PREFACE.
MY DEAR LADS,
My series of stories dealing with the wars of England would bealtogether incomplete did it not include the period when theRomans were the masters of the country. The valour with which thenatives of this island defended themselves was acknowledged bythe Roman historians, and it was only the superior discipline ofthe invaders that enabled them finally to triumph over thebravery and the superior physical strength of the Britons. TheRoman conquest for the time was undoubtedly of immense advantageto the people--who had previously wasted their energies inperpetual tribal wars--as it introduced among them thecivilization of Rome. In the end, however, it proved disastrousto the islanders, who lost all their military virtues. Havingbeen defended from the savages of the north by the soldiers ofRome, the Britons were, when the legions were recalled, unable tooffer any effectual resistance to the Saxons, who, coming underthe guise of friendship, speedily became their masters, imposinga yoke infinitely more burdensome than that of Rome, and erasingalmost every sign of the civilization that had been engraftedupon them. How far the British population disappeared under thesubsequent invasion and the still more oppressive yoke of theDanes is uncertain; but as the invaders would naturally desire toretain the people to cultivate the land for them, it is probablethat the great mass of the Britons were not exterminated. It isat any rate pleasant to believe that with the Saxon, Danish, andNorman blood in our veins, there is still