Part 103

The popular excitement produced in England in 1831 by the action of the House of Lords in rejecting the Reform Bill, led to riots in several places, but most seriously at Bristol. "The Bristol mobs have always been noted for their brutality; and the outbreak now was such as to amaze and confound the the whole kingdom. … {318} The lower parts of the city were the harbourage of probably a worse seaport populace than any other place in England, while the police was ineffective and demoralised. There was no city in which a greater amount of savagery lay beneath a society proud, exclusive, and mutually repellent, rather than enlightened and accustomed to social co-operation. These are circumstances which go far to account for the Bristol riots being so fearfully bad as they were. Of this city, Sir Charles Wetherell—then at the height of his unpopularity as a vigorous opponent of the Reform Bill—was recorder; and there he had to go, in the last days of October, in his judicial capacity. … The symptoms of discontent were such as to induce the mayor, Mr. Pinney, to apply to the home-office for military aid. Lord Melbourne sent down some troops of horse, which were quartered within reach, in the neighbourhood of the city. … Sir Charles Wetherell could not be induced to relinquish his public entry, though warned of the danger by the magistrates themselves. … On Saturday, October 29, Sir Charles Wetherell entered Bristol in pomp; and before he reached the Mansion House at noon, he must have been pretty well convinced, by the hootings and throwing of stones, that he had better have foregone the procession. For some hours the special constables and the noisy mob in front of the Mansion House exchanged discourtesies of an emphatic character, but there was no actual violence till night. At night, the Mansion House was attacked, and the Riot Act was read; but the military were not brought down, as they ought to have been, to clear the streets. The mayor had 'religious scruples,' and was 'humane'; and his indecision was not overborne by any aid from his brother-magistrates. When the military were brought in, it was after violence had been committed, and when the passions of the mob were much excited. Sir Charles Wetherell escaped from the city that night. During the dark hours, sounds were heard provocative of further riot; shouts in the streets, and the hammering of workmen who were boarding up the lower windows of the Mansion House and the neighbouring dwellings. On the Sunday morning, the rioters broke into the Mansion House without opposition; and from the time they got into the cellars, all went wrong. Hungry wretches and boys broke the necks of the bottles, and Queen Square was strewed with the bodies of the dead-drunk. The soldiers were left without orders, and their officers without that sanction of the magistracy in the absence of which they could not act, but only parade; and in this parading, some of the soldiers naturally lost their tempers, and spoke and made gestures on their own account, which did not tend to the soothing of the mob. This mob never consisted of more than five or six hundred. … The mob declared openly what they were going to do; and they went to work unchecked—armed with staves and bludgeons from the quays, and with iron palisades from the Mansion House—to break open and burn the bridewell, the jail, the bishop's palace, the custom-house, and Queen Square. They gave half an hour's notice to the inhabitants of each house in the square, which they then set fire to in regular succession, till two sides, each measuring 550 feet, lay in smoking ruins. The bodies of the drunken were seen roasting in the fire. The greater number of the rioters were believed to be under twenty years of age, and some were mere children; some Sunday scholars, hitherto well conducted, and it may be questioned whether one in ten knew anything of the Reform Bill, or the offences of Sir Charles Wetherell. On the Monday morning, after all actual riot seemed to be over, the soldiery at last made two slaughterous charges. More horse arrived, and a considerable body of foot soldiers; and the constabulary became active; and from that time the city was in a more orderly state than the residents were accustomed to see it. … The magistrates were brought to trial, and so was Colonel Brereton, who was understood to be in command of the whole of the military. The result of that court-martial caused more emotion throughout the kingdom than all the slaughtering and burning, and the subsequent executions which marked that fearful season. It was a year before the trial of the magistrates was entered upon. The result was the acquittal of the mayor, and the consequent relinquishment of the prosecution of his brother-magistrates."

_H. Martineau, A History of the Thirty Years' Peace, book 4, chapter 4 (volume 2)._

BRISTOL: End----------

BRITAIN, Count and Duke of. The military commanders of Roman Britain.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 323-337, also ARTHUR, KING.

BRITAIN, The name.

See BRITANNIA.

BRITAIN: Celtic Tribes.

