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The British Isles
A History of Four Nations
Second edition

h u g h k e a r n ey
cambridge university press
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo,
Delhi, Mexico City

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107623897

C Cambridge University Press 1989, 2006

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 1989

Reprinted 1993
Canto edition 1995
Reprinted 1998, 2000, 2004
Second edition 2006
Third printing 2008
Canto Classics edition 2012

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

A catalogue record for this is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-107-62389-7 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs
for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not
guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
For my wife, Kate
In this Ocean there happen to be two very large islands which are called
Britannic, Albion and Ierna, bigger than any we have mentioned.
Aristotle, De Mundo c.iv
 Contents

List of illustrations page viii

List of maps xi
Preface to the first edition xiii
Preface to the second edition xv
Map: the British Isles xviii

Introduction 1
1 The Celtic societies of the British Isles 13
2 The impact of Rome on the British Isles 27
3 The post-Roman centuries 41
4 The Vikings and the fall of the Old Order 60
5 The Norman and post-Norman ascendancy 92
6 The decline of the post-Norman empire 132
7 The making of an English empire 157
8 The remaking of an empire 189
9 The Britannic melting pot 219
10 The rise of ethnic politics 251
11 Between the wars 280
12 Withdrawal from empire 294
13 Post-imperial Britain: post-nationalist Ireland 304

Afterword 322
Selected reading list 325
Index 341

vii
 Illustrations

1. Horse trapping in Yorkshire. 

C The Trustees of The
British Museum page 15
2. Horse trapping in Co. Galway.  C National Museum of
Ireland 16
3. Traprain Law hill-fort. 
C RCAHMS (John Dewar
Collection) 20
4. Hill-fort at Moel-y-Gaer. 
C Cambridge University
Collection of Air Photographs 25
5. Portchester Castle. 
C English Heritage Photo Library,
Photographer: Jonathan Bailey 31
6. Hadrian’s Wall. C www.britainonview.com 33
7. Caerwent.  C Cambridge University Collection of Air
Photographs 37
8. Emain Macha.  C Crown Copyright/MOD. Reproduced
with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s
Stationery Office 46
9. The Sutton Hoo ship burial. C The Trustees of The
British Museum 51
10. The Ardagh Chalice.  C National Museum of Ireland 53
11. Dumbarton fort.  C Cambridge University Collection of
Air Photographs 55
12. Commemoration stone from Lindisfarne.  C English
Heritage Photo Library 63
13. The Cross of Cong.  C National Museum of Ireland 70
14. Viking chessmen from the Isle of Lewis. C The Trustees
of The British Museum 73
15. Odd’s Cross slab from the Isle of Man. C Manx National
Heritage 83
16. The tomb of Edward the Confessor, Westminster Abbey.

C Dean and Chapter of Westminster 93
17. The Norman cathedral on the Rock of Cashel.

C Cambridge University Collection of Air Photographs 96

viii
 List of illustrations ix

18. The great motte of Urr. C Cambridge University

Collection of Air Photographs 112
19. Chepstow Castle.  C Crown Copyright/MOD.
Reproduced with the permission of the Controller of Her
Majesty’s Stationery Office 125
20. St George’s Chapel, Windsor.  C Reproduced by
permission of the Dean and Canons of Windsor 135
21. The battle of Bannockburn.  C By permission of The
British Library / Add. 47682 143
22. The seals of Owain Glyndwr.  C National Museums and
Galleries of Wales 146
23. Portrait of Henry VIII. 
C National Portrait Gallery,
London 160
24. Mary, Queen of Scots (1541–87), monument by
Cornelius and William Cure.  C Dean and Chapter of
Westminster 174
25. The Bible in Welsh. Bishop William Morgan’s Welsh Bible
from 1588.  C By permission of the National Library of
Wales 178
26. Slave ship. 
C National Museums Liverpool, Merseyside
Maritime Museum 191
27. Statue of Robert Burns (1759–96).  C www.britain
onview.com 208
28. The United Irishmen 1798, portrait of leader Henry Joy
McCracken.  C NMGNI 2005. Photograph reproduced
with the kind permission of the Trustees of the National
Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland 213
29. The Palace of Westminster. C www.britain onview.com 220
30. Statue of Caractacus. C Guildhall Art Gallery,
Corporation of London 227
31. Statue of Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658).  C www.britain
onview.com / Doug McKinlay 233
32. Belfast postcard – ‘No Home Rule’.  C NMGNI 2005.
Photograph reproduced with the kind permission of the
Trustees of the National Museums and Galleries of
Northern Ireland 255
33. Stormont and the Edward Carson statue.

C HarrisonsPhotos.com 261
34. Eamonn De Valera (1882–1975).  C D. H. Davison / The
Irish Picture Library 282
35. Hunger March.  C Reproduced by kind permission of
J. Batstone. Source: South Wales Coalfield Collection,
Swansea University 291
x List of illustrations

36. Bobby Sands mural. C Kelvin Boyes Photography 298

37. The Black Watch. C www.britain onview.com 302
38. Muslim community life in Britain. 
C Getty Images 306
39. The new Parliament Building in Scotland. C Keith
Hunter / arcblue.com 310
40. Millennium Building, Cardiff. 
C Billy Stock /
Photolibrary Wales 317
 Maps

1. The principal routes by which knowledge of La Tène art

styles spread to Britain and Ireland. From Facing the
Ocean, by Barry Cunliffe, Oxford University Press, 2001.
By permission of Oxford University Press. page 28
2. The tribes of North Britain (names from Ptolemy) in the
early Roman period. Map drawn by Hanni Bailey from
Celtic Britain by Charles Thomas, Thames & Hudson Ltd,
London 34
3. Celts and Romans, early first to fifth centuries ad After
Christopher Haigh, ed., The Cambridge Historical
Encyclopedia of Great Britain and Ireland (Cambridge,
1985), p. 11. 36
4. Celts and Saxons, early fifth to late eighth centuries. After
Christopher Haigh, ed., The Cambridge Historical
Encyclopedia of Great Britain and Ireland (Cambridge,
1985), p. 55. 38
5. Tribal migrations leading to the dismemberment of
Roman Britain. Map drawn by John Woodcock from Celtic
Britain by Charles Thomas, Thames & Hudson Ltd,
London 42
6. British river names. ‘The Celtic element: map of British
river names’ is reproduced with the kind permission of the
estate of Kenneth Jackson and the publisher, Four Courts
Press, from Language and History in Early Britain (Dublin,
2000) 44
7. The distribution of pagan Saxon cemeteries 47
8. The impact of the Vikings, late eighth to early eleventh
centuries 61
9. Scandinavian settlement in northern Britain. From Facing
the Ocean, by Barry Cunliffe, Oxford University Press,
2001. By permission of Oxford University Press 86

xi
xii List of maps

10. The boundary agreed by Alfred and Guthrum, c. 880,

between England and the Danelaw and the distribution of
Scandinavian place-names. From Facing the Ocean, by
Barry Cunliffe, Oxford University Press, 2001. By
permission of Oxford University Press 88
11. The Viking settlement of Ireland. From Facing the Ocean,
by Barry Cunliffe, Oxford University Press, 2001. By
permission of Oxford University Press 90
12. The Norman Conquests, 1066–1169 94
13. The distribution of motte and bailey castles in Britain 99
14. The Angevin empire/the post-Norman empire. From
Facing the Ocean, by Barry Cunliffe, Oxford University
Press, 2001. By permission of Oxford University Press 128
15. The English empire, 1536–1690 158
16. The railway age during the nineteenth century 222
 Preface to the first edition

