition, and which afforded protection to all their baffled
forces. The Britons endeavored to obstruct his landing on this sacred
island, both by the force of their arms and the terrors of their
religion. The women and priests were intermingled with the soldiers upon
the shore; and running about with flaming torches in their hands, and
tossing their dishevelled hair, they struck greater terror into the
astonished Romans by their bowlings, cries, and execrations, than the
real danger from the armed forces was able to inspire. But Suetonius,
exhorting his troops to despise the menaces of a superstition which they
despised, impelled them to the attack, drove the Britons off the field,
burned the druids in the same fires which those priests had prepared for
their captive enemies, destroyed all the consecrated groves and altars;
and having thus triumphed over the religion of the Britons, he thought
his future progress would be easy in reducing the people to subjection.
But he was disappointed in his expectations. The Britons, taking
advantage of his absence, were all in arms; and headed by Boadicea,
queen of the Iceni, who had been treated in the most ignominious manner
by the Roman tribunes, had already attacked, with success, several
settlements of their insulting conquerors. Suetonius hastened to the
protection of London, which was already a flourishing Roman colony;
but found, on his arrival, that it would be requisite for the general
safety, to abandon that place to the merciless fury of the enemy. London
was reduced to ashes; such of the inhabitants as remained in it were
cruelly massacred; the Romans and all strangers, to the number of
seventy thousand, were every where put to the sword without distinction;
and the Britons, by rendering the war thus bloody, seemed determined
to cut off all hopes of peace or composition with the enemy. But this
cruelty was revenged by Suetonius in a great and decisive battle, where
eighty thousand of the Britons are said to have perished, and Boadicea
herself, rather than fall into the hands of the enraged victor, put an
end to her own life by poison.[*] Nero soon after recalled Suetonius
from a government, where, by suffering and inflicting so many
severities, he was judged improper for composing the angry and alarmed
minds of the inhabitants. After some interval, Cerealis received the
command from Vespasian, and by his bravery propagated the terror of the
Roman arms, Julius Frontinus succeeded Cerealis both in authority and in
reputation: but the general who finally established the dominion of
the Romans in this island, was Julius Agricola, who governed it in the
reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, and distinguished himself in
that scene of action.
This great commander formed a regular plan for subduing Britain, and
rendering the acquisition useful to the conquerors. He carried his
victorious arms northwards, defeated the Britons in every encounter,
pierced into the inaccessible forests and mountains of Caledonia,
reduced every state to subjection in the southern parts of the island,
and chased before him all the men of fiercer and more intractable
spirits, who deemed war and death itself less intolerable than servitude
under the victors. He even defeated them in a decisive action, which
they fought under Galgacus, their leader; and having fixed a chain of
garrisons between the Friths of Clyde and Forth, he thereby cut off
the ruder and more barren parts of the island, and secured the Roman
province from the incursions of the barbarous inhabitants.[*]
[* Tacit Ann. lib. xiv.]
During these military enterprises, he neglected not the arts of peace.
He introduced laws and civility among the Britons, taught them to desire
and raise all the conveniences of life, reconciled them to the Roman
language and manners, instructed them in letters and science, and
employed every expedient to render those chains which he had forged both
easy and agreeable to them.[*]
[* Tacit. Agr.]
The inhabitants, having experienced how unequal their own force was to
resist that of the Romans, acquiesced in the dominion of their masters,
and were gradually incorporated as a part of that mighty empire.
This was the last durable conquest made by the Romans, and Britain,
once subdued, gave no further inquietude to the victor. Caledonia alone,
defended by its barren mountains, and by the contempt which the Romans
entertained for it, sometimes infested the more cultivated parts of the
island by the incursions of its inhabitants. The better to secure
the frontiers of the empire, Adrian, who visited this island, built a
rampart between the River Tyne and the Frith of Solway; Lollius Urbicus,
under Antoninus Pius, erected one in the place where Agricola had
formerly established his garrisons, Severus, who made an expedition
into Britain, and carried his arms to the most northern extremity of it,
added new fortifications to the wall of Adrian; and during the reigns
of all the Roman emperors, such a profound tranquillity prevailed in
Britain, that little mention is made of the affairs of that island by
any historian. The only incidents which occur, are some seditions or
rebellions of the Roman legions quartered there, and some usurpations
of the imperial dignity by the Roman governors. The natives, disarmed,
dispirited, and submissive, had lost all desire and even idea of their
former liberty and independence.
But the period was now come, when that enormous fabric of the Roman
empire, which had diffused slavery and oppression, together with peace
and civility, over so considerable a part of the globe, was approaching
towards its final dissolution. Italy, and the centre of the empire,
removed during so many ages from all concern in the wars, had entirely
lost the military spirit, and were peopled by an enervated race, equally
disposed to submit to a foreign yoke, or to the tyranny of their own
rulers. The emperors found themselves obliged to recruit their
legions from the frontier provinces, where the genius of war, though
languishing, was not totally extinct; and these mercenary forces,
careless of laws and civil institutions, established a military
government no less dangerous to the sovereign than to the people.
