A Child's History of England Read online

  picture of a white horse. They could break them in and manage them

  wonderfully well. Indeed, the horses (of which they had an

  abundance, though they were rather small) were so well taught in

  those days, that they can scarcely be said to have improved since;

  though the men are so much wiser. They understood, and obeyed,

  every word of command; and would stand still by themselves, in all

  the din and noise of battle, while their masters went to fight on

  foot. The Britons could not have succeeded in their most

  remarkable art, without the aid of these sensible and trusty

  animals. The art I mean, is the construction and management of

  war-chariots or cars, for which they have ever been celebrated in

  history. Each of the best sort of these chariots, not quite breast

  high in front, and open at the back, contained one man to drive,

  and two or three others to fight - all standing up. The horses who

  drew them were so well trained, that they would tear, at full

  gallop, over the most stony ways, and even through the woods;

  dashing down their masters' enemies beneath their hoofs, and

  cutting them to pieces with the blades of swords, or scythes, which

  were fastened to the wheels, and stretched out beyond the car on

  each side, for that cruel purpose. In a moment, while at full

  speed, the horses would stop, at the driver's command. The men

  within would leap out, deal blows about them with their swords like

  hail, leap on the horses, on the pole, spring back into the

  chariots anyhow; and, as soon as they were safe, the horses tore

  away again.

  The Britons had a strange and terrible religion, called the

  Religion of the Druids. It seems to have been brought over, in

  very early times indeed, from the opposite country of France,

  anciently called Gaul, and to have mixed up the worship of the

  Serpent, and of the Sun and Moon, with the worship of some of the

  Heathen Gods and Goddesses. Most of its ceremonies were kept

  secret by the priests, the Druids, who pretended to be enchanters,

  Page 6

  Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England

  and who carried magicians' wands, and wore, each of them, about his

  neck, what he told the ignorant people was a Serpent's egg in a

  golden case. But it is certain that the Druidical ceremonies

  included the sacrifice of human victims, the torture of some

  suspected criminals, and, on particular occasions, even the burning

  alive, in immense wicker cages, of a number of men and animals

  together. The Druid Priests had some kind of veneration for the

  Oak, and for the mistletoe - the same plant that we hang up in

  houses at Christmas Time now - when its white berries grew upon the

  Oak. They met together in dark woods, which they called Sacred

  Groves; and there they instructed, in their mysterious arts, young

  men who came to them as pupils, and who sometimes stayed with them

  as long as twenty years.

  These Druids built great Temples and altars, open to the sky,

  fragments of some of which are yet remaining. Stonehenge, on

  Salisbury Plain, in Wiltshire, is the most extraordinary of these.

  Three curious stones, called Kits Coty House, on Bluebell Hill,

  near Maidstone, in Kent, form another. We know, from examination

  of the great blocks of which such buildings are made, that they

  could not have been raised without the aid of some ingenious

  machines, which are common now, but which the ancient Britons

  certainly did not use in making their own uncomfortable houses. I

  should not wonder if the Druids, and their pupils who stayed with

  them twenty years, knowing more than the rest of the Britons, kept

  the people out of sight while they made these buildings, and then

  pretended that they built them by magic. Perhaps they had a hand

  in the fortresses too; at all events, as they were very powerful,

  and very much believed in, and as they made and executed the laws,

  and paid no taxes, I don't wonder that they liked their trade.

  And, as they persuaded the people the more Druids there were, the

  better off the people would be, I don't wonder that there were a

  good many of them. But it is pleasant to think that there are no

  Druids, NOW, who go on in that way, and pretend to carry

  Enchanters' Wands and Serpents' Eggs - and of course there is

  nothing of the kind, anywhere.

  Such was the improved condition of the ancient Britons, fifty-five

  years before the birth of Our Saviour, when the Romans, under their

  great General, Julius Caesar, were masters of all the rest of the

  known world. Julius Caesar had then just conquered Gaul; and

  hearing, in Gaul, a good deal about the opposite Island with the

  white cliffs, and about the bravery of the Britons who inhabited it

  - some of whom had been fetched over to help the Gauls in the war

  against him - he resolved, as he was so near, to come and conquer

  Britain next.

  So, Julius Caesar came sailing over to this Island of ours, with

  eighty vessels and twelve thousand men. And he came from the

  French coast between Calais and Boulogne, 'because thence was the

  shortest passage into Britain;' just for the same reason as our

  steam-boats now take the same track, every day. He expected to

  conquer Britain easily: but it was not such easy work as he

  supposed - for the bold Britons fought most bravely; and, what with

  not having his horse-soldiers with him (for they had been driven

  back by a storm), and what with having some of his vessels dashed

  to pieces by a high tide after they were drawn ashore, he ran great

  risk of being totally defeated. However, for once that the bold

  Britons beat him, he beat them twice; though not so soundly but

  that he was very glad to accept their proposals of peace, and go

  away.