In the course of writing this book I came to owe a great deal to vari-
ous friends and colleagues. In particular I wish to thank Rees Davies of
University College, Aberystwyth, David Dumville of Cambridge
University and Harry Dickinson of the University of Edinburgh for the
time they gave to reading various portions of the typescript. I am espe-
cially grateful to the Master and Fellows of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and
to the Governing Body of the University of Wales, who awarded me vis-
iting fellowships in 1985. My stay in Aberystwyth was made particu-
larly enjoyable thanks to the hospitality of Rees Davies, Gareth Williams,
John Davidson, Martin Fitzpatrick and their wives. I wish also to express
my gratitude to the University of Pittsburgh for granting me leave of
absence during the Fall Term, 1985. At various times, I benefited from
the encouragement of Janelle Greenberg of the University of Pittsburgh,
John Pocock of Johns Hopkins University, Joseph Lee of University Col-
lege, Cork, James Shiel of the University of Sussex and Lord Dacre of
Glanton, erstwhile Master of Peterhouse. Brian Wormald, my friend and
old supervisor at Peterhouse (1942–3), gave me many hours of his time
forty years later. James Shiel provided the epigraph. Like many others I
have incurred a debt to Linda Randall, Hazel Dunn and Maureen Ashby.
Mr William Davies of Cambridge University Press has displayed patience
and sympathy beyond the call of duty. My deepest debt, however, is to
Kate, my wife for over thirty years, who encouraged me to persevere in
an enterprise which underwent several strange metamorphoses.

Bury St Edmunds h u g h k e a r n ey

xiii
 Preface to the second edition

On St George’s Day 1993 John Major, Prime Minister of the United

Kingdom, addressed a group of the Conservative party as follows:
Fifty years from now Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county
[cricket] grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools
fillers and – as George Orwell said – ‘old maids bicycling to Holy Communion
through the morning mist’ – and – if we get our way Shakespeare still read in
school. Britain will survive unamendable in all essentials. (quoted Richard Weight,
Patriots: National Identity in Britain 1940–2000, London, 2002, p. 666)
This passage illustrates vividly the type of Anglo-centricity which I crit-
icise in The British Isles. John Major refers to Britain, an island which
encompasses Wales and Scotland, but the ‘Britain’ which he evokes is
very much an idealised version of southern England. There is no hint
here of the industrialised cities of northern England, South Wales and
south-west Scotland with their commitment to football grounds set in
grimly urban surroundings. Nor is there any hint of the way in which
new ethnic groups are changing the ‘essentials’ of Britain, especially in
the capital, London. Missing also from Major’s nostalgic musing is any
sense that the most determinedly British element of the United King-
dom is to be found in Northern Ireland, where in some Unionist areas
pavements are painted red, white and blue.
The Southern England of John Major’s vision undoubtedly exists. It
is, however, merely part of a wider United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland, whose history until recently also included that of
‘the British Isles’ as a whole. The various histories of Australia, Canada
and New Zealand all reflect the impact of a wider ‘British Isles’ history
in which English, Welsh, Irish and Scots ethnicities have interacted with
one another. The history of the United States is also linked with that
of ‘the British Isles’ from which Scots, Irish and Ulster Scots as well
as Anglo-Saxons emigrated. Finally, immigration from the wider British
empire of India, Pakistan, Africa and the Caribbean is now changing what
Major calls the ‘essentials’ of Britain. ‘The old maids bicycling to Holy

xv
xvi Preface to the second edition

Communion through the morning mist’ are very much an embattled

species. Indeed, in modern Britain, there are as many worshippers attend-
ing the mosque as those the parish church.
What is becoming clearer is an awareness that the United Kingdom
is not a nation state with a unique past (a ‘sonderweg’) but a multi-
ethnic conglomerate whose shifting patterns of historical development
resemble those of states such as Spain or the Habsburg Monarchy. The
English scholar Gerald Brenan wrote a classic work entitled The Spanish
Labyrinth (1940) which analysed the interaction of the various ‘nations’
of what we call ‘Spain’. It is this, in my view, which should be our model
for histories of the United Kingdom rather than a comforting but now
simple-minded recourse to ‘the Englishman and his History’. To say this,
of course, is to take part in a debate which has a long history. (It may
be followed in Hugh MacDougall’s brilliant short book Racial Myth in
English History: Trojans, Teutons and Anglo-Saxons (1982.)
The title of this book is ‘The British Isles’, not ‘Britain’, in order to
emphasise the multi-ethnic character of our intertwined histories. Almost
inevitably many within the Irish Republc find it objectionable, much as
Basques or Catalans resent the use of the term ‘Spain’. As Seamus Heaney
put it when he objected to being included in an anthology of British
Poetry:
Don’t be surprised
If I demur, for, be advised
My passport’s green.
No glass of ours was ever raised
To toast the Queen.
(Open Letter, Field day
Pamphlet no.2 1983)
But what is the alternative to ‘The British Isles?’ Attempts to encourage
the use of such terms as ‘The Atlantic Archipelago’ and ‘The Isles’ have
met with criticism because of their vagueness. Perhaps one solution is to
use ‘the British Isles’ in inverted commas (‘quotes’ in American usage).
All this is not to say that a ‘British Isles’ approach is the only way of dealing
with their complex interrelated history. It is misleading, for example, to
ignore the different ways in which the four nations have been involved
in Europe. Irish missionaries in particular played a key role during the
so-called Dark Ages. After the Norman Conquest, England and, later,
Scotland were closely involved in France. During the Reformation and
Counter-Reformation period, England, Ireland and Scotland were all
linked with Europe in various ways, although the experience of Ireland
was very different from that of the other two nations. At a later period,
 Preface to the second edition xvii

the impact of the French Revolution was much greater in Ireland than
elsewhere in the archipelago. Thus a ‘British Isles’ approach should not
be taken as ruling out a European emphasis as the basis of alternative
interpretations. At the time of writing, for example, it looks as if the
Republic of Ireland is moving towards a more European future than that
of a United Kingdom which is still coping with the challenges of its post-
imperial past.
In preparing this new edition, I should like to record my thanks for their
help to John Morrison, Proinsias O Drisceoil, Rees Davies and Gareth
Williams as well as to Michael Watson, Isabelle Dambricourt and Carrie
Cheek of Cambridge University Press, and to my keen-eyed copy-
editor, Sue Dickinson. As before my wife, Kate, made an indispensable
contribution.