The further progress of the same disorders introduced the bordering
barbarians into the service of the Romans; and those fierce nations,
having now added discipline to their native bravery, could no longer be
restrained by the impotent policy of the emperors, who were accustomed
to employ one in the destruction of the others. Sensible of their own
force, and allured by the prospect of so rich a prize, the northern
barbarians, in the reign of Arcadius and Honorius, assailed at once
all the frontiers of the Roman empire; and having first satiated their
avidity by plunder, began to think of fixing a settlement in the wasted
provinces. The more distant barbarians, who occupied the deserted
habitations of the former, advanced in their acquisitions, and pressed
with their incumbent weight the Roman state, already unequal to the load
which it sustained. Instead of arming the people in their own defence,
the emperors recalled all the distant legions, in whom alone they
could repose confidence; and collected the whole military force for
the defence of the capital and centre of the empire. The necessity of
self-preservation had superseded the ambition of power; and the ancient
point of honor, never to contract the limits of the empire, could no
longer be attended to in this desperate extremity.
Britain by its situation was removed from the fury of these barbarous
incursions; and being also a remote province, not much valued by
the Romans, the legions which defended it were carried over to the
protection of Italy and Gaul. But that province, though secured by
the sea against the inroads of the greater tribes of barbarians, found
enemies on its frontiers, who took advantage of its present defenceless
situation. The Picts and Scots, who dwelt in the northern parts,
beyond the wall of Antoninus, made incursions upon their peaceable and
effeminate neighbors; and besides the temporary depredations which they
committed, these combined nations threatened the whole province with
subjection, or, what the inhabitants more dreaded, with plunder and
devastation, The Picts seem to have been a tribe of the native British
race, who, having been chased into the northern parts by the conquests
of Agricola, had there intermingled with the ancient inhabitants:
the Scots were derived from the same Celtic origin, had first been
established in Ireland, had migrated to the north-west coasts of this
island, and had long been accustomed, as well from their old as their
new seats, to infest the Roman province by piracy and rapine. [1]
[* See note A, at the end of the volume.]
These tribes finding their more opulent neighbors exposed to invasion,
soon broke over the Roman wall, no longer defended by the Roman arms;
and, though a contemptible enemy in themselves, met with no resistance
from the unwarlike inhabitants. The Britons, accustomed to have recourse
to the emperors for defence as well as government, made supplications to
Rome: and one legion was sent over for their protection. This force was
an overmatch for the barbarians, repelled their invasion, touted them
in every engagement, and having chased them into their ancient limits,
returned in triumph to the defence of the southern provinces of the
empire.[*]
[* Gildas, Bede, lib. i. cap. 12.]
Their retreat brought on a new invasion of the enemy. The Britons made
again an application to Rome, and again obtained the assistance of a
legion, which proved effectual for their relief: but the Romans, reduced
to extremities at home, and fatigued with those distant expeditions,
informed the Britons that they must no longer look to them for succor,
exhorted them to arm in their own defence, and urged, that, as they were
now their own masters, it became them to protect by their valor that
independence which their ancient lords had conferred upon them.[*] That
they might leave the island with the better grace, the Romans assisted
them in erecting anew the wall of Severus, which was built entirely of
stone, and which the Britons had not at that time artificers skilful
enough to repair.[*]
[* Paul. Diacon. p. 43.]
And having done this last good office to the inhabitants, they bade a
final adieu to Britain, about the year 448, after being masters of the
more considerable part of it during the course of near four centuries.
THE BRITONS.
The abject Britons regarded this present of liberty as fatal to them;
and were in no condition to put in practice the prudent counsel given
them by the Romans, to arm in their own defence. Unaccustomed both
to the perils of war and to the cares of civil government, they found
themselves incapable of forming or executing any measures for resisting
the incursions of the barbarians. Gratian also and Constantine, two
Romans who had a little before assumed the purple in Britain, had
carried over to the continent the flower of the British youth; and
having perished in their unsuccessful attempts on the imperial throne,
had despoiled the island of those who, in this desperate extremity, were
best able to defend it. The Picts and Scots, finding that the Romans had
finally relinquished Britain, now regarded the whole as their prey, and
attacked the northern wall with redoubled forces. The Britons, already
subdued by their own fears, found the ramparts but a weak defence for
them; and deserting their station, left the country entirely open to
the inroads of the barbarous enemy. The invaders carried devastation and
ruin along with them; and exerted to the utmost their native ferocity,
which was not mitigated by the helpless condition and submissive
behavior of the inhabitants.[*]
[* Gildas, Bede, lib. i. Allured. Beverl. p. 45.]
The unhappy Britons had a third time recourse to Rome, which had
declared its resolution forever to abandon them. Ætius, the patrician,
sustained at that time, by his valor and magnanimity, the tottering
ruins of the empire, and revived for a moment among the degenerate
Romans the spirit, as well as discipline, of their ancestors. The
British ambassadors carried to him the letter of their countrymen, which
was inscribed, “The groans of the Britons.” The tenor of the epistle was
suitable to its superscription. “The barbarians,” say they, “on the one
hand, chase us into the sea; the sea, on the other, throws us back upon
the barbarians; and we have only the hard choice left us of perishing by
the sword or by the waves.”[*]
[* Gildas, Bede, lib. i. cap. 13. William of
Malmesbury, lib. i. cap. 1 Alured. Beverl. p. 45.]
But Ætius, pressed by the arms of Attila, the most terrible enemy that
ever assailed the empire, had no leisure to attend to the complaints of
allies, whom generosity alone could induce him to assist.[*]
[* Saxon Chron. p. 11, edit. 1692.]
