The Evolution of an Empire: A Brief Historical Sketch of England

he history of England

ime when no sea flowed

inent extended from th

kn

s briefly told in a few human fragments found in these "Cromlechs." These remains do not bear the royal marks of Aryan origin. The men were small in stature, with inferior skull

thing herself with a mantle of beauty, which the world for two thousand years has striven in vain to imitate, there was lyi

ped like beehives, which they covered with branches and plastered with mud. While Phidias was carving immortal statues for the Parthenon, this early Britisher was decorating his abode w

asion, 55 B.C. Britain

cea 6

ee or four hundred years before Christ, but not until Caesar's invas

apless land; and in 45 A.D., under the Emperor Claudius, it became a Roman province. In vain did the Britons struggle for forty years. In vain did the heroic Boadicea (during the reign of Nero, 61 A.D.), like Hermann in Germany, and Vercingetorix in France, resist the destruc

of miserable huts and entrenched cattle-pens, which were in Keltic speech called the "Fort-on-the-Lake"-or "Llyndin," an uncouth n

rt to civilize was forcibly planted upon the island. Where had been the humble village, protected by a ditch and felled trees, there arose the walled ci

oms, habits, and manners. Dwelling in wretched cabins thatched with straw and chinked with mud, they still stubbornly maintained their own uncouth speech and nationality, while they helplessly s

or, if possible, the vanquished retreated before the vanquisher into Wales and Cornwal

o leaping the rocky wall set by nature between the North and the South; and unless it were maintained by a line of legions extending its entire length, they must have laughed at such a defence; even when duplicated later, as it was, by the Emperor Hadrian, in 120 A.D.; and stil

id system, which had not benefited, but had simply crushed out of him his original vigor. Together with Roman villas, and vice, and luxury, had also come Christianity. But the Briton,

n Legions Withd

ive race were left helpless and alone to fight their battles with the Picts and Scots;-that fierce Briton offshoot which had for cent

cousins, the Gauls, they invited the Teutons from across the se

Not so the Angles and Saxons, who came pouring into Britain from Schleswig-Holstein. They were uncontaminated pagans. In scorn of Roman luxury, they set the torch to the villas, and temples and baths. They came, exte

ishman to-day carries with him a little England wherever he goes). Their religion, habits, and manners they stamped upon the helpless Britons. In spite of King Arthur, and his knights, and his sword "Excalibar,"

ury. What sort of a race were they? Would we understand England to-day, we must understand them. It is not sufficient to know that they were bearded and stalwart, fair and ruddy,

nature had placed them in strong, vehement, ravenous

no gleam of poetry, no light-hearted rhythm in his soul, has yet chaotic glimpses of the sublime in his earnest, gloomy nature. He gives little promise of culture, but much of heroism. There is, too, a reaching after something grand and invisible, which is a deep rel

el to the English gentleman "taking his pleasures sadly," all are accounted for; and Hampden, Milton, Crom

centuries and change. A strong sense of justice, and a resolute resistance to encroachments upon personal liberty, are the warp and woof of Anglo-Saxon character yesterday, to-day and forever

which was the individual free-man. The family was considered the social unit. Several families near together made a township, t

of difficult questions, exist the future legislature and judiciary, while in the king, or "alder-mann" ("Ealdorman") we see not an oppressor

on Keltic-Briton foundation, should have been effaced utterly, and that this strong untamed humanity, even cruel and terrible as it was, should replace it. Roman laws, langu

on had toughened it. Genius makes a splendid spire, but a poor corner-stone. It would seem that the Keltic race, brilliant and richly endowed, was still unsuited to the world in its higher stages of development. In Britain, Gaul, and Spain they were displaced and absorbed by the Germanic races. And now for long centuries no Keltic people of importance has maintained its independence; the Gaelic of the Scotch Highlands and of Ireland, the native dialect of the

would have altered not alone the fate of a nation, but the History of the World. Our barbarian ancestors brought from Schleswig-Holstein a rough, clean, strong foundation for what was to become a new type of hum

utonic Invasi

It was only when Cerdic and his Saxons placed foot on British soil(495 A.D.) that the real drama began. And when the Angles shortly afterward followed and occupied all that the Saxons had not appropriated (the

lish Kingdoms

years tried to annihilate each other; then, finally submitting to the strongest, united completely,-as only children of one household of nations can do. The Saxons had been for two centuries dominating more and mor

Egbert (Ecgberht), descendant of Cerdic (the "Alder-mann"), was consolidating a less imposing

ever paganized. With fiery zeal, her people not alone maintained the religion of the Cross at home, but even drove back the h

ually outrunning Latin Christianity in activity, and he was spurr