Bardwell, 2005 h u g h k e a r n ey
 Introduction

This is not a piece of national history, though it owes a great deal to the
work of more nationally minded historians. It is an attempt to examine,
within short compass, the interaction of the various major cultures of the
British Isles from the Roman period onwards. The emphasis through-
out is upon the British Isles, in the belief that it is only by adopting a
‘Britannic’ approach that historians can make sense of the particular seg-
ment in which they may be primarily interested, whether it be ‘England’,
‘Ireland’, ‘Scotland’, ‘Wales’, Cornwall or the Isle of Man.
To concentrate upon a single ‘national’ history, which is based upon the
political arrangements of the present, is to run the risk of being impris-
oned within a cage of partial assumptions which lead to the perpetuation
of nationalist myths and ideologies. Herbert Butterfield, in his essay, The
Whig Interpretation of History (London, 1931), stressed the importance of
trying to see all sides of past conflicts. The modern world in his view arose
from both Protestant and Catholic, not from one or the other. In the same
way, no single ‘national’ interpretation, whether English, Irish, Scottish
or Welsh, can be treated as self-contained. A ‘Britannic’ framework is
an essential starting point for a fuller understanding of these so-called
‘national’ pasts.
This point might hardly seem worth stressing, were it not for the fact
that, in its continued use of a ‘nation’ paradigm, the historiography of
the British Isles still bears traces of its late nineteenth-century origins.
The professionalisation of history brought with it the acceptance not
only of Leopold von Ranke’s critical methods but also his stress upon
the role of ‘nations’ in history. Ranke believed that the ‘nation’ was the
divinely created unit at work in universal history, with each nation having
its own appointed moment of destiny. So far as England is concerned,
the publication of William Stubbs’ Constitutional History of England (from
1866 onwards) marked the introduction of history on the Rankean model.
Stubbs’ History was acceptably ‘modern’ in its critical use of primary
sources. There was also no doubt that Stubbs saw the ‘nation’ as the
appropriate unit for a historian to concentrate upon.

1
2 Introduction

Nation-based history became the basis around which the new academic
subject of history expanded. The English Historical Review was founded
in 1886 and in due course national history reviews were founded first for
Scotland (1904) and then for Ireland (1938) and Wales (1970). In the
new elementary and secondary schools of the late nineteenth century,
history was taught on national lines as a means of inculcating the virtue
of patriotism. Libraries took ‘nations’ as the appropriate cataloguing divi-
sion for the ‘subject of History’. During the twentieth century, long after
the original impulse from Ranke had been lost sight of, the writing of
history along ‘national’ lines seemed axiomatic.
The extent to which the writing of history was so strongly nation-based
was disguised by the way in which English historians shifted between the
use of ‘British’ and ‘English’ as if the two were somehow equivalent. Three
examples of this tendency may suffice, all taken from major historians.

The historical development of England is based upon the fact that her frontiers
against Europe are drawn by Nature and cannot be the subject of dispute . . . In
short, a great deal of what is peculiar in English history is due to the obvious fact
that Great Britain is an island. (L. B. Namier, England in the Age of the American
Revolution (London, 1930), pp. 6–7)
In the Second World War, the British people came of age . . . The British people
had set out to destroy Hitler . . . No English soldier who rode with the tanks into
liberated Belgium . . . The British were the only people who went through both
world wars from beginning to end . . . The British empire declined . . . Few even
sang ‘England Arise’. England had risen all the same. (A. J. P. Taylor, England
1914–45 (Oxford, 1966), p. 600)
Nevertheless, something can be learned about the British political system . . . The
early attainment of national identity is one of England’s most distinctive fea-
tures . . . To this extent British political development may be plausibly regar-
ded . . . If we are to understand the reasons for the peculiarities of the English
political system . . . Quite apart from all the consequences that have flowed from
Britain’s imperial role. (Keith Thomas, ‘The United Kingdom’, in Raymond
Grew, ed., Crises of Political Development in Europe and the United States (Princeton,
1978), pp. 44–5)

These examples indicate that a single nation-based approach is insuffi-

cient. Much as the historians concerned wish to keep within an ‘English’
framework, they are led in spite of themselves to refer to a wider
dimension.
There was, however, an earlier tradition of historiography whose prac-
titioners had been willing to consider the histories of Ireland, Scotland
and Wales as an essential part of the story. Thomas Babington Macaulay
may have entitled his master work History of England (1848–61) but it
was, in effect, a history of the British Isles during what he saw as the
 Introduction 3

crucial period of modern history, the Glorious Revolution of 1688. James

Anthony Froude is best known for history of England in the sixteenth
century but his study of The English in Ireland (1872) together with his
novel The Two Chiefs of Dunboy (1889) reveal a remarkable understand-
ing of Ireland. W. E. H. Lecky’s History of England in the Eighteenth Cen-
tury (1878–90) included Ireland and Scotland as well as England within
its overall perspective. Elie Halévy’s History of the English People (1913),
despite the limitations of its title, took a wide view of its topic, with exten-
sive treatment being given to Ireland and Scotland. Halévy apart, the
influence of these writers tended to decline in the early twentieth century
because their narrative approach, their use of the concept of ‘race’ and
their handling of sources were thought to be unprofessional. With them,
a ‘British Isles’ approach declined also. Thus, the modern French his-
torian François Bedarida, modelling himself on Halévy some years later
(1979), confined his attention largely to English history. For much of the
twentieth century, indeed, within the British Isles, history has been taught
and written along national lines, and hence tied to nationalist ideologies
and nation-building. In England this approach was represented by such
figures as Arthur Bryant. Within the schools, the teaching of English Lit-
erature took on a nationalist colouring under the influence of the Newbolt
Report of 1921. In Ireland, exponents of the ideology of ‘Irish Ireland’
put in place the framework of a nationalist history curriculum soon after
De Valera came to power in 1932. In the United States, also, ethnocen-
tric attitudes among immigrants from the British Isles have encouraged
the production of ‘national’ histories geared to specific English or Irish
ethnic tastes. The American appeal to ‘Manifest Destiny’ was of course
a prime example of nationalist history.
The concept of ‘nation’ provided modern historians with a convenient
framework around which to organise their materials but a price has had to
be paid. What later became national boundaries were extended backwards
into a past where they had little or no relevance, with the consequence
that earlier tribal or prenational societies were lost to sight. The border
between ‘Wales’ and ‘England’ is a case in point. It is now assumed
that Herefordshire and Shropshire are part of ‘England’ and that their
inhabitants are ‘English’, with all the appropriate ‘mental furniture’ to
go with that term. In fact these border counties have been the scene of
intermingling between ‘Welsh’ and ‘English’ cultures over a long period
of time. The same point may also be made about the border between
‘England’ and ‘Scotland’, which was drawn at one time to include the
(now Scottish) Lothians within England and at another to include Celtic
Cumbria within the kingdom of Strathclyde. The presence of ‘Arthur’s
Seat’ in the heart of Edinburgh is a reminder that the Lothians, Wales
4 Introduction