The Britons, thus rejected, were reduced to despair, deserted their
habitations, abandoned tillage, and flying for protection to the forests
and mountains, suffered equally from hunger and from the enemy. The
barbarians themselves began to feel the pressures of famine in a country
which they had ravaged; and being harassed by the dispersed Britons, who
had not dared to resist them in a body, they retreated with their spoils
into their own country.[*]
[* Alured. Beverl, p. 45.]
The Britons, taking advantage of this interval, returned to their usual
occupations; and the favorable seasons which succeeded, seconding their
industry, made them soon forget their past miseries, and restored
to them great plenty of all the necessaries of life. No more can be
imagined to have been possessed by a people so rude, who had not,
without the assistance of the Romans, art of masonry sufficient to raise
a stone rampart for their own defence; yet the monkish historians,[*]
who treat of those events, complain of the luxury of the Britons
during this period, and ascribe to that vice, not to their cowardice or
improvident counsels, all their subsequent calamities.
[* Gildas, Bede, lib. i. cap. 14.]
The Britons, entirely occupied in the enjoyment of the present interval
of peace, made no provision for resisting the enemy, who, invited by
their former timid behavior, soon threatened them with a new invasion.
We are not exactly informed what species of civil government the Romans,
on their departure, had left among the Britons, but it appears probable
that the great men in the different districts assumed a kind of regal,
though precarious authority, and lived in a great measure independent of
each other.[*]
[* Gildas, Usher, Ant. Brit. p. 248, 347.]
To this disunion of counsels were also added the disputes of theology;
and the disciples of Pelagius, who was himself a native of Britain,
having increased to a great multitude, gave alarm to the clergy, who
seem to have been more intent on suppressing them, than on opposing the
public enemy.[*]
[* Gildas, Bede, lib. i. cap. 17. Constant, in Vita Germ.]
Laboring under these domestic evils, and menaced with a foreign
invasion, the Britons attended only to the suggestions of their present
fears, and following the counsels of Vortigern, prince of Dumnonium,
who, though stained with every vice, possessed the chief authority among
them,[*] they sent into Germany a deputation to invite over the Saxons
for their protection and assistance.
[* Gildas, W. Malms. p. 8.]
THE SAXONS.
Of all the barbarous nations, known either in ancient or modern times,
the Germans seem to have been the most distinguished both by their
manners and political institutions, and to have carried to the highest
pitch the virtues of valor and love of liberty; the only virtues which
can have place among an uncivilized people, where justice and humanity
are commonly neglected. Kingly government, even when established among
the Germans, (for it was not universal,) possessed a very limited
authority; and though the sovereign was usually chosen from among the
royal family, he was directed in every measure by the common consent
of the nation over whom he presided. When any important affairs were
transacted, all the warriors met in arms; the men of greatest authority
employed persuasion to engage their consent; the people expressed their
approbation by rattling their armor, or their dissent by murmurs; there
was no necessity for a nice scrutiny of votes among a multitude, who
were usually carried with a strong current to one side or the other;
and the measure, thus suddenly chosen by general agreement, was executed
with alacrity, and prosecuted with vigor. Even in war, the princes
governed more by example than by authority, but in peace, the civil
union was in a great measure dissolved, and the inferior leaders
administered justice, after an independent manner, each in his
particular district. These were elected by the votes of the people in
their great councils; and though regard was paid to nobility in the
choice, their personal qualities, chiefly their valor, procured
them, from the suffrages of their fellow-citizens, that honorable but
dangerous distinction. The warriors of each tribe attached themselves
to the[**possibly this word is their] leader, with the most devoted
affection and most unshaken constancy. They attended him as his ornament
in peace, as his defence in war, as his council in the administration of
justice. Their constant emulation in military renown dissolved not that
inviolable friendship which they professed to their chieftain and to
each other. To die for the honor of their band was their chief ambition;
to survive its disgrace, or the death of their leader, was infamous.
They even carried into the field their women and children, who adopted
all the martial sentiments of the men: and being thus impelled by every
human motive, they were invincible; where they were no[**possibly the
word is not] opposed, either by the similar manners and institutions
of the neighboring Germans, or by the superior discipline, arms, and
numbers of the Romans.[*]
[* Caesar, lib. vi.]
The leaders and their military companions were maintained by the labor
of their slaves, or by that of the weaker and less warlike part of the
community whom they defended. The contributions which they levied went
not beyond a bare subsistence; and the honors, acquired by a superior
rank, were the only reward of their superior dangers and fatigues. All
the refined arts of life were unknown among the Germans: tillage itself
was almost wholly neglected; they even seem to have been anxious to
prevent any improvements of that nature; and the leaders, by annually
distributing anew all the land among the inhabitants of each village,
kept them from attaching themselves to particular possessions, or
making such progress in agriculture as might divert their attention from
military expeditions, the chief occupation of the community.[*]
[* Tacit. de Mor. Germ]
The Saxons had been for some time regarded as one of the most warlike
tribes of this fierce people, and had become the terror of the
neighboring nations.[*]
[* Amm. Marcell. lib. xxviii. Orosius.]
