2. Britain conquered by the Romans. The first people who went there who could write down accounts of what they saw were the Romans. Their chief city was Rome in Italy. They had conquered a great part of Europe, and part of Asia and of Africa. Fifty-five years before Christ, Julius Cæsar, a great Roman general, came with an army to Britain. He went back and returned the next year. Afterwards he became emperor, or commander of all the Roman armies, and ruler of the Romans and of all the people whom they had conquered. About a hundred years later, rather more than eighteen hundred years ago, another Roman emperor sent an army to Britain, and after some little time all South Britain, as far as the Firths of Clyde and Forth, was conquered.

3. The Roman Government of Britain.-Before the Romans came, the Britons lived in small tribes, each with a king of its own, and each one often fighting with its neighbours, like the Zulus in Africa now. The Romans did not kill the people they conquered, or drive them out. They treated them very much in the same way as the English, in our own time, have treated the people of India. They made good roads and built towns, and forced the people to live at peace. Wherever we find such a name as street, or anything like it, as Chester-leStreet, Stratton or Stratford, we know there was once a Roman road.

Wherever we find chester or caster, as in Winchester or Doncaster, we know that there was once a Roman garrison. The Romans were great builders, and the remains of some of

their fortifications are still to be seen. The streets of the towns swarmed with citizens. The richer people built comfortable country houses for themselves to live in. Corn was grown in abundance, and besides the tin mines of Cornwall there were mines of lead and iron. Christian missionaries arrived, and the people became Christian. In some parts the Latin language was spoken, but the conquered people for the most part continued to address one another in their own tongue. On the whole the Romans tried to rule justly. They encouraged trade, and made good laws in their dominions on the Continent, as well as in Britain, so that every man might have what belonged to him. All this was possible, just as it is possible in India, because there was peace in all the lands belonging to the Romans. There were soldiers at the frontier of the empire, to prevent the fierce Germans from bursting in to rob and kill. But inside the Roman frontier no tribe was allowed to fight with another.

4. The Romans leave Britain.-The Roman rule in Britain lasted for about three hundred and fifty years. Then the Roman army went away. The Romans had been attacked by their enemies, and they wanted their soldiers to come home to defend Italy. The Britons were left to take care of themselves. Unfortunately for them, the Romans had not taught them how to fight. They and their fathers had lived so long in peace that they did not know how to keep off an enemy. They were attacked by wild and fierce tribes-the Scots and Picts. At that time the Scots lived in Ireland,

though many of them afterwards crossed the sea to the part of Northern Britain where Argyleshire is now, and later on gave the name of Scotland, or the land of the Scots, to the northern part of the island. The Picts lived to the north of the Firths of Clyde and Forth before the Scots came. These Scots and Picts came amongst the Britons, plundering and killing. The Britons had always been defended by the Roman army, and feeling quite helpless they wrote to the Roman general to bring his soldiers back. The general did as he was asked, drove off the Scots and Picts, and then went away for ever. The Scots and Picts returned. A people which cannot defend itself is likely to meet with no mercy.

CHAPTER II.

THE ENGLISH CONQUEST.

1. Coming of the English.-The Britons spoke a language which was the same as that which some of the Welsh, who are descended from them, still speak. The Scots and Picts spoke a language not very different. Beyond the North Sea was a different people living on both sides of the mouth of the river Elbe. They were called Angles, and Saxons, and Jutes, speaking a language which was German, though it was not quite the same as the German spoken in Germany now, It is called Low German,

and was more like the Dutch language. The Angles, and Saxons, and Jutes were as fierce as the Scots and Picts. They had small vessels and were hardy sailors. They came across the sea, plundering,

and burning, and slaying, like the Scots and Picts. In the year 449, some Jutes, under two chiefs, named Hengist and Horsa, landed in the Isle of Thanet. Other chiefs with bands of armed followers landed in other parts of the island. They did not bring law

and order for the Britons as the Romans had done. They slew or drove away the Britons, and divided their land amongst themselves. They did not care to live in towns, as they had always been accustomed to live in the country. So they either burnt the towns and left them desolate, or else suffered them to decay till at a later time they too learned to live in towns and to trade.

2. Fate of a Roman Town near Pevensey.-A curious example of the way in which the towns were treated is to be found on the coast of Sussex, between Hastings and Eastbourne. There is to be seen the spot where once was the flourishing Roman city of Anderida. The Roman walls are still there, firmly built with that mortar which the Romans knew how to make, and which is harder than even the stones which it binds together. Inside is a green flat space with no trace of any building except in one corner, where are the ruins of a castle built there long after the days of the Romans. The Saxon conqueror could not destroy the city wall. He destroyed the houses inside it. He liked better to live outside. Two little villages in front of the old gates of the City tell us by their names the language to which they belong and what sort of men they were who came there. To the West is West Hamthat is to say, the western home of some settler whose name we do not know. To the East is Pevensey, the meaning of which name is the Island of Peofn ; and Peofn, no doubt, was the one amongst the conquerors who fixed his abode there.

3 Gradual conquest of Britain.-These Saxons and