and Cornwall were once linked by a common Celtic culture stretching

from Traprain Law to Tintagel.The modern distinction between Ulster
and south-west Scotland did not exist in the later middle ages, since
the channel dividing the two areas served as a unifying element for the
seaborne post-Viking society which occupied the ‘Isles’. Thus to make
sense of so much variation over time requires a ‘Britannic’ framework,
although this need not exclude awareness of the influence of Europe and
of a wider world.
This point may be reinforced if it is borne in mind that episodes which
are generally recognised as having been of decisive importance in the his-
tory of the various ‘nations’ of the British Isles in fact transcended the
national boundaries of a later date. The Roman Conquest, the Barbarian
invasions, the Viking raids, the Norman Conquest, the Reformation and
the Industrial Revolution were all ‘events’ which affected the British Isles
as a whole and brought about crucial changes in the relations between the
various Britannic societies of the period concerned. The so-called English
Civil Wars were in fact multi-national events which had long-term con-
sequences for all three kingdoms. To deal with any one of these episodes
requires in every case something wider than a national framework. The
only possible exception is perhaps that of the Roman Conquest, from
which Ireland was spared, but even here recent research has revealed the
importance of Roman contacts with Ireland. Indeed it has been suggested
by Professor Barry Cunliffe that Irish mercenaries served in the Roman
army before returning home. There is in any case the influence upon Ire-
land of the Latin culture of the later Roman empire introduced through
the medium of Christianity. Pictish Scotland is also now receiving more
attention.
The present author is not alone in pressing for a ‘Britannic’ approach.
Several recent examples of a similar impatience with the straitjacket of
exclusively national categories come readily to mind. Michael Hechter,
in his stimulating book Internal Colonialism (1975), used the concepts
of ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ in an attempt to elucidate the relations between
England and what he termed, misleadingly, the ‘Celtic Fringe’. Hechter’s
main point was that England established a colonial relationship with other
parts of the British Isles, from which it alone benefited. John Le Patourel’s
study The Norman Empire (1976) was a successful attempt to avoid a nar-
rowing concentration upon Norman England by examining the impact of
the Norman Conquest within the British Isles as a whole. Hugh Trevor-
Roper’s fine essay ‘The Unity of the Kingdom’ (though open to criticism
for its use of ‘race’ as a historical concept) stood out from other con-
tributions within a collection entitled The English World (1982) by its
willingness to move beyond a merely English perspective. John Pocock,
 Introduction 5

in his powerful article ‘The Limits and Divisions of British History: In

Search of an Unknown Subject’ (American Historical Review, April 1982),
attempted to define a field of study that might properly be called ‘British
History’. Pocock emphasised the political aspects of ‘British Isles’ history
in an essay which, though brief, ranged widely in time and space. Since
that pioneering effort Pocock has remained at the forefront of efforts to
promote a wider archipelagic approach in the history of poltical thought
during the early modern period. Oxford and Cambridge, for example,
once pre-eminent centres of English-based history, now encourage the
study of the history of ‘The British Isles’.
My own efforts to deal with the problems raised by ‘national’ histories
have led me to see what I have called the ‘Britannic melting pot’ in terms
of a complex of interacting cultures, an approach which carries with it
the danger of emphasising the importance of ethnicity at the expense of
‘class’. ‘Culture’ is not the only concept available to historians but it has
the advantage of enabling the historian to raise questions about life-style,
customs, religion and attitudes to the past in a more fluid way than if
confined to a one-dimensional framework. Cultures change over time,
are influenced by other cultures, cross national boundaries and often
contain sub-cultures within themselves. ‘Nation’, in contrast, is a term
of rhetoric used to evoke feelings of unity in response to a particular
situation. When Churchill spoke of ‘Britain’s finest hour’ or De Valera
referred to ‘the struggle of a small nation for its independence over seven
centuries’ they were attempting to sway the emotions of their audiences,
not to expound a detached piece of history. It is very doubtful whether
the term ‘nation’ can escape these emotional overtones. One sees this
most clearly perhaps in the case of post-colonial Africa where the use of
‘nation’ all too often conceals the true realities of tribal cultures. From
this point of view, it is an accident of history that several states (nations?)
eventually made their appearance in the context of British Isles history.
The realities with which the historian should deal are the cultures which
lie behind the label nation-state. The concept of ‘nation’ stresses the
differences between a particular society and its neighbours. A Britannic
approach, in contrast, would emphasise how much these cultures have
experienced in common.
With this in mind there is still a good deal to be said for approaching the
history of the British Isles during the immediate post-Roman centuries
along traditional lines, as a conflict for supremacy between ‘Celts’ and
‘Anglo-Saxons’. It should be made clear, however, that these terms do
not refer to distinct ‘races’ but to broad linguistic and cultural differences.
The Celtic and Germanic languages are both Indo-European. Both sets
of peoples came from central Europe. In their tribal organisation they
6 Introduction

closely resembled one another. There is nothing to be gained by using

the outmoded nineteenth-century concept of ‘race’. We would do better
to see the British Isles from the fifth century onwards as an arena in which
several Celtic cultures and several Germanic cultures competed with
each other. In Ireland there were differences between north and south,
in Scotland between Picts, ‘Irish’, ‘British’ and Anglo-Saxons. Among
the Anglo-Saxons in ‘England’ similar contrasts long existed between
Northumbria and Mercia and Wessex, as well as within each kingdom.
What is clear about the immediate post-Roman centuries is that some
‘Britannic’ framework is necessary to do justice to a situation in which
the Briton (and Celtic-speaking) St Patrick brought Christianity to Ire-
land (most probably the northern areas of it) during the fifth century and
Irish monks in turn became missionaries to the inhabitants of ‘Scotland’
and north Britain. The life of St Cuthbert is a case in point. He was
originally a monk at Melrose (a Celtic monastery in today’s Scotland),
but then moved to Lindisfarne, an island off the coast of what is now
Northumberland. After the Viking invasions his body finally ended up
in the Norman cathedral at Durham, where his memory is revered as an
Anglo-Saxon saint. Historians of art devised the term ‘Hiberno-Saxon’
(now in turn replaced by ‘insular’) to create a broader framework than
traditional national categories. It is time for historians at large to follow
their example and to break away from the concept of ‘nation’, which they
inherited from nineteenth-century historiography, and which is too rigid
to use when dealing with the complexities of the post-Roman centuries.
The same judgement may be made with equal force about the three
‘Scandinavian centuries’, from the ninth to the eleventh, when large areas
of the British Isles fell under the control of first, raiders and then settlers
from Denmark and Norway. Modern historians play down the impor-
tance of this period but it is clear that the cultures of the British Isles
underwent profound changes during these years. After this common
experience, ‘England’, ‘Ireland’, ‘Scotland’ and ‘Wales’ all emerged as
very different societies in the second half of the eleventh century from
what they had been earlier. Marc Bloch saw this as the first phase of
feudalism, but, whatever term is used, the old structures of the ‘Celtic’
and ‘Anglo-Saxon’ worlds undoubtedly underwent radical changes.
Were it not for the clumsiness of phraseology, terms such as ‘Anglo-
Scandinavia’, ‘Hiberno-Scandinavia’ and ‘Scoto-Scandinavia’ might be
appropriate.
A new period began with the coming of the Normans (in the mid-
eleventh century so far as ‘England’ and ‘Wales’ were concerned; in the
twelfth century, in the case of ‘Scotland’ and ‘Ireland’). The British Isles
were drawn away from Scandinavia and into closer contact with northern
 Introduction 7

