were put to death for their religion here as well as in other places. The first martyr in Britain is said to have been Saint Alban, who was put to death at Verulam in 304, in the reign of Diocletian. A famous abbey was afterwards built there in his memory, and a town arose round it which still bears his Old Verulam, which stood a little way off, was for saken, and the church and town of Saint Albans were built with its bricks.

name

The first Emperor who became a Christian was Constantine. He is said to have been born in Britain, and his mother Helen to have been a Briton. It is certain that it was in Britain that he was proclaimed Emperor in 306, on the death of his father Constantius. After his time all the Emperors were Christians, except Julian, who became a heathen again. He is therefore often called Julian the Apostate, that is, one who falls away or forsakes his religion. But Julian was nevertheless in many things a good man and a good Emperor, very much better than many of those who called themselves Christians. When the Emperors became Christians, other people gradually followed their example, and the whole Empire was converted. Churches were built and Bishopricks founded. There are said to have been three Archbishopricks in Britain, at London, York, and Caerleon, those being then the three chief cities of the island. But very little is known for certain about the old British Church, and it does not really matter very much to us Englishmen. How our own forefathers became Christians I shall tell you another time.

If we reckon from the first coming over of Claudius, we may say that Britain was a Roman Province from 43 to 410; that is, 367 years. How the Roman power came to an end in the island I will tell you in my next chapter.

CHAPTER IV.

HOW BRITAIN BECAME ENGLAND.

AFTER Britain had been a Roman Province for about three hundred and fifty years, the Roman power began to get very much weaker. New nations began to be heard of, and they were often very troublesome to the Empire in different places. The Teutonic nations, that is, as I before told you, the race of men to which we ourselves belong, still for the most part remained free. The Romans could never conquer more than a small part of Germany; they never could keep much of the country either east of the Rhine or north of the Danube. They tried indeed very hard in the time of Augustus, and invaded Germany many times. But our kinsfolk always resisted them very bravely. There was especially one famous German chief, Irmin or Arminius, who destroyed a whole Roman army, and was called the deliverer of Germany.

Now I have told you about Caradoc and Boadicea, and it is right that you should know about them and care for them. But you should care for Arminius a great deal more, for though he did not live in our land, he was our own kinsman, our bone and our flesh. If he had not hindered the Romans from conquering Germany, we should not now be talking English; perhaps we should not be a nation at all. Happily the Romans never conquered Germany; and as for our other kinsfolk in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, the Romans never even tried to conquer them-they hardly knew that there were such countries. So a large part of Europe was still quite free, though its people were still very wild and ignorant, what is called uncivilized. But we should always think with reverence of our own fathers and kinsfolk, and think what

great nations have grown out of the people who were then looked down upon as Barbarians. For the Greeks, and after them the Romans, called all people who could not speak their tongue Barbarians, just as our forefathers called those who could not speak their tongue Welsh. There was a time when the Greeks called the Romans themselves Barbarians, and after that there was a time when the Romans called Gauls and Spaniards Barbarians. But now that all people within the Roman Empire were reckoned to be Romans, Barbarian meant those nations who lived beyond the bounds of the Empire, and who did not speak either Greek or Latin. Most of the Barbarians whom we now hear of were Teutons, though, of course, in Ireland and Scotland the Barbarians were Celts. Now towards the end of the fourth century after Christ there was no longer any fear of the Romans conquering the Germans; on the other hand, the Teutonic nations began to press into the Roman Empire. Our kinsfolk were now something like what the Romans themselves had been ages before. They were strong and brave and hardy, and had many virtues which the Romans had lost. There was always more or less fighting going on along the borders of the Empire, and the Barbarians themselves often served in the Roman armies. And as the Roman power grew weaker, and as good soldiers were less and less to be found within the Empire, the Roman armies became more and more filled with Barbarians who served as what are called mercenaries. By mercenaries I mean soldiers who are not fighting for their own country, but who are ready to serve any king or commonwealth that will take them into pay. when any nation learns to trust chiefly to mercenaries, you may be sure that that nation will not long remain free. So it was with the great Roman Empire. The Teutons, by sometimes fighting against the Romans and sometimes serving with the Romans, gradually came to be better soldiers than the Romans themselves, and they at last learned to conquer those who had once conquered them. Various Teutonic chiefs with their followers pressed into the Empire, and though for some while they professed some sort of obedience to the Roman Emperors, the lands which they held soon grew into indepen