They had diffused themselves from the northern parts of Germany and the
Cimbrian Chersonesus, and had taken possession of all the sea-coast
from the mouth of the Rhine to Jutland; whence they had long infested
by their piracies all the eastern and southern parts of Britain, and the
northern of Gaul.[*]
[* Amm. Marcell. lib. xxvii. cap. 7. lib. xxviii. cap. 7]
In order to oppose their inroads, the Romans had established an officer,
whom they called “Count of the Saxon shore;” and as the naval arts can
flourish among a civilized people alone, they seem to have been more
successful in repelling the Saxons than any of the other barbarians by
whom they were invaded. The dissolution of the Roman power invited them
to renew their inroads; and it was an acceptable circumstance that
the deputies of the Britons appeared among them, and prompted them to
undertake an enterprise to which they were of themselves sufficiently
inclined.[*]
[* W. Malms, p. 8.]
Hengist and Horsa, two brothers, possessed great credit among the
Saxons, and were much celebrated both for their valor and nobility. They
were reputed, as most of the Saxon princes, to be sprung from Woden, who
was worshipped as a god among those nations, and they are said to be his
great grandsons;[*] a circumstance which added much to their authority.
[* Bede, lib. i. cap. 15. Chron. Sax. p. 13. Nennius, cap.
28.]
We shall not attempt to trace any higher the origin of those princes
and nations. It is evident what fruitless labor it must be to search,
in those barbarous and illiterate ages, for the annals of a people, when
their first leaders, known in any true history, were believed by them to
be the fourth in descent from a fabulous deity, or from a man exalted by
ignorance into that character. The dark industry of antiquaries, led by
imaginary analogies of names, or by uncertain traditions, would in
vain attempt to pierce into that deep obscurity which covers the remote
history of those nations.
These two brothers, observing the other provinces of Germany to be
occupied by a warlike and necessitous people, and the rich provinces of
Gaul already conquered or overrun by other German tribes, found it
easy to persuade their countrymen to embrace the sole enterprise
which promised a favorable opportunity of displaying their valor and
gratifying their avidity. They embarked their troops in three vessels
and about the year 449 or 450,[*] earned over one thousand six hundred
men, who landed in the Isle of Thanet, and immediately marched to the
defence of the Britons against the northern invaders. The Scots and
Picts were unable to resist the valor of these auxiliaries; and the
Britons, applauding their own wisdom in calling over the Saxons, hoped
thenceforth to enjoy peace and security under the powerful protection of
that warlike people.
But Hengist and Horsa, perceiving, from their easy victory over the
Scots and Picts, with what facility they might subdue tae Britons
themselves, who had not been able to resist those feeble invaders, were
determined to conquer and fight for their own grandeur, not for the
defence of their degenerate allies. They sent intelligence to Saxony
of the fertility and riches of Britain, and represented as certain the
subjection of a people so long disused to arms, who, being now cut off
from the Roman empire, of which they had been a province during so
many ages, had not yet acquired any union among themselves, and were
destitute of all affection to their new liberties, and of all national
attachments and regards.[**] The vices, and pusillanimity of Vortigern,
the British leader, were a new ground of hope; and the Saxons in
Germany, following such agreeable prospects, soon reënforced Hengist and
Horsa with five thousand men, who came over in seventeen vessels. The
Britons now began to entertain apprehensions of their allies, whose
numbers they found continually augmenting; but thought of no remedy,
except a passive submission and connivance. This weak expedient soon
failed them. The Saxons sought a quarrel, by complaining that their
subsidies were ill paid, and their provisions withdrawn;[***] and
immediately taking off the mask, they formed an alliance with the Picts
and Scots, and proceeded to open hostility against the Britons.
The Britons, impelled by these violent extremities, ana roused to
indignation against their treacherous auxiliaries, were necessitated to
take arms; and having deposed Vortigern, who had become odious from his
vices, and from the bad event of his rash counsels, they put themselves
under the Command of his son, Vortimer. They fought many battles with
their enemies; and though the victories in these actions be disputed
between the British and Saxon annalists, the progress still made by the
Saxons proves that the advantage was commonly on their side.
[* Chron. Sax. p. 12. W. Malms, p. 11. Hunting,
lib. U. p. 309. Ethelwerd, Brompton, p. 728.]
[** Chron. Sax. p. 12. Alured. Beverl. p. 49.]
[*** Bede, lib. i cap. 15. Nennius, cap. 35. Gildas,
sect 2d.]
In one battle, however, fought at Faglesford, now Ailsford, Horsa, the
Saxon general, was slain and left the sole command over his countrymen
in the hands of Hengist. This active general, continually reënforced
oy fresh numbers from Germany, carried devastation into the most remote
corners of Britain; and being chiefly anxious to spread the terror of
his arms, he spared neither age, nor sex, nor condition, wherever he
marched with his victorious forces. The private and public edifices of
the Britons were reduced to ashes; the priests were slaughtered on the
altars by those idolatrous ravagers; the bishops and nobility shared
the fate of the vulgar; the people, flying to the mountains and deserts,
were intercepted and butchered in heaps: some were glad to accept of
life and servitude under their victors: others, deserting their
native country, took shelter in the province of Armorica; where, being
charitably received by a people of the same language and manners, they
settled in great numbers, and gave the country the name of Brittany.[*]
The British writers assign one cause which facilitated the entrance of
the Saxons into this island--the love with which Vortigern was at
first seized for Rovena, the daughter of Hengist, and which that artful
warrior made use of to blind the eyes of the imprudent monarch.[**]
The same historians add, that Vortimer died; and that Vortigern,
being restored to the throne, accepted of a banquet from Hengist, at
Stonehenge, where three hundred of his nobility were treacherously
slaughtered, and himself detained captive.[***] But these stories seem
to have been invented by the Welsh authors, in order to palliate the
weak resistance made at first by their countrymen, and to account for
the rapid progress and licentious devastations of the Saxons.[****]
After the death of Vortimer, Ambrosius, a Briton, though of Roman
descent, was invested with the command over his countrymen, and
endeavored, not without success, to unite them in their resistance
against the Saxons. Those contests increased the animosity between the
two rations, and roused the military spirit of the ancient inhabitants,
which had before been sunk into a fatal lethargy.