France as a consequence, though it was not until the mid-fourteenth cen-

tury (perhaps later) that the links of northern ‘Scotland’ with Norway
were finally severed. Continental-style feudalism now took root marked
by self-conscious knightly institutions, and a greater emphasis upon links
with the Crown. In the Church, the authority of the hierarchy became
more pronounced. Although ‘Normanised Scotland’ established its inde-
pendence within this Britannic framework during the fourteenth century,
a Britannic approach is still necessary if attitudes and assumptions then
are to be understood. The term ‘Norman Empire’ becomes increasingly
unsatisfactory after the loss of Normandy in 1209, although the domi-
nance of French culture continued until the late fourteenth century. The
rise of St George as the patron saint of England indicates that a change of
national identity was under way, although why this particular figure was
chosen to replace ‘The Holy Edward’ remains unclear (a similar problem
surrounds the choice of St Andrew for Scotland). Westminster Abbey still
remains as a monument to ‘The Holy Edward’ though challenged from
the late fourteenth century by St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
During the early sixteenth century, further profound changes took
place within the British Isles deriving largely from continental influences.
Reformation and Counter-Reformation were the common experience of
all the societies of the Britannic melting pot. Though European in ori-
gin, these movements became closely connected with the expansion of
the influence of the English Crown, throughout the British Isles. The
creation of a Protestant English empire was one of the main features of
Britannic history during this period, leading to the extension of the influ-
ence of a biblically orientated culture throughout the British Isles, and
the coast of North America. In due course, Scotland was also to be asso-
ciated with the enterprise when, after the Union of the Crowns in 1603,
Scottish and English settlers took part in the plantation of Ulster. Ireland
became a society increasingly divided among Catholics, Anglicans and
Presbyterians. The effects of this proved to be of lasting significance not
merely within the British Isles but also in British possessions overseas. In
Canada and Australia the conflict of the ‘Orange’ and the ‘Green’, like
so much else, requires a Britannic framework for its elucidation.
With the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies, a further series of major shifts took place within the British Isles.
A new industrialised and urbanised culture took root in northern Eng-
land. Large-scale movements of population took place in response to
the opportunities offered by an expanding industrial society. In addi-
tion to migrants from local areas, English emigrants were drawn into
south Wales and Ulster, Scottish Highlanders and Irish into Glasgow
and its environs, Irish and Welsh into the Liverpool area. The major
8 Introduction

cities of the British Isles became multi-ethnic societies in which varied

ethnic groupings competed for economic security, social status and polit-
ical influence. During the closing decades of the nineteenth century, the
diversity of this multi-ethnic society was still further increased by an influx
of Jewish refugees from eastern Europe into London, Leeds, Manchester
and Glasgow. Immigrants also arrived from other areas including Spain
and Lithuania. The name of Wolfson College, Oxford commemorates
the success of one of these newcomers. It was not an isolated case.
It was during these years of industrialisation at home that a new British
empire was created overseas in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Though they formed part of the ‘history of the English-speaking peo-
ples’ (to use Churchill’s phrase), these emigrants were by no means all
English. The new empire was ‘Britannic’, drawing for its population upon
Scottish, Irish and Welsh as well as English. In due course, after the
Second World War, the former colonies became even more multi-ethnic
as a result of the arrival of a new wave of immigrants from Europe.
A paradoxical and quite unexpected turn to the imperial story was to
occur after 1945 with the arrival in Britain of large numbers of immigrants
from the West Indies, India, Pakistan and parts of Africa, at a time when
the former Indian empire and the former colonial empire were ceasing
to exist. The full significance of this wave of immigration has yet to be
fully assessed. In the 1980s cultural tensions involving various immigrant
groups led to serious outbreaks of rioting. It may be, however, that the
creation of a multi-ethnic society in some parts of Britain is merely one of
the ways in which the various societies within the British Isles are coming
to resemble the United States. The partial Americanisation of popular
culture within the British Isles had begun in the 1930s with the influence
of American films. Since then other aspects of American culture have also
taken root on both sides of the Irish Sea. Future historians may come to
see this as a more important development than entry into the European
Economic Community (1973).
It remains to mention the political changes which have taken place
in the twentieth century in the wake of two world wars. In the years
immediately after the end of the First World War, the United Kingdom felt
the impact of a successful nationalist revolution in Ireland. The result of
the conflict was the creation of an independent state in southern Ireland,
leaving the remaining six counties of the north-east as a semi-autonomous
‘province’ within the United Kingdom. There was now a political border
within the British Isles for the first time since the sixteenth century.
One of the consequences of the creation of an Irish Free State and
later (1949) of the Republic of Ireland was the partial elimination of
Ireland from historical interpretations of British history. It was almost
 Introduction 9

as if British historians had come to believe that it was possible to write

a history of their own ‘nations’ without mentioning the Irish Republic
or the historical territory which it occupied. In the case of the Oxford
Illustrated History of Britain this tendency had the unfortunate effect of
a map being printed in which Northern Ireland appears in some detail
while the rest of Ireland remains a blank even though the period under
discussion is well before the partition of 1920 (however, there is now a
multi-authored, multi-volume Short Oxford History of the British Isles).
The same criticism may be made of Irish histories in which Ireland
appears in isolation and not as an island linked historically with Britain
for well over a thousand years. In fact, of course, close economic and
cultural ties continued to exist between the United Kingdom and the
Irish Free State. Informal cultural ties did not disappear. Universities
in the Republic drew, as before, upon the United Kingdom for exter-
nal examiners. Dublin civil servants in the Department of Finance long
remained in touch with their London counterparts. The career of the
great Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh (1904–1967) is worth mentioning in
this connection. Kavanagh learned about poetry from English models
such as ‘Gray’s Elegy’ and he remained very much the anglophile.The
novelist John McGahern was able to take refuge in England after a clash
with church authorities. Links were not as close as they had once been
but they were nonetheless real. During the 1950s and 1980s Irish immi-
gration into England took place on a scale unequalled since the 1880s.
During the 1960s, as ‘Eire’ emerged from its self-imposed isolation under
De Valera, contacts increased still further. During the 1970s, both states
joined the European Economic Community. They were also drawn into
close communication as a result of the continued crisis over Northern Ire-
land. In spite of themselves, the two governments were forced to recognise
the existence of a ‘Britannic’ dimension.
The viewpoint adopted in this book is that the histories of what are
normally regarded as four distinct ‘nations’ appear more intelligible if
they are seen first within a general British Isles context and secondly
if they are seen in terms of ‘cultures’ and ‘sub-cultures’. Upon closer
examination what seem to be ‘national’ units dissolve into a number
of distinctive cultures with their own perceptions of the past, of social
status (‘class’ is here seen as subordinate to culture), of religion and of
many other aspects of life. As with any historical approach, however, the
problem is complicated by the inevitability of historical change. Cultures
change and interact over time. Where nationally minded historians tend
to stress continuity over time between, say, the ‘Scots’ or the ‘Irish’ of
different periods, a cultural approach involves the recognition that the
perceptions of one period are radically different from those of another.
10 Introduction

