Caetera desiderantur.

[Footnote 3:  The author was then in his fifty-second year. [D.S.]]

  AN ABSTRACT OF THE HISTORY
  OF ENGLAND,
  FROM THE INVASION OF IT BY JULIUS CAESAR
  TO WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.

  Britons. 
  Heathens.

The most ancient account we have of Britain is, that the island was full of inhabitants, divided into several petty kingdoms, as most nations of the world appear to have been at first.  The bodies of the Britons were painted with a sky-coloured blue, either as an ornament or else for terror to their enemies.  In their religion they were heathens, as all the world was before Christ, except the Jews.

  Druids.

Their priests were called Druids:  These lived in hollow trees, and committed not their mysteries to writing, but delivered them down by tradition, whereby they were in time wholly lost.

The Britons had wives in common, so many to a particular tribe or society, and the children were in common to that society.

About fifty years before Christ, Julius Caesar, the first Roman Emperor, having conquered Gaul or France, invaded Britain rather to increase his glory than conquests; for having overcome the natives in one or two battles, he returned.

  Claudius. 
  Nero.

The next invasion of Britain by the Romans (then masters of most of the known world) was in the reign of the Emperor Claudius; but it was not wholly subdued till that of Nero.  It was governed by lieutenants, or deputies, sent from Rome, as Ireland is now by deputies from England; and continued thus under the Romans for about 460 years; till that empire being invaded by the Goths and Vandals, the Romans were forced not only to recall their own armies, but also to draw from hence the bravest of the Britons, for their assistance against those barbarians.

  Picts. 
  Picts’ Wall.

The Roman conquests in this island reached no further northward than to that part of Scotland where Stirling and Glasgow are seated:  The region beyond was held not worth the conquering:  It was inhabited by a barbarous people, called Caledonians and Picts; who, being a rough fierce nation, daily infested the British borders.  Therefore the Emperor Severus built a wall, from Stirling to Glasgow, to prevent the invasions of the Picts:  It is commonly called the Picts’ Wall.

  A.D. 455.  Saxons.

These Picts and Caledonians, or Scots, encouraged by the departure of the Romans, do now cruelly infest and invade the Britons by sea and land:  The Britons choose Vortigern for their king, who was forced to invite the Saxons (a fierce Northern people) to assist him against those barbarians.  The Saxons came over, and beat the Picts in several battles; but, at last, pick quarrels with the Britons themselves; and, after a long war, drive them into the mountains of Wales and Cornwall, and establish themselves in seven kingdoms in Britain, (by them now called England).  These seven kingdoms are usually styled the Saxon Heptarchy.