[* Bede, lib. i. cap. 15. Usher, p. 226. Gildas,
sect. 24.]
[** Nennius, Galfr. lib. vi. cap. 12.]
[*** Nennius, cap. 47. Galfr.]
[**** Stillingfleet’s Orig. Britt. p. 324,325.]
Hengist, however, notwithstanding their opposition, still maintained his
ground in Britain and in order to divide the forces and attention of the
natives he called over a new tribe of Saxons, under the command of his
brother Octa, and of Ebissa, the son of Octa; and he settled them in
Northumberland. He himself remained in the southern parts of the island,
and laid the foundation of their kingdom of Kent, comprehending the
county of that name Middlesex, Essex, and part of Surrey. He fixed his
royal seat at Canterbury, where he governed about forty years, and he
died in or near the year 488, leaving his new-acquired dominions to his
posterity.
The success of Hengist excited the avidity of the other northern
Germans; and at different times, and under different leaders, they
flocked over in multitudes to the invasion of mis island. These
conquerors were chiefly composed of three tribes, the Saxons, Angles,
and Jutes,[*] who all passed under the common appellation, sometimes,
of _Saxons_, sometimes of _Angles_; and speaking the same
language, and being governed by the same institutions, they were
naturally led, from these causes, as well as from their common interest,
to unite themselves against the ancient inhabitants. The resistance,
however, though unequal, was still maintained by the Britons; but became
every day more feeble; and their calamities admitted of few intervals,
till they were driven into Cornwall and Wales, and received protection
from the remote situation or inaccessible mountains of those countries.
The first Saxon state, after that of Kent, which was established in
Britain, was the kingdom of South Saxony. In the year 477,[**] Ælla,
a Saxon chief, brought over an army from Germany; and, landing on
the southern coast, proceeded to take possession of the neighboring
territory. The Britons, now armed, did not tamely abandon their
possessions; nor were they expelled till defeated in many battles
by their war-like invaders. The most memorable action, mentioned by
historians, is that of Mearcredes Burn;[***] where, though the Saxons
seem to have obtained the victory, they suffered so considerable a loss,
as somewhat retarded the progress of their conquests.
[* Bede, lib. i. cap. 15. Ethelwerd, p. 833, edit.
Camdeni. Chron. Sax. p. 12. Alured. Beverl. p. 78. The
inhabitants of Kent and the Isle of Wight were Jutes. Essex,
Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex, and all the southern counties to
Cornwall, were peopled by Saxons: Mercis mud other parts of
the kingdom were inhabited by Angles.]
[** Chron. Sax. p.14. Alured Beverl. p. 81.]
[*** Chron. Sax. A. D. 485. Flor. Wigron]
But Ælla, reénforced by fresh numbers of his countrymen, again took the
field against the Britons; and laid siege to Ancired Ceaster, which was
defended by the garrison and inhabitants with desperate valor.[*] The
Saxons, enraged by this resistance, and by the fatigues and dangers
which they had sustained, redoubled their efforts against the place;
and, when masters of it, put all their enemies to the sword without
distinction. This decisive advantage secured the conquests of Ælla, who
assumed the name of king, and extended his dominion over Sussex and a
great part of Surrey He was stopped in his progress to the east by the
kingdom of Kent; in that to the west by another tribe of Saxons, who had
taken possession of that territory.
These Saxons, from the situation of the country in which they settled,
were called the _West Saxons_, and landed in the year 495, under
the command of Cerdic, and of his son Kenric.[**] The Britons were, by
past experience, so much on their guard, and so well prepared to receive
the enemy, that they gave battle to Cerdic the very day of his landing;
and, though vanquished, still defended, for some time, their liberties
against the invaders. None of the other tribes of Saxons met with such
vigorous resistance, or exerted such valor and perseverance in pushing
their conquests. Cerdic was even obliged to call for the assistance of
his countrymen from the kingdoms of Kent and Sussex, as well as from
Germany, and he was thence joined by a fresh army under the command
of Porte, and of his sons Bleda and Megla.[***] Strengthened by these
succors, he fought, in the year 508, a desperate battle with the
Britons, commanded by Nazan Leod, who was victorious in the beginning of
the action, and routed the wing in which Cerdic himself commanded. But
Kenric, who had prevailed in the other wing, brought timely assistance
to his father, and restored the battle, which ended in a complete
victory gained by the Saxons.[****] Nazan Leod perished, with
five thousand of his army; but left the Britons more weakened than
discouraged by his death. The war still continued, though the success
was commonly on the side of the Saxons, whose short swords and manner
of fighting gave them great advantage over the missile weapons of the
Britons.