In 1989, I argued that at least eight cultures co-existed in the British

Isles. Thus in Wales, the gulf between the Welsh-speaking, Calvin-
ist Methodist north-west and the more cosmopolitan, English-speaking
south indicated the drawbacks of speaking in terms of a single Welsh
nationality. I regarded the Welsh-Jewish poet Danny Abse as a product
of Cardiff rather than of ‘Wales’ as such. The Welsh nationalist Saun-
ders Lewis could be viewed as reacting against the environment of his
Merseyside birthplace to become the spokesman of the Welsh heartland.
In Scotland, the situation appeared as more complex. Here the south-
west, centred on the Clydeside conurbation, may be seen as a culture in
its own right, linked in conflicting sentiments with the Protestants and
Catholics of ‘Ulster’. In contrast the western Highlands and the Hebrides
constituted a sub-culture, as did Orkney and Shetland. However, the
exploitation of North Sea oil since the 1970s has clearly been a source
of profound cultural change in both of these areas as well as on the east
coast. What had seemed like a clear contrast between east and west had
begun to dissolve into new cultural patterns. Ireland, partitioned in 1921,
remained divided at the end of the century, but the contrast between a
largely agrarian south and an industrial north had by 2000 changed rad-
ically. The Republic of Ireland was now an independent member of the
European Union, enjoying a period of unprecedented prosperity, whereas
Northern Ireland, divided by sectarianism and civil unrest, had lost its
former industrial base. Finally, in England, the decline of the industrial
north and the growing prosperity of the south, linked to the EEC markets,
accentuated the cultural differences between these two areas. Overall, the
influence of London and the south-east increased, thanks to such factors
as television, motorways, the growth of the London market and the influ-
ence of the EEC. Towns such as Brighton, Bath and Cambridge, fifty or
more miles from London, have become part of a southern commuter-belt
in which people live while working in London.
In 1989, there was a good deal to be said for regarding the United King-
dom as consisting of a dominant metropolitan culture (itself exposed to
transatlantic influences) and a number of provincial sub-cultures, with
the Republic of Ireland enjoying informal cultural and political links with
England, Scotland and, of course, Northern Ireland. By 2000, however,
this model no longer did justice to the complex cultural patterns of the
British Isles. Immigration during the post-war years had now brought a
new multi-ethnicity to the United Kingdom and especially to London.
South Asian and African cultures were now making their presence felt in
all manner of ways. There were now many more than eight cultures within
what was increasingly referred to in the media as a ‘multicultural society’,
a point exemplified in the emergence of Muslims as a political force to be
 Introduction 11

reckoned with during the election campaign of 2005. Where does Ireland
stand in all this? Protestant culture in Northern Ireland still seems more
closely linked to Glasgow and to Dublin than it is to London. As for
the rest of Ireland, cultural influences deriving from southern England
and from the United States, and from Europe, contend for supremacy.
Tourism, the common law, English newspapers, English TV, English-
language books, contact with recent Irish emigrants to London and Birm-
ingham and a close involvement, since 1985, with the affairs of Northern
Ireland all combine to link the Republic and Britain. The new prosperity
of the Republic has also brought drug problems and issues linked with
immigration similar to those of Britain. However, the Republic, despite
its long historical links with Britain and its common interest in North-
ern Ireland, was now linked with the euro. Benefiting from its links with
Europe, it seems to be following its own distinctive path apart from that
of the rest of ‘The British Isles’.
Outside the British Isles the direct influence of the United Kingdom has
waned. In Australia, films such as Breaker Morant and Gallipoli illustrate
a growing Australian nationalism. In both Australia and Canada, a large
influx of European immigrants after 1945 has also helped to weaken
cultural connections with Britain, a tendency accentuated in Canada by
its proximity to the United States and by the growth of French-speaking
nationalism in Quebec. Even in New Zealand strong emotional links with
Britain had begun to weaken in the 1980s. By the 1970s throughout the
former British empire, in India, Pakistan, Africa and the Far East, it
seemed as if British Isles culture would be mediated through the United
States. Within the British Isles itself, American influence in the form of
military bases, fast-food chains, TV programmes and films continued to
grow. To an observer at the end of the twentieth century it might well
seem that the various cultures of the British Isles would be submerged in
a vast transatlantic, indeed global cultural aggregation.

Postscript
As stated above it was clear by the year 2000 that post-imperial Britain was
home to far more than eight cultures. The census of 2001 revealed that
immigrants from the Caribbean, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Africa
constitute 8 per cent of the British population today, much larger than
the total population of Wales and nearly as large as Scotland (see Tariq
Modood, ‘Britishness out of Immigration and Anti-racism’, in H. Brock-
lehurst and Robert Philips, eds., History, Nationhood and the Question
of Britain (London, 2000), pp. 85–98). To Modood it seems likely that
non-white ethnic groups will become the majority in several English cities
12 Introduction

in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, including by far the most
populous city of Europe, London (Modood, ibid). The impact of the
influx of the largest group of immigrants – from the Republic of Ireland
during the 1950s and 1960s onwards – also must not be lost sight of.
Post-war immigration has raised crucial questions about identity which
are now being addressed by the government. There is also concern about
the status of traditional cultures within a modern, secular society. For
example, the imposition of unacceptable marriage partners upon young
girls has caused serious problems. As one social worker of Islamic back-
ground puts it, ‘We are talking about domestic violence against women
and in extreme cases murder: the excuse is family honour’ (The Guardian,
9 December 2004). The right to make critical comments about the
Prophet Muhammad is also a highly sensitive issue, as Salman Rushdie
found out to his cost when he published The Satanic Verses in 1988 and
became the object of a ‘fatwah’. More recently, in 2004, the journal-
ist Charles Moore asked whether Muhammed could be regarded as a
paedophile for taking a nine-year-old child as his bride. What appeared
to Moore as the legitimate exercise of free speech was denounced by
the Muslim Association as a ‘clear incitement to religious hatred and
division’ (The Guardian, 14 December 2004). A few days after Charles
Moore’s article appeared, members of the Sikh community in Birming-
ham protested against the performance of a play Bezhti (Dishonour) and
threats of continued violence led to its being abandoned. It was also
reported that the dramatist concerned, Gurpreet Kaur Bhati, a young
Sikh woman, had been forced into hiding because of death threats (The
Guardian, 21 December 2004). Adding to these problems is the fact that
unemployment is markedly higher than the national average among those
of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin, in part no doubt because of their
lower educational qualifications but seen by them as racial discrimina-
tion. Some of the fundamental questions raised are discussed in Bhikhu
Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political The-
ory (Cambridge, MA, 2000), and Brian Barry, Culture and Equality: An
Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism (Oxford, 2001).
1 The Celtic societies of the British Isles

John of Gaunt in Shakespeare’s Richard II speaks of

this scepter’d isle . . .
This precious stone set in a silver sea . . .
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England . . .