  But, in the spring of the next year, he came back; this time, with

  eight hundred vessels and thirty thousand men. The British tribes

  Page 7

  Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England

  chose, as their general-in-chief, a Briton, whom the Romans in

  their Latin language called CASSIVELLAUNUS, but whose British name

  is supposed to have been CASWALLON. A brave general he was, and

  well he and his soldiers fought the Roman army! So well, that

  whenever in that war the Roman soldiers saw a great cloud of dust,

  and heard the rattle of the rapid British chariots, they trembled

  in their hearts. Besides a number of smaller battles, there was a

  battle fought near Canterbury, in Kent; there was a battle fought

  near Chertsey, in Surrey; there was a battle fought near a marshy

  little town in a wood, the capital of that part of Britain which

  belonged to CASSIVELLAUNUS, and which was probably near what is now

  Saint Albans, in Hertfordshire. However, brave CASSIVELLAUNUS had

  the worst of it, on the whole; though he and his men always fought

  like lions. As the other British chiefs were jealous of him, and

  were always quarrelling with him, and with one another, he gave up,

  and proposed peace. Julius Caesar was very glad to grant peace

  easi
ly, and to go away again with all his remaining ships and men.

  He had expected to find pearls in Britain, and he may have found a

  few for anything I know; but, at all events, he found delicious

  oysters, and I am sure he found tough Britons - of whom, I dare

  say, he made the same complaint as Napoleon Bonaparte the great

  French General did, eighteen hundred years afterwards, when he said

  they were such unreasonable fellows that they never knew when they

  were beaten. They never DID know, I believe, and never will.

  Nearly a hundred years passed on, and all that time, there was

  peace in Britain. The Britons improved their towns and mode of

  life: became more civilised, travelled, and learnt a great deal

  from the Gauls and Romans. At last, the Roman Emperor, Claudius,

  sent AULUS PLAUTIUS, a skilful general, with a mighty force, to

  subdue the Island, and shortly afterwards arrived himself. They

  did little; and OSTORIUS SCAPULA, another general, came. Some of

  the British Chiefs of Tribes submitted. Others resolved to fight

  to the death. Of these brave men, the bravest was CARACTACUS, or

  CARADOC, who gave battle to the Romans, with his army, among the

  mountains of North Wales. 'This day,' said he to his soldiers,

  'decides the fate of Britain! Your liberty, or your eternal

  slavery, dates from this hour. Remember your brave ancestors, who

  drove the great Caesar himself across the sea!' On hearing these

  words, his men, with a great shout, rushed upon the Romans. But

  the strong Roman swords and armour were too much for the weaker

  British weapons in close conflict. The Britons lost the day. The

  wife and daughter of the brave CARACTACUS were taken prisoners; his

  brothers delivered themselves up; he himself was betrayed into the

  hands of the Romans by his false and base stepmother: and they

  carried him, and all his family, in triumph to Rome.

  But a great man will be great in misfortune, great in prison, great

  in chains. His noble air, and dignified endurance of distress, so

  touched the Roman people who thronged the streets to see him, that

  he and his family were restored to freedom. No one knows whether

  his great heart broke, and he died in Rome, or whether he ever

  returned to his own dear country. English oaks have grown up from

  acorns, and withered away, when they were hundreds of years old -

  and other oaks have sprung up in their places, and died too, very

  aged - since the rest of the history of the brave CARACTACUS was

  forgotten.

  Still, the Britons WOULD NOT yield. They rose again and again, and

  died by thousands, sword in hand. They rose, on every possible

  occasion. SUETONIUS, another Roman general, came, and stormed the

  Island of Anglesey (then called MONA), which was supposed to be

  sacred, and he burnt the Druids in their own wicker cages, by their

  own fires. But, even while he was in Britain, with his victorious

  Page 8

  Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England

  troops, the BRITONS rose. Because BOADICEA, a British queen, the

  widow of the King of the Norfolk and Suffolk people, resisted the

  plundering of her property by the Romans who were settled in

  England, she was scourged, by order of CATUS a Roman officer; and

  her two daughters were shamefully insulted in her presence, and her

  husband's relations were made slaves. To avenge this injury, the

  Britons rose, with all their might and rage. They drove CATUS into

  Gaul; they laid the Roman possessions waste; they forced the Romans

  out of London, then a poor little town, but a trading place; they

  hanged, burnt, crucified, and slew by the sword, seventy thousand

  Romans in a few days. SUETONIUS strengthened his army, and

  advanced to give them battle. They strengthened their army, and

  desperately attacked his, on the field where it was strongly

  posted. Before the first charge of the Britons was made, BOADICEA,

  in a war-chariot, with her fair hair streaming in the wind, and her

  injured daughters lying at her feet, drove among the troops, and

  cried to them for vengeance on their oppressors, the licentious

  Romans. The Britons fought to the last; but they were vanquished

  with great slaughter, and the unhappy queen took poison.