"It appears that the southeastern part of the island, or the district now occupied by the county of Kent, was occupied by the Cantii, a large and influential tribe, which in Cæsar's time, was divided among four chiefs or kings. To the west, the Regni held the modern counties of Sussex and Surrey, from the sea-coast to the Thames. Still farther west, the Belgæ occupied the country from the southern coast to the Bristol Channel, including nearly the whole of Hampshire, Wiltshire and Somersetshire. The whole of the extensive district extending from the Belgæ to the extreme western point of the island, then called Antivestæum or Bolerium (now the Land's End) including Devonshire and Cornwall, was occupied by the Dumnonii, or Damnonii. On the coast between the Dumnonii and the Belgæ the smaller tribe of the Durotriges held the modern county of Dorset. On the other side of the Thames, extending northwards to the Stour, and including the greater part of Middlesex as well as Essex, lay the Trinobantes. To the north of the Stour dwelt the Iceni, extending over the counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge and Huntingdon. The Coritavi possessed the present counties of Northampton, Leicester, Rutland, Derby, Nottingham and Lincoln; and the south-eastern part of Yorkshire was held by the Parisi. Between the tribes last enumerated, in the counties of Buckingham, Bedford and Hertford, lay the tribe called by Ptolemy the Catyeuchlani, and by others Catuvellani. Another name, apparently, for this tribe, or for a division of it, was the Cassii. West of these were the Atrebates, in Berkshire; and still further west were the Dobuni, in the counties of Oxford and Gloucester. … The interior of the island northward was occupied by the Brigantes, who held the extensive districts, difficult of approach on account of their mountains and woods, extending from the Humber and the Mersey to the present borders of Scotland. This extensive tribe appears to have included several smaller ones [the Voluntii, the Sestuntii, the Jugantes and the Cangi]. {319} The Brigantes are believed to have been the original inhabitants of the island, who had been driven northward by successive invasions. … Wales, also, was inhabited by a primitive population. The northern counties … was the territory of the Ordovices. The southeastern counties … were held by the Demetae. The still more celebrated tribe of the Silures inhabited the modern counties of Hereford, Radnor, Breeknoek, Monmouth and Clamorgan. Between these and the Brigantes lay the Cornabii or Carnabii. The wilder parts of the island of Britain, to the north of the Brigantes, were inhabited by a great number of smaller tribes, some of whom seem to have been raised in the scale of civilization little above savages. Of these we have the names of no less than twenty-one. Bordering on the Brigantes were the Otadeni, inhabiting the coast from the Tyne to the Firth of Forth. … Next to them were the Gadeni. … The Selgovæ inhabited Annandale, Nithsdale and Eskdale, in Dumfriesshire, with the East of Galloway. The Novantes inhabited the remainder of Galloway. The Damnii, a larger tribe, held the country from the chain of hills separating Galloway from Carrick, northward to the river Ern. These tribes lay to the south of the Forth and Clyde. Beyond the narrow boundary formed by these rivers lay [the Horestii, the Venricones or Vernicomes, the Taixali or Taexali, the Vacomagi, the Albani, the Cantæ, the Logi, the Carnabii, the Catini, the Mertæ, the Carnonacæ, the Creones, the Cerones, and the Epidii]. The ferocious tribe of the Attacotti inhabited part of Argyleshire, and the greater part of Dumbartonshire. The wild forest country of the interior, known as the Caledonia Sylva (or Forest of Celyddon), extended from the ridge of mountains between Inverness and Perth, northward to the forest of Balnagowan, including the middle parts of Inverness and Ross, was held by the Caledonii, which appears to have been at this time [of the conquests of Agricola] the most important and powerful of all the tribes north of the Brigantes."

_T. Wright, The Celt, the Roman and the Saxon, chapter 2._

ALSO IN: _J. Rhys, Celtic Britain._

_J. F. Skene, Celtic Scotland, book 1, chapter 2._

BRITAIN: B. C. 55-54. Cæsar's invasions.

Having extended his conquests in Gaul to the British Channel and the Strait of Dover (see GAUL: B. C. 58-51), Cæsar crossed the latter, in August, B. C. 55, and made his first landing in Britain, with two legions, numbering 8,000 to 10,000 men. Portus Itius, from which he sailed, was probably either Wissant or Boulogne, and his landing place on the British coast is believed to have been near Deal. The Britons disputed his landing with great obstinacy, but were driven back, and offered to submit; but when a few days afterwards, Cæsar's fleet suffered greatly from a storm, they reconsidered their submission and opened hostilities again. Routed in a second battle, they once more sued for peace, and gave hostages; whereupon Cæsar reembarked his troops and returned to the continent, having remained in Britain not more than three weeks and penetrated the island a short distance only. The following summer he crossed to Britain again, determined on making a thorough conquest of the country. This time he had five legions at his back, with two thousand horse, and the expedition was embarked on more than eight hundred ships. He sailed from and landed at the same points as before. Having established and garrisoned a fortified camp, he advanced into the country, encountering and defeating the Britons, first, at a river, supposed to be the Stour which flows past Canterbury. A storm which damaged his fleet then interrupted his advance, compelling him to return to the coast. When the disaster had been repaired he marched again, and again found the enemy on the Stour, assembled under the command of Cassivelaunus, whose kingdom was north of the Thames. He dispersed them, after much fighting, with great slaughter, and crossed the Thames, at a point, it is supposed, near the junction of the Wey. Thence he pushed on until he reached the "oppidum" or stronghold of Cassivelaunus, which is believed by some to have been on the site of the modern town of St. Albans,—but the point is It disputed one. On receiving the submission of Cassivelaunus, and of other chiefs, or kings, fixing the tribute they should pay and taking hostages, Cæsar returned to the coast, reembarked his army and withdrew. His stay in Britain on this occasion was about sixty days.