These powerful lines may be seen as representing the unspoken assump-

tion of so many historians that ‘England’ is for all intents and purposes
an island. It is, of course, merely part, though now the most populated
part, of the larger island of an Atlantic archipelago situated off the coast
of north-west Europe. Shakespeare’s poetry, however, may be taken as
reflecting the almost total dominance which English culture, more prop-
erly perhaps the culture of south-eastern England, has achieved through-
out the British Isles in the modern period. The typical inhabitant of
the British Isles is today English-speaking (though a minority may speak
Gaelic, or Urdu, at home).
The dominance of English culture marks the culmination of a com-
plex and prolonged process, which is far from complete even today. As
a historical starting point, however, it must be set on one side. For the
purpose of ‘making sense’ of the history of the British Isles, we must go
beyond the Anglo-Saxons and the Romans to the Celtic Iron Age, which
left a lasting stamp upon the languages, place-names and cultures of these
islands.
A full prehistory would need to go much further back, possibly to
the mesolithic period of c. 7000 bc when human beings returned to
the British Isles in the wake of a retreating Ice Age before land bridges
between the islands and between Britain and the continent were finally
washed away. This period – of hunting, fishing and food gathering – was
followed (c. 4000 bc) by the introduction of agriculture and the establish-
ment of settled communities by migrants from the Mediterranean. This
was the so-called Neolithic Revolution. Megalithic tombs erected during
this period indicate the high priority which these societies accorded to the
afterlife. It has been suggested that the building of Stonehenge (begun

13
14 The British Isles

c. 2500 bc but extending over a prolonged period of several hundred

years) required 30 million man-hours to complete. (The long barrows of
the early neolithic period needed a mere 10,000 man-hours.) The Irish
passage-graves, built at much the same time as Stonehenge, suggest the
allocation of resources on the same scale, possibly under the dictates of
a theocratic priestly class. For much of this period it is clear that the
Irish Sea served not as a barrier but as an avenue linking related soci-
eties. Passage-graves, such as Bryn Celli Du on the Isle of Anglesey, are
markedly similar to those found on the east coast of Ireland in the Boyne
valley and Lough Crew.
During the Bronze Age (of roughly the second millennium bc) similar
Britannic patterns may be discerned. The introduction of metalworking
in bronze led to the creation of economic conditions in which trade across
the Irish Sea in Irish copper and Cornish tin (the metals required for the
production of bronze) took place on a regular basis. The Middle Bronze
Age saw the creation of an axe industry which one archaeologist has
described as ‘neither English nor Irish but Britannico-Hibernian’. In the
Late Bronze Age tools and ornaments from the British Isles reached a
wide European market.
In many ways, the coming of the Iron Age may have represented an eco-
nomic setback. During the first millennium bc, from c. 750, the Bronze
Age communities of the British Isles faced the challenge of a more effi-
cient and cheaper technology based upon iron. Widespread changes took
place, though it is not clear how far they were due to invasion and how
far to adaptation by native communities. The spread of massive hill-forts
in southern Britain, for example, suggests the growth of larger political
units based upon the dominance of a military aristocracy. Until recently,
an ‘invasion’ hypothesis, distinguishing between three periods from Ages
A, B and C, each marked by a different group of invaders, held the field.
Since the 1960s, greater emphasis has been placed upon the response
made by indigenous elements, though the influence of some groups of
newcomers on the east coast and in the south-east must be allowed for.
Whatever the explanation, there is no doubt that the communities with
which the Romans came into contact in the first century bc were Celtic-
speaking, iron-using societies organised on a tribal pattern.
Place-names may be seen as illustrating a common Britannic cultural
framework during the pre-Roman period. The place-name ‘Brent’ asso-
ciated today with the London suburbs of Brent and Brentford is linked
with the river ‘Braint’ in Anglesey and with northern British tribal groups,
known as the Brigantes. The name of the Brigantes is paralleled in Europe
in such place-names as Bregenz and Brienne. It is also associated with
the goddess Brigantia in Britain and with the Irish goddess Brigid, ‘the
 The Celtic societies of the British Isles 15

Figure 1. Horse trapping in Yorkshire

This horse trapping provides a glimpse of the La Tène culture which
flourished in northern Europe during the immediate pre-Roman period,
and existed on both sides of the Irish Sea. Recent excavations (2003) at
Ferrybridge, west Yorkshire have revealed a chariot burial, but detailed
evidence of this Celtic culture in the territory of the Brigantes has been
slow to emerge from beneath the layers of successive conquests.

exalted one’, who was patron of poetry, healing and metalwork. In due
course, Brigid the goddess was to be transformed into St Brigid. The
parallels provided by Brigantia, Brent and Brigid clearly point to the exis-
tence of common cultural links throughout the British Isles, not merely
in a ‘Celtic fringe’.
16 The British Isles

Figure 2. Horse trapping in Co. Galway

This horse trapping from the west of Ireland is very similar to that from
Yorkshire, but Celtic society and La Tène art survived much longer in
Ireland than in southern Britain. Irish place-names, genealogies and
even epic poetry survive to cast a rich light upon Celtic civilisation,
evidence which has largely vanished in the neighbouring island.

In addition, the art and language of these societies indicate that they
shared a common culture with the Celts of continental Europe, groups
of whom crossed the Alps and sacked Rome in 390 bc. The Celts did
not form a race, any more than the ‘English-speaking peoples’ constitute
a race today. Nineteenth-century historians may have looked upon the
Celts as a race with distinct physical features but there is no sound basis for
this view. When discussing the Iron Age societies of the British Isles during
the first century bc the most we can say is that they spoke one or other
of the dialects of a common Celtic language, that their religious beliefs
show a common pattern associated with such attitudes as a reverence for
rivers and wells and the cult of the severed head, that their social ideals
tended to be those of a military aristocracy (though not all the societies
of the British Isles were equally military in their outlook) and their art,
at this date (c. 100 bc), was heavily influenced by the free-flowing ‘La
Tène’ style.
Cult-objects provide a source of evidence for such links. As Anne Ross
has shown in her book Pagan Celtic Britain (1967), similar types of ritual-
artifact are to be found throughout the British Isles. The head was the
Celtic symbol par excellence. The Celts seem to have regarded the human
 The Celtic societies of the British Isles 17

head with particular reverence as the seat of the human spirit. It is not
surprising, then, that carvings of heads should be found in northern and
southern Britain as well as in Ireland. The most famous Celtic head is the
Medusa mask in the Roman baths in Bath. Other striking examples are
to be found in Ireland. There is little doubt that the cult of the head was
widespread throughout the British Isles. In modern times, it has survived
at St Winifred’s Well (Holywell, North Wales) where a healing spring is
said to have appeared after St Winifred was beheaded. Second only to
the cult of the head was the devotion paid to the horned fertility god
Cernunnos, who was the ‘horned god’ of the Brigantes. Horned heads
from Gloucestershire, Cumberland, Kent, Norfolk and Ireland all testify
to the widespread character of this cult. Sword-hilts using the head as a
main motif are a further source of evidence.
The most lasting evidence of this cultural affinity is language. Celtic
languages still survive in Wales, the western part of Ireland and Scotland,
the Isle of Man and Brittany (colonised from the Celtic south-west of
Britain under pressure from Anglo-Saxon invaders). These languages,
with the exception of Welsh, are now under pressure. To the historian,
however, they provide an invaluable reminder of the period when Celtic
languages were spoken throughout the British Isles. Before the mid-
nineteenth century, and the onset of literacy in English throughout Ire-
land, Wales and Scotland, the Celtic-speaking section of the population
was far more numerous than is the case today. It is ironical that the aver-
age student of British history is more likely to have an acquaintance with
Latin than to have the faintest glimmering of any Celtic language. The
survival of such river-names in southern England as ‘Ouse’ (from uisce,
water) and ‘Avon’ (from afon, river) is a reminder, as valid in its own way
as more physical evidence, of the earlier presence of Celtic-speaking soci-
eties in what became Anglo-Saxon England. Hill-forts such as Ditchling
Beacon on the Sussex Downs and Maiden Castle in Dorset, which now
bear English names, owe their existence to this Celtic phase in Britan-
nic history. The fact remains, of course, that speakers of P-Celtic and
Q-Celtic could not understand the other, Welsh and Breton being very
different in sound and structure from Irish.
Finally, there is the evidence of art. The influence of the La Tène style,
so widespread throughout the Celtic world, was also powerful throughout
the British Isles. It is to be seen in such objects as the Torrs Pony-cap
(Kirkcudbright), the Turoe Stone (Co. Galway) and the Battersea Shield.
Gold torques, thought to have been worn by chiefs, were to be found in
both Britain and Ireland at this time. The La Tène style, though more
varied in its local manifestation than might appear at first sight, testi-
fies to the influence of a common Celtic culture throughout the British
Isles.
18 The British Isles