[* H. Hunting, lib. ii.]
[** W. Malms, lib. i. cap. I, p. 12. Chron. Sax. p.
15.]
[*** Chron. Sax. p. 17.]
[**** H. Hunting, lib ii. Ethelwerd, lib. i. Chron.
Sax. p. 17.]
Cerdic was not wanting to in good fortune; and in order to extend
his conquests, he laid siege to Mount Badon or Banesdowne, near Bath,
whither the most obstinate of the discomfited Britons had retired. The
southern Britons, in this extremity, applied for assistance to Arthur,
prince of the Silures, whose heroic valor now sustained the declining
fate of his country.[*] This is that Arthur so much celebrated in the
songs of Thaliessin, and the other British bards, and whose military
achievements have been blended with so many fables, as even to give
occasion for entertaining a doubt of his real existence. But poets,
though they disfigure the most certain history by their fictions, ana
use strange liberties with truth where they are the sole historians, as
among the Britons, have commonly some foundation for their wildest
exaggerations. Certain it is, that the siege of Badon was raised by the
Britons in the year 520; and the Saxons were there discomfited in a
great battle.[**] This misfortune stopped the progress of Cerdic; but
was not sufficient to wrest from him the conquests which he had already
made. He and his son Kenric, who succeeded him, established the kingdom
of the West Saxons, or of Wessex, over the counties of Hants, Dorset,
Wilts, Berks, and the Isle of Wight, and left their new-acquired
dominions to their posterity. Cerdic died in 534, Kenric in 560.
While the Saxons made this progress in the south, their countrymen were
not less active in other quarters. In the year 527, a great tribe of
adventurers, under several leaders, landed on the east coast of Britain;
and after fighting many battles, of which history has preserved no
particular account, they established three new kingdoms in this island.
Uffa assumed the title of king of the East Angles in 575; Crida, that of
Mercia in 585;[***] and Erkenwin, that of East Saxony, or Essex, nearly
about the same time; but the year is uncertain. This latter kingdom was
dismembered from that of Kent, and comprehended Essex, Middlesex,
and part of Hertfordshire; that of the East Angles, the counties of
Cambridge, Suffolk, and Norfolk: Mercia was extended over all the middle
counties from the banks of the Severn to the frontiers of these two
kingdoms.
[* H. Hunting, lib. ii.]
[** Gildas, Chron. Sax. H. Hunting, lib. ii.]
[*** M. West. H. Hunting, lib. ii.]
The Saxons, soon after the landing of Hengist, had been planted in
Northumberland; but as they met with an obstinate resistance, and made
but small progress in subduing the inhabitants, their affairs were in
so unsettled a condition, that none of their princes for a long time
assumed the appellation of king. At last, in 547,[*] Ida, a Saxon prince
of great valor,[**] who claimed a descent, as did all the other princes
of that nation, from Woden, brought over a reénforcement from Germany,
and enabled the Northumbrians to carry on their conquests over the
Britons. He entirely subdued the county now called Northumberland,
the bishopric of Durham, as well as some of the south-east counties of
Scotland; and he assumed the crown under the title of king of Bernicia.
Nearly about the same time, Ælla, another Saxon prince, having conquered
Lancashire and the greater part of Yorkshire, received the appellation
of king of Deïri.[***] These two kingdoms were united in the person of
Ethelfrid, grandson of Ida, who married Acca, the daughter of Ælla; and
expelling her brother Edwin, established one of the most powerful of the
Saxon kingdoms, by the title of Northumberland. How far his dominions
extended into the country now called Scotland is uncertain: but it
cannot be doubted, that all the lowlands, especially the east coast of
that country, were peopled in a great measure from Germany; though the
expeditions, made by the several Saxon adventurers, have escaped the
records of history. The language spoken in those countries, which is
purely Saxon, is a stronger proof of this event than can be opposed by
the imperfect, or rather fabulous annals, which are obtruded on us by
the Scottish historians.
[* Chron. Sax. p. 19.]
[** W. Malms, p. 19.]
[*** Alured, Beverl. p. 78].
THE HEPTARCHY
Thus was established, after a violent contest of near a hundred and
fifty years, the Heptarchy, or seven Saxon kingdoms, in Britain; and
the whole southern part of the island, except Wales and Cornwall,
had totally changed its inhabitants, language, customs, and political
institutions. The Britons, under the Roman dominion, had made
such advances towards arts and civil manners, that they had built
twenty-eight considerable cities within their province, besides a great
number of villages and country seats; [*] but the fierce conquerors,
by whom they were now subdued, threw every thing back into ancient
barbarity; and those few natives, who were not either massacred or
expelled their habitations, were reduced to the most abject slavery.
[* Gildas, Sede, lib, i.]
None of the other northern conquerors, the Franks, Goths, Vandals, or
Burgundians, though they overran the southern provinces of the
empire like a mighty torrent, made such devastations in the conquered
territories, or were inflamed into so violent an animosity against the
ancient inhabitants. As the Saxons came over at intervals in separate
bodies, the Britons, however at first unwarlike, were tempted to make
resistance; and hostilities, being thereby prolonged, proved more
destructive to both parties, especially to the vanquished. The first
invaders from Germany, instead of excluding other adventurers, who must
share with them the spoils of the ancient inhabitants, were obliged to
solicit fresh supplies from their own country; and a total extermination
of the Britons became the sole expedient for providing a settlement and
subsistence to the new planters. Hence there have been found in history
few conquests more ruinous than that of the Saxons, and few revolutions
more violent than that which they introduced.