_Cæsar, Gallic War, book 4, chapters 20-36, and book 7, chapters 7-33._

ALSO IN: _H. M. Scarth, Roman Britain, chapter 2._

_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 4, chapters 9 and 11-12._

_T. Lewin, Invasion of Britain by Cæsar._

_F. T. Vine, Cæsar in Kent._

_E. Guest, Origines Celticæ, volume 2._

BRITAIN: A. D. 43-53. Conquests of Claudius.

Nearly a hundred years passed after Cæsar's hasty invasion of Britain before the Romans reappeared on the island, to enforce their claim of tribute. It was under the fourth of the imperial successors of Julius Cæsar, the feeble Claudius, that the work of Roman conquest in Britain was really begun. Aulus Plautius, who commanded in Gaul, was sent over with four legions, A. D. 43, to obtain a footing and to smooth the way for the Emperor's personal campaign. With him went one, Vespasian, who began in Britain to win the fame which pushed him into the imperial seat and to a great place in Roman history. Plautius and Vespasian made good their occupation of the country as far as the Thames, and planted their forces strongly on the northern bank of that river; before they summoned the Emperor to their aid. Claudius came before the close of the military season, and his vanity was gratified by the nominal leading of an advance on the chief oppidum, or stronghold of the Britons, called Camulodunum, which occupied the site of the modern city of Colchester. The Trinobantes, whose capital it was, were beaten and the place surrendered. Satisfied with this easy victory, the Emperor returned to Rome, to enjoy the honors of a triumph; while Vespasian, in command of the second legion, fought his way, foot by foot, into the southwest of the island, and subjugated the obstinate tribes of that region. During the next ten years, under the command of Ostorius Scapula, who succeeded Plautius, and Avitus Didius Gallus, who succeeded Ostorius, the Roman power was firmly settled in southern Britain, from the Stour, at the East, to the Exe and the Severn at the West. The Silures, of South Wales, who had resisted most stubbornly, under Caractacus, the fugitive Trinobantine prince, were subdued and Caractacns made captive. The Iceni (in Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridge-shire) were reduced from allies to sullen dependents. The Brigantes, most powerful of all the tribes, and who held the greater part of the whole north of modern England, were still independent, but distracted by internal dissensions which Roman influence was active in keeping alive. This, stated briefly, was the extent to which the conquest of Britain was carried during the reign of Claudius, between A. D. 43 and 54.

_C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 51._

ALSO IN: _E. Guest, Origines Celticæ, volume 2, part 2, chapter 13._

_H. M. Scarth, Roman Britain, chapter 4._

See, also, COLCHESTER, ORIGIN OF.

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BRITAIN: A. D. 61. Campaigns of Suetonius Paulinus.

From A. D. 50 to 61, while Didius Gallus and his successor Veranius commanded in Britain, nothing was done to extend the Roman acquisitions. In the latter year, Suetonius Paulinus came to the command, and a stormy period of war ensued. His first movement was to attack the Druids in the isle of Mona, or Anglesey, into which they had retreated from Gaul and Britain, in successive flights, before the implacable hostility of Rome. "In this gloomy lair, secure apparently, though shorn of might and dignity, they still persisted in the practice of their unholy superstition. … Here they retained their assemblies, their schools, and their oracles; here was the asylum of the fugitives; here was the sacred grove, the abode of the awful deity, which in the stillest noon of night or day the priest himself scarce ventured to enter lest he should rush unwittingly into the presence of its lord." From Segontium (modern Caernarvon) Suetonius crossed the Menai Strait on rafts and boats with one of his legions, the Batavian cavalry swimming their horses. The landing was fiercely disputed by women and men, priests and worshippers; but Roman valor bore down all resistance. "From this moment the Druids disappear from the page of history; they were exterminated, we may believe, upon their own altars; for Suetonius took no half measures." This accomplished, the Roman commander was quickly called upon to meet a terrific outburst of patriotic rage on the part of the powerful nation of the Iceni, who occupied the region now forming the counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, and Huntingdon. They had been allies of the Romans, first; then tributaries, under their own king, and finally subjects, much oppressed. Their last king, Prasutagus, had vainly hoped to win favor for his wife and children, when he died, by bequeathing his kingdom to the Roman State. But the widowed queen, Boudicea, or Boadicea, and her daughters, were only exposed with more helplessness to the insolence and the outrages of a brutal Roman officer. They appealed to their people and maddened them by the exposure of indescribable wrongs. The rising which ensued was fierce and general beyond precedent. "The Roman officials fled, or, if arrested, were slaughtered; and a vast multitude, armed and unarmed, rolled southward to overwhelm and extirpate the intruders. To the Colne, to the Thames, to the sea, the country lay entirely open." The colony at Camulodunum (Colchester), was destroyed; Verulamium (St. Albans), and Londinium (London), were sacked and burned; not less than 70,000 of the Romans in Britain were slaughtered without mercy. Suetonius made haste to quit Anglesey when the dreadful news reached him, and pressed, with all speed, along the great highway of Watling Street—gathering up his forces in hand as he went—to reach the awful scene of rage and terror. He had collected but 10,000 men when he confronted, at last, the vast swarm of the insurgents, on a favorable piece of ground that he had secured, in the neighborhood of Camulodunum. But, once more, the valor of undisciplined semi-barbarism wrecked itself on the firm shields of the Roman cohorts, and 80,000 Britons are said to have fallen in the merciless fight. The insurrection was crushed and Roman authority in Britain reaffirmed. But the grim Suetonius dealt so harshly with the broken people that even Rome remonstrated, and he was, presently, recalled, to give place to a more pacific commander.