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dent kingdoms. Thus the Franks pressed into Northern Gaul, and from them part of Germany and part of Gaul came to be called Francia or the land of the Franks; the name still remains in Franken or Franconia and also in that part of Gaul which is called France. The Burgundians settled in the south-east part of Gaul, the part nearest to Italy, which was for a long time after called the Kingdom of Burgundy. The West-Goths, after wandering about the Empire for some time, at last, under their King Alaric, took Rome in 410, but they did not stay in Italy, and in the end they founded a great kingdom, partly in Spain, partly in Aquitaine or Southern Gaul. The Vandals first settled in Spain, and then crossed over into Africa, and there founded a kingdom whose capital was the famous city of Carthage. At last, in_476, an end was put for a while to the succession of Roman Emperors in Italy. The Emperors still reigned in the East at Constantinople, but, first Odoacer, King of the Heruli, and then the great Theodoric, King of the East-Goths, reigned in Italy. They professed to be subjects of the Empire, generals serving under the Emperor's authority, and they went on appointing a Roman Consul every year; but they really were independent Kings. Thus Rome itself was for a while cut off from the Roman Empire; I say for a while, because in the sixth century both Italy and Africa were recovered for a time by the Eastern Emperors. Thus the Roman Empire went on in the East, where the Teutonic nations did not settle, till its last fragments were destroyed by the Turks, who took Constantinople in 1453. And during all that time the people of the Eastern Empire, though they spoke Greek and not Latin, still called themselves Romans, and in many parts the Christian people who are now in bondage to the Turks call themselves Romans still.

Thus the Empire went on in the East, the people calling themselves Romans, but being really not so much Romans as Greeks. Meanwhile in the West the Teutonic nations settled. Now in the Southern countries, in Italy, Spain, and Aquitaine, the Goths and other Teutonic people gradually mixed with the Romans. They became Christians—indeed most of them were Christians before they settled within the Empire-and they gradually learned to speak Latin. Of course the Latin

language became corrupted and mixed up with other tongues, and thus arose the languages of Southern Europe, Italian, Provençal,1 Spanish, and French. These are called the Romance languages, because they are all derived from Latin, the language of Rome. But the French tongue came up much later than any of the others, because those of the Franks who settled in Northern Gaul, though they became Christians, did not mix so much with the Romans as the Goths and Burgundians did, but remained a purely German people for a very long time.

Now while the other Teutonic nations were conquering other parts of the Roman Empire, the greater part of Britain was also conquered by our own forefathers, the Angles and Saxons. But it was conquered in a very different way from the rest of the Empire. One difference, I think, must strike you at once, almost without my telling you. You know that we still speak, not a Romance, but a Teutonic tongue. A great many French and Latin words are mixed up with our real OldEnglish, but these words came in at a much later time; they are mere strangers, many of which we could do just as well without. Those of you who have learned French and German know that many words are the same in English and French, but those words are not the commonest words which we are speaking every moment. But you know also that those words which are the true life of a tongue, those without which we could not get on at all, are the same in German and in English, and are quite unlike French. You can make many sentences together about common things which shall not have one French or Latin word in them; but you cannot make the shortest English sentence out of French or Latin words only, without using Teutonic words. That is to say, though English, as we now speak it, has many more foreign words in it than German, or Flemish, or Danish has, yet it still is a Teutonic tongue. And I must here tell you another thing. Though there is so close a likeness between English and

1 That is the language of Southern Gaul, called from Provincia or Provence, that part of Gaul which first became a Roman Province, and which has kept the name ever since. The Provençal language is as different from French as Italian or Spanish is, and it must not be thought to be "bad French," as ignorant people often call it.