So long as the contest was maintained with the natives, the several
Saxon princes preserved a union of counsels and interests; but after the
Britons were shut up in the barren countries of Cornwall and Wales, and
gave no further disturbance to the conquerors, the band of alliance was
in a great measure dissolved among the princes of the Heptarchy. Though
one prince seems still to have been allowed, or to have assumed, an
ascendant over the whole, his authority, if it ought ever to be deemed
regular or legal, was extremely limited; and each state acted as if it
had been independent, and wholly separate from the rest Wars, therefore,
and revolutions and dissensions, were unavoidable among a turbulent and
military people; and these events, however intricate or confused, ought
now to become the objects of our attention But, added to the difficulty
of carrying on at once the history of seven independent kingdoms, there
is great discouragement to a writer, arising from the uncertainty, at
least barrenness, of the accounts transmitted to us. The monks, who were
the only annalists during those ages, lived remote from public
affairs, considered the civil transactions as entirely subordinate the
ecclesiastical, and, besides partaking of the ignorance and barbarity
which were then universal, were strongly infected with credulity, with
the love of wonder, and with a propensity to imposture; vices almost
inseparable from their profession and manner of life. The history of
that period abounds in names, but is extremely barren of events; or the
events are related so much without circumstances and causes, that the
most profound or most eloquent writer must despair of rendering them
either instructive or entertaining to the reader. Even the great
learning and vigorous imagination of Milton sunk under the weight; and
this author scruples not to declare, that the skirmishes of kites
or crows as much merited a particular narrative, as the confused
transactions and battles of the Saxon Heptarchy.[*] In order, however,
to connect the events in some tolerable measure, we shall give a
succinct account of the successions of kings, and of the more remarkable
revolutions in each particular kingdom; beginning with that of Kent,
which was the first established.
[* Milton in Kennet, p. 50]
THE KINGDOM OF KENT
Escus succeeded his father, Hengist, in the kingdom of Kent; but seems
not to have possessed the military genius of that conqueror, who first
made way for the entrance of the Saxon arms into Britain. All the
Saxons, who sought either the fame of valor, or new establishments by
arms, flocked to the standard of Ælla, king of Sussex, who was carrying
on successful war against the Britons, and laying the foundations of a
new kingdom. Escus was content to possess in tranquillity the kingdom
of Kent, which he left in 512 to his son Octet, in whose time the East
Saxons established their monarchy, and dismembered the provinces of
Essex and Middlesex from that of Kent. His death, after a reign of
twenty two years, made room for his son Hermenric in 534, who performed
nothing memorable during a reign of thirty-two years; excepting
associating with him his son Ethelbert in the government, that he might
secure the succession hi his family, and prevent such revolutions as are
incident to a turbulent and barbarous monarchy.
Ethelbert revived the reputation of his family, which had languished for
some generations. The inactivity of his predecessors, and the situation
of his country, secured from all hostility with the Britons, seem
to have much enfeebled the warlike genius of the Kentish Saxons;
and Ethelbert, in his first attempt to aggrandize his country, and
distinguish his own name, was unsuccessful.[*] He was twice discomfited
in battle by Ceaulin, king of Wessex, and obliged to yield the
superiority in the Heptarchy to that ambitious monarch, who preserved
no moderation in his victory, and by reducing the kingdom of Sussex to
subjection, excited jealousy in all the other princes. An association
was formed against him; and Ethelbeit, intrusted with the command of the
allies, gave him battle, and obtained a decisive victory.[**] Ceaulin
died soon after; and Ethelbert succeeded as well to his ascendant among
the Saxon states, as to his other ambitious projects. He reduced all the
princes, except the king of Northumberland, to a strict dependence upon
him; and even established himself by force on the throne of Mercia,
the most extensive of the Saxon kingdoms. Apprehensive, however, of a
dangerous league against him, like that by which he himself had been
enabled to overthrow Ceaulin, he had the prudence to resign the kingdom
of Mercia to Webba, the rightful heir, the son of Crida, who had first
founded that monarchy. But governed still by ambition more than by
justice, he gave Webba possession of the crown on such conditions, as
rendered him little better than a tributary prince under his artful
benefactor.
But the most memorable event which distinguished the reign of this great
prince, was the introduction of the Christian religion among the English
Saxons. The superstition of the Germans, particularly that of the
Saxons, was of the grossest and most barbarous kind; and being founded
on traditional tales, received from their ancestors, not reduced to
any system, not supported by political institutions, like that of the
druids, it seems to have made little impression on its votaries, and to
have easily resigned its place to the new doctrine promulgated to them.
Woden, whom they deemed the ancestor of all their princes, was regarded
as the god of war, and, by a natural consequence, became their supreme
deity, and the chief object of their religious worship. They believed
that, if they obtained the favor of this divinity by their valor, (for
they made less account of the other virtues,) they should be admitted
after their death into his hall; and reposing on couches, should satiate
themselves with ale from the skulls of their enemies, whom they had
slain in battle. Incited by this idea of paradise, which gratified
at once the passion of revenge and that of intemperance, the ruling
inclinations of barbarians, they despised the dangers of war, and
increased their native ferocity against the vanquished by their
religious prejudices.
