University of Virginia Library

The legendary and romantic name of London.

The foundation of the Tower of London, by Cæsar—

Holinshed, quoting Hector Boece, says, Now when he (Vortigern) with treason, fraud, and great deceit, at length obtained that for which he had long looked, he first of all furnished the Tower of London with a strong garrison of men of warre.

Cassivelaunus, the King of Britain, opposed to Julius Cæsar.

Boadicea, in Fletcher's play she is called Bonduca.

A great supper therefore was prepared by Hengist, at the which it pleased the king to be present, and appointed his daughter, when everie man began to be somewhat merrie with drinke, to bring in a cup of gold full of good and pleasant wine, and to present it to the king, saieng, Wassail. Which she did in such comely and decent manner, as she that knew how to doo it well ineugh. So as the king marvelled greatlie thereat, and not understanding what she meant by that salutation, demanded what it signified. To whom it was answered by Hengist, that she wished him well, and the meaning of it was, that he should drink affter her, thereto forming this answer, Drinke, haile. Whereupon the king, as he was informed, tooke the cup at the damsels hand and drunke.

Finallie this young ladie behaved herself with such pleasant words, comelie countenance, and amiable grace, that the king beheld her so long, till he felt himself so farre in love with her person, that he burned in continuall desire to enjoy the same; insomuch, that shortlie after he forsooke his own wife, by whom he had three sones, Vortimerus, Catagrinus, and Pascentius, and required of Hengist to have his daughter, the said Rowen or Rowena in marriage ------ and so the marriage was concluded and solemnised; all Kent being assigned unto Hengist in reward, the which countrie was before that governed by one Guorongus (though not with most equall justice), which Guorongus was subject unto Vortigern, as all other the potentats of the Ile were.

Ovid. Metamorphos. lib. iv.—I do not believe that I had seen even a cast of Canova's statue when this was written; but it perhaps resembles the statue more than the passage of Ovid, on which it was grounded, rather than imitated.

The political state of Britain at this period, after the final retirement of the Roman forces, is not very clearly known. “At length the connexion between Britain and Rome was entirely severed. Britain broke, as it were, into various independent and rival communities.” —Palgrave's History of England, p. 29.

I imagined Samor the king of the Dobuni, the inhabitants of the beautiful Gloucestershire valleys.

See the Letter, taken from Gildas, in Hume.

See the Preface.

I am amused at finding in Sir F. Palgrave's History a sort of resemblance to traditions which I picked up, I scarcely know where, in our old writers:—“As far as we can judge, two great parties prevailed in the southern tracts of our island. A Roman party, headed by Aurelius Ambrosius, a chieftain of imperial descent, who claimed or acquired the imperial dignity; and another, supporting the cause of the too famous Vortigern.”—Page 29. I did not expect to find myself so near to authentic history. On the other hand my friend, Sir Francis, seems inclined to resolve into poetry much of that which my authorities, the old chroniclers, relate as grave history. Of the whole story of Vortigern and Rowena, of Hengist and Horsa, he thus writes, as a disciple of Niebuhr's historical school:—“I conceive (these details) bear no nearer relation to the real history of Anglo-Saxon England, than the story of Æneas, as related by Virgil, does to the real history of the foundation of Rome. We may seek for the groundwork of the narrative in the historical ballads of the Anglo-Saxons, in which their early enterprises were commemorated. And even the names of Hengist and Horsa seem only to be epithets derived from their standard, the snow-white Steed, which still appears as the ensign of Kent, in England, as it anciently did in the shield of the ‘Old Saxons,’ in Germany.” Yet, with due deference to our learned antiquarian, are not most of these British, rather than Anglo-Saxon, traditions?

He is so decorated by the Welsh Poets. See Translation of the Brut of Tysilio, by Peter Roberts.

I took this from Mr. Ellis's abstract of the Metrical Romance of Merlin. The reader, if he is curious in such matters, may find how Merlin happened to be born in this state, in “Ellis's Metrical Romances,” vol. i. p. 223.

Proprium gentis, equorum quoque præsagia ac monitus experiri: publicè aluntur iisdem nemoribus ac lucis. Candidi, et nullo mortali opere contacti, quos pressos sacro curru sacerdos ac rex vel princeps civitatis comitantur, hinnitusque ac fremitus observant. Tac. Germ.

Insigne gentis obliquare crinem, nodoque substringere—In altitudinem quamdam et terrorem, adituri bella, compte, ut hostium oculis, ornantur. Tac. Germ. 38.

On the Vikinger, and the more savage Berserkir, see Turner's Anglo-Saxon History, vol. i. p. 462, &c.

Cimbri parva nunc civitas sed gloriâ ingens. Tac. Germ.

Lucan.

Homo autem quem sors immolandum obtulerat, in fontem qui ad locum sacrificiorum scaturiebat, vivus immergebatur: qui si facile efflaret animam, faustum renunciabant sacerdotes votum: moxque inde ereptum in vicinum nemus, quod sacrum credebant, suspendentes, inter Deos translatum affirmabant. Quo factum erat, ut beatum se crederet, qui eo immolatione e vivis excederet. Accidit nonnunquam reges ipsos simili sorte delectos victimari. Quod quia faustissimum regno libamen æstimabatur, totius populi multitudo cum summâ congratulatione tam insignes victimas prosequebantur. Enimvero sic defunctos non omnino mori, sed tam illos quam se ipsos immortales esse. Olaus Magnus, book iii. cap. 6.

Vortimer, or Guortemir, according to Nennius, the son of Vortigern, did keep up a brave and successful warfare against the Saxons, until the return of Hengist with an overpowering force. See Nennius and Mr. Turner's Anglo-Saxon History, vol. i. p. 243, The death of Horsa I reserved for a later part of the poem.

I fear that I have, not very correctly, introduced a classical vulgar error about the beauty of the notes of the dying swan, where it was not likely to prevail.

Norfolk and Suffolk, the kingdom of the Iceni, of which Boadicea was Queen.

The remains of Roman cities, villas, and baths, so frequently discovered, show that Britain, under the Romans, had attained to a high state of civilization; in some parts, no doubt, to luxury.

The German popular name for Arminius.

The part of Salisbury Plain near Ambresbury is the place where tradition places this scene.

Salisbury.—Sarisburga, qu. Cæsaris burga.

From the Morgante of Pulci.

“Of this kind of weapon they had two sorts, the one whereof being long were worn for swords, and the other being short, as hangers or sword-knives, and these they called hand-seaxes, and such they were which after their coming into Britain, they had still in use, and did weare privately hanging under their long skirted coates; wherewith, at a banquet on Salisbury plaine where Hengistus had envited king Vortiges, and about 300 of his nobles, the watch-word, Nem eowr seaxes, that is, take your seaxes, being given, were all of them suddenly slain.” —Verstegan, Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, p. 22; see also p. 130.

“Amongst other of the Britains, there was one Edol, earle of Gloucester, (Eldulph de Samor), or (as others say) Chester, which got a stake out of an hedge or elsewhere, and with the same so defended himself, and laid about him, that he slew seventeen of the Saxons, and escaped to the town of Ambrie, now called Salisburie; and so saved his own life.” —Holinshed, b. v. c. 5.

I have made Ambri, Amesbury, and Salisbury different towns.

It is said that no one has ever been able to count the stones of Stonehenge.