_C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 51._

ALSO IN: _H. M. Scarth, Roman Britain, chapter 5._

_T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 5._

BRITAIN: A. D. 78-84. Campaigns of Agricola.

For seventeen years after the recall of Suetonius Paulinus (A. D. 61) there was a suspension of Roman conquest in Britain. The military power in the island suffered great demoralization, resulting naturally from the chaos of affairs at Rome, between Nero and Vespasian. These conditions ceased soon after the accession of the Flavian Emperor, and he, who had attained first in Britain the footing from which he climbed to the throne, interested himself in the spreading of his sovereignty over the whole of the British island. C. Julius Agricola was the soldier and statesman—a great man in each character—whom he selected for the work. Agricola was made prefect or Governor of Britain, A. D. 78. "Even in his first summer, when he had been but a few months in the island, and when none even of his own officers expected active service, Agricola led his forces into the country of the Ordovices, in whose mountain passes the war of independence still lingered, drove the Britains across the Menai Straits and pursued them into Anglesey, as Suetonius had done before him, by boldly crossing the boiling current in the face of the enemy. Another summer saw him advance northward into the territory of the Brigantes, and complete the organization of the district, lately reduced, between the Humber and Tyne. Struck perhaps with the natural defences of the line from the Tyne to the Solway, where the island seems to have broken, as it were, in the middle and soldered unevenly together, he drew a chain of forts from sea to sea. … In the third year of his command, Agricola pushed forward along the eastern coast, and, making good with roads and fortresses every inch of his progress, reached, as I imagine, the Firth of Forth. … Here he repeated the operations of the preceding winter, planting his camps and stations from hill to hill, and securing a new belt of territory, ninety miles across, for Roman occupation." The next two years were spent in strengthening his position and organizing his conquest. In A. D. 83 and 84 he advanced beyond the Forth, in two campaigns of hard fighting, the latter of which was made memorable by the famous battle of the Grampians, or Graupius, fought with the Caledonian hero Galgacus. At the close of this campaign he sent his fleet northward to explore the unknown coast and to awe the remoter tribes, and it is claimed that the vessels of Agricola circumnavigated the island of Britain, for the first time, and saw the Orkneys and Shetlands. The further plans of the successful prefect were interrupted by his sudden recall. Vespasian, first, then Titus, had died while he pursued his victorious course in Caledonia, and the mean Domitian was envious and afraid of his renown.

_C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 61._

ALSO IN: _Tacitus, Agricola._

_T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 5._

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BRITAIN: 2d-3d Centuries. Introduction of Christianity.

See Christianity: A. D. 100-312.

BRITAIN: A. D. 208-211. Campaigns of Severus.

A fresh inroad of the wild Caledonians of the north upon Roman Britain, in the year 208, caused the Emperor Severus to visit the distant island in person, with his two worthless sons, Caracalla and Geta. He desired, it is said, to remove those troublesome youths from Rome and to subject them to the wholesome discipline of military life. The only result, so far as they were concerned, was to give Caracalla opportunities for exciting mutiny among the troops and for making several attempts against his father's life. But Severus persisted in his residence in Britain during more than two years, and till his death, which occurred at Eboracum (York) on the 4th of February, A. D. 211. During that time he prosecuted the war against the Caledonians with great vigor, penetrating to the northern extremity of the island, and losing, it is said; above 50,000 men, more by the hardships of the climate and the march than by the attacks of the skulking enemy. The Caledonians made a pretence of submission, at last, but were soon in arms again. Severus was then preparing to pursue them to extermination, when he died.

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 6. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_

ALSO IN: T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 5.

BRITAIN: A. D. 288-297. Rebellion of Carausius.