[* Chron. Sax. p. 21.]
[** H. Hunting, lib ii.]
We know little of the other theological tenets of the Saxons; we only
learn that they were polytheists; that they worshipped the sun and moon;
that they adored the god of thunder, under the name of Thor; that they
had images in their temples; that they practised sacrifices; believed
firmly in spells and enchantments; and admitted in general a system
of doctrines which they held as sacred, but which, like all other
superstition must carry the air of the wildest extravagance, if
propounded to those who are not familiarized to it from their earliest
infancy.
The constant hostilities which the Saxons maintained against the
Britons, would naturally indispose them for receiving the Christian
faith, when preached to them by such inveterate enemies; and perhaps the
Britons, as is objected to them by Gildas and Bede, were not over-fond
of communicating to their cruel invaders the doctrine of eternal life
and salvation. But as a civilized people, however subdued by arms, still
maintain a sensible superiority over barbarous and ignorant nations,
all the other northern conquerors of Europe had been already induced to
embrace the Christian faith, which they found established in the empire;
and it was impossible but the Saxons, informed of this event, must have
regarded with some degree of veneration a doctrine which had acquired
the ascendant over all their brethren. However limited in their news,
they could not but have perceived a degree of cultivation in the
southern countries beyond what they themselves possessed; and it was
natural for them to yield to that superior knowledge, as well as zeal,
by which the inhabitants of the Christian kingdoms were even at that
time distinguished.
But these causes might long have failed of producing any considerable
effect, had not a favorable incident prepared the means of introducing
Christianity into Kent. Ethelbert, in his father’s lifetime, had married
Bertha, the only daughter of Cariben, king of Paris,[*] one of the
descendants of Clovis, the conqueror of Gaul.
[* Greg, of Tours, lib, ix. cap. 26. H. Hunting,
lib. ii.]
But before he was admitted to this alliance, he was obliged to
stipulate, that the princess should enjoy the free exercise of her
religion; a concession not difficult to be obtained from the idolatrous
Saxons.[*] Bertha brought over a French bishop to the court of
Canterbury; and being zealous for the propagation of her religion, she
had been very assiduous in her devotional exercises, had supported the
credit of her faith by an irreproachable conduct, and had employed every
an of insinuation and address to reconcile her husband to her religious
principles. Her popularity in the court, and her influence over
Ethelbert, had so well paved the way for the reception of the Christian
doctrine, that Gregory, surnamed the Great, then Roman pontiff, began
to entertain hopes of effecting a project which lie himself, before he
mounted the papal throne, had once embraced, of converting the British
Saxons.
It happened that this prelate, at that time in a private station, had
observed in the market place of Rome some Saxon youth exposed to sale,
whom the Roman merchants, in their trading voyages to Britain, had
bought of their mercenary parents. Struck with the beauty of their fair
complexions and blooming countenances, Gregory asked to what country
they belonged; and being told they were “Angles,” he replied that they
ought more properly to be denominated “angels.” it were a pity that the
prince of darkness should enjoy so fair a prey, and that so beautiful
a frontispiece should cover a mind destitute of internal grace and
righteousness. Inquiring further concerning the name of their province,
he was Informed, that it was “Deïri,” a district of Northumberland.
“Deïri!” replied he, “that is good! They are called to the mercy of God
from his anger--_de ira_. But what is the name of the king of that
province?” He was told it was “Ælla,” or “Alia.” “Alleluiah;” cried he,
“we must endeavor that the praises of God be sung in their country.”
Moved by these allusions, which appeared to him so happy, he deter mined
to undertake himself a mission into Britain; and having obtained the
pope’s approbation, he prepared for that perilous journey; but his
popularity at home was so great, that the Romans, unwilling to expose
him to such dangers, opposed his design, and he was obliged for the
present to lay aside all further thoughts of executing that pious
purpose.[**]
[* Bede, lib. i. cap. 25. Brompton, p. 729.]
[** Bede, lib. ii. cap. 1. Spell. Concil. p. 91.]
The controversy between the pagans and the Christians was not entirely
cooled in that age; and no pontiff before Gregory had ever carried to
greater excess an intemperate zeal against the former religion. He had
waged war with all the precious monuments of the ancients, and even with
their writings, which, as appears from the strain of his own wit, as
well as from the style of his compositions, he had not taste or genius
sufficient to comprehend. Ambitious to distinguish his pontificate by
the conversion of the British Saxons, he pitched on Augustine, a Roman
monk, and sent him with forty associates to preach the gospel in this
island. These missionaries, terrified with the dangers which might
attend their proposing a new doctrine to so fierce a people, of whose
language they were ignorant, stopped some time in France, and sent back
Augustine to lay the hazards and difficulties before the pope, and crave
his permission to desist from the undertaking. But Gregory exorted them
to persevere in their purpose, advised them to choose some interpreters
from among the Franks, who still spoke the same language with the
Saxons,[*] and recommended them to the good offices of Queen Brunehaut,
who had at this time usurped the sovereign power in France. This
princess, though stained with every vice of treachery and cruelty,
either possessed or pretended great zeal for the cause; and Gregory
acknowledged, that to her friendly assistance was, in a great measure,
owing the success of that undertaking.[**]