To draw attention to this fact is not to say that there was political and
social uniformity throughout the area. The existence of tribal groupings
in both Britain and Ireland is an indication of political differences at the
local level. The Romans, to whom we are indebted for Latin versions of
tribal names in the absence of their original Celtic forms, distinguished
over twenty tribes in Britain south of the Forth. In Ireland, where political
aggregation had not gone as far as it had elsewhere, the number of tribes
seems to have been much larger.
One powerful cause of variety was geography, in particular the con-
trast between Highland and Lowland Zones. It was Sir Cyril Fox who
argued in his book The Personality of Britain (1932) that the Lowlands
would usually be exposed to forces of change before the Highlands. The
Highland/Lowland contrast certainly makes good sense when applied
to Britain, where north and west form a distinctive geographical area,
including a good deal of land over 400 metres above sea-level. Poorer soil
and climatic conditions made agriculture more of a challenge in the High-
land Zone than it was in the south and east. In a British Isles context,
however, the Highland/Lowland contrast is not quite so clear. Ireland,
which has been compared to a saucer in which the rim represents the
hills and the flat base the central plain, is not, geologically speaking, a
Highland Zone. There is no doubt, however, that the narrow seas between
north-west Ireland and south-west Scotland linked rather than divided
them. At this particular period, however, it may be seen as forming part of
a ‘cultural Highland Zone’, cut off, for better or worse, from the influence
of the rising military power of Rome.
Geographical determinism should not be pressed too far, however. It
can also be argued that, under certain conditions, the Irish Sea provided
a channel of communication linking the Highland Zone with Armorica,
Spain and the Mediterranean. This seems to have been what happened
during the neolithic period and the Bronze Age. It also seems to have been
the case during the fifth and sixth centuries ad when Christian commu-
nities on both sides of the Irish Sea retained their links with Christian
Europe at a time when the eastern half of Britain was being overrun by
Germanic settlers. The Irish presence in Scotland in the sixth century ad
and in parts of Wales illustrates the same point. (Scottish Gaelic and Irish
Gaelic are in origin the same language.) The name of the Lleyn peninsula
in North Wales links it with Leinster.
Barry Cunliffe’s wide-ranging study Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic
and Its Peoples (Oxford, 2001) now provides the framework of an alter-
native interpretation in which the Irish Sea may be seen as a maritime
corridor linking the coasts of western Britain and Ireland with Western
Europe (see Map 1). Fox’s model of Highland and Lowland Zones now
 The Celtic societies of the British Isles 19

needs to be supplemented by Cunliffe’s Atlantic model in which Corn-

wall, west Wales, the Isle of Man and the west coast of Scotland all take
their place. Cunliffe’s work also has the geat merit of showing how the
relationship of the Irish Sea Province with Western Europe changed over
time. In particular, the Roman conquest of Spain and Gaul weakened the
connections which the Irish Sea Province had with those areas. In con-
trast, as a Roman province from 43 ad the Lowland Zone increased its
power and influence. Cunliffe suggests that Irish mercenaries may have
joined Roman auxiliary regiments, returning home with a knowledge of
a wider world (p. 417).
For the immediate pre-Roman period, Fox’s contrast between a Low-
land Zone exposed to innovation and a conservative Highland Zone
(including Ireland) provides a useful key to the situation. Caesar wrote of
the coming of the Belgae to south-east Britain during the first century bc.
The archaeological evidence, now more plentiful thanks to recent exca-
vations, supports the view that the Thames estuary and the territories
around it were the centre of an innovative Belgic culture, sometimes
termed the Aylesford-Swayling culture from key sites associated with it.
The newcomers soon began to expand at the expense of their neighbours
until by the early first century their influence had reached as far north as
the Trent and as far west as the Severn.
The Belgic kingdoms involved in this expansion were the Trinovantes
and the Catuvellauni (lacking knowedge of their Celtic names we have
to use their Roman equivalents) with their capitals at Verulamium (the
modern St Albans) and Camulodunum (the modern Colchester). To the
north, the outlying tribes affected were the Iceni and the Coritani, in
what are today’s Norfolk and Lincolnshire respectively, and to the west
the Dobunni in the Cotswolds. The Atrebates to the south lost a good
deal of territory to the newcomers and were soon confined to the narrow
coastal strip of modern Sussex. It is not surprising that these four tribes
seem to have welcomed the coming of the Romans as a lesser evil. The
limit of Belgic expansion to the south-west was the tribal territory of the
Durotriges centred on today’s Dorset. Here the refortification of such
hill-forts as Maiden Castle took place in the first century bc, presumably
as a defensive measure against the Belgae. The forts were still in active
use when the Romans arrived in ad 43 and formed the basis of temporary
resistance to the legions of Claudius.
Another contrast between the Highland and Lowland Zones was almost
certainly demographic. No firm statistical evidence exists but several
strong indicators suggest that there was a considerable increase of pop-
ulation in the Lowlands from the fifth century onwards, well before the
Belgic invasions. A good deal of internal colonisation seems to have taken
Figure 3. Traprain Law hill-fort
Traprain Law hill-fort, south of Edinburgh was the capital of the Votadini. It is a reminder of the
Celtic culture which linked the Lothians with the Clyde estuary, Cumbria and Wales. The Welsh
epic The Gododdin, though of a later date, looks back to this early period, recalling a disastrous
British defeat at the hands of the Angles.
 The Celtic societies of the British Isles 21

place during this period. Regularly shaped field systems existed in the
areas surrounding hill-forts which suggests that organised schemes of
land clearance were being carried out. The thrust of agriculture lay in
the direction of improved tillage, presumably in response to the needs of
a growing population, though perhaps also with a market in view. Sheep
farming also seems to have been practised on a large scale with the aim
of providing the manure necessary for newly cleared land. Crops too
became more diversified. Demographic growth may have led to land-
hunger and to competition over rights to land. If this were the case, it
would provide a plausible explanation for the building of hill-forts as
the central points of larger political units. Such hill-forts were in effect
urban centres with substantial populations. Thus it has been estimated
that Hod Hill, Dorset had nearly 300 houses within its fortifications and a
population of 500–1,000. In the territory of the Atrebates, Calleva (on the
site of the later Roman town of Silchester) and Venta (later Winchester)
were all substantial urban centres. Clearly even before the coming of the
Belgae the Lowlands of the Iron Age were undergoing change.
During the first century bc the most striking developments occurred
in the Thames valley and its environs. Here there was a shift away from
an earlier concern with settlement