Excerpt from The History of England At the time of Caesar's invasion, England was inhabited by rude and warlike tribes, who were governed in a great degree by priests, called Druids. Their religious rites, re markable for the veneration of the misletoe, were chiefly practised in the groves of oak that then covered the country; and were abominable for the cruelty with which prisoners taken in war were burnt at their sacred places in vast cases or frames of basket-work. Trained to disre gard danger and resist attack, the rude inhabitants of Britain opposed the landing of Caesar with great courage; and though defeat was generally the issue of such battles as they engaged in from time to time with the disciplined Romans, yet the country could not properly be called a Roman province before the time of Agricola, who was sent here by the Emperor Vespasian, and who succeeded in subduing the southern division of the island, about one hundred and thirty years after the first invasion of Caesar, and about eighty years after the birth of Jesus Christ. During the latter part of that period, Caractacus and Boadicea are recorded as persons who gave proof of the manliness and energy of the British character. Carac tacas, king of the Silures, after a noble resistance to the Romans, was taken prisoner in battle. Being sent to Rome, and observing the splendour of that city, he exclaimed, How could a people possessed of such magnificence at home envy me a humble cottage in Britain? When brought in chains before Claudius, he disdained to yield to the abject despair which was usual in captives; and the emperor was so struck by the manly demeanour of the British king, that he at once restored him to liberty. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.