  Still, the spirit of the Britons was not broken. When SUETONIUS

  left the country, they fell upon his troops, and retook the Island

  of Anglesey. AGRICOLA came, fifteen or twenty years afterwards,

  and retook it once more, and devoted seven years to subduing the

  country, especially that part of it which is now called SCOTLAND;

  but, its people, the Caledonians, resisted him at every inch of

  ground. They fought the bloodiest battles with him; they killed

  their very wives and children, to prevent his making prisoners of

  them; they fell, fighting, in such great numbers that certain hills

  in Scotland are yet supposed to be vast heaps of stones piled up

  above their graves. HADRIAN came, thirty years afterwards, and

  still they resisted him. SEVERUS came, nearly a hundred years

  afterwards, and they worried his great army like dogs, and rejoiced

  to see them die, by thousands, in the bogs and swamps. CARACALLA,

  the son and successor of SEVERUS, did the most to conquer them, for

  a time; but not by force of arms. He knew how little that would

  do. He yielded up a quantity of land to the Caledonians, and gave

  the Britons the same privileges as the Romans possessed. There was

  peace, after this, for seventy years.

  Then new enemies arose. They were the Saxons, a fierce, sea-faring

  people from the countries to the North of the Rhine, the great

  river of Germany on the banks of which the best grapes grow to make

  the German wine. They began to come, in pirate ships, to the seacoast

  of Gaul and Britain, and to plunder them. They were repulsed

  by CARAUSIUS, a native either of Belgium or of Britain, who was

  appointed by the Romans to the command, and under whom the Britons

  first began to fight upon the sea. But, after this time, they

  renewed their ravages. A few years more, and the Scots (which was

  then the name for the people of Ireland), and the Picts, a northern

  people, began to make frequent plundering incursions into the South

  of Britain. All these attacks were repeated, at intervals, during

  two hundred years, and through a long succession of Roman Emperors

  and chiefs; during all which length of time, the Britons rose

  against the Romans, over and over again. At last, in the days of

  the Roman HONORIUS, when the Roman power all over the world was

  fast declining, and when Rome wanted all her soldiers at home, the

  Romans abandoned all hope of conquering Britain, and went away.

  And still, at last, as at first, the Britons rose against them, in

  their old brave manner; for, a very little while before, they had

  turned away the Roman magistrates, and declared themselves an

  independent people.

  Five hundred years had passed, since Julius Caesar's first invasion

  Page 9

  Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England

  of the Island, when the Romans departed
from it for ever. In the

  course of that time, although they had been the cause of terrible

  fighting and bloodshed, they had done much to improve the condition

  of the Britons. They had made great military roads; they had built

  forts; they had taught them how to dress, and arm themselves, much

  better than they had ever known how to do before; they had refined

  the whole British way of living. AGRICOLA had built a great wall

  of earth, more than seventy miles long, extending from Newcastle to

  beyond Carlisle, for the purpose of keeping out the Picts and

  Scots; HADRIAN had strengthened it; SEVERUS, finding it much in

  want of repair, had built it afresh of stone.

  Above all, it was in the Roman time, and by means of Roman ships,

  that the Christian Religion was first brought into Britain, and its

  people first taught the great lesson that, to be good in the sight

  of GOD, they must love their neighbours as themselves, and do unto

  others as they would be done by. The Druids declared that it was

  very wicked to believe in any such thing, and cursed all the people

  who did believe it, very heartily. But, when the people found that

  they were none the better for the blessings of the Druids, and none

  the worse for the curses of the Druids, but, that the sun shone and

  the rain fell without consulting the Druids at all, they just began

  to think that the Druids were mere men, and that it signified very

  little whether they cursed or blessed. After which, the pupils of

  the Druids fell off greatly in numbers, and the Druids took to

  other trades.

  Thus I have come to the end of the Roman time in England. It is

  but little that is known of those five hundred years; but some

  remains of them are still found. Often, when labourers are digging

  up the ground, to make foundations for houses or churches, they

  light on rusty money that once belonged to the Romans. Fragments

  of plates from which they ate, of goblets from which they drank,

  and of pavement on which they trod, are discovered among the earth

  that is broken by the plough, or the dust that is crumbled by the

  gardener's spade. Wells that the Romans sunk, still yield water;

  roads that the Romans made, form part of our highways. In some old

  battle-fields, British spear-heads and Roman armour have been

  found, mingled together in decay, as they fell in the thick

  pressure of the fight. Traces of Roman camps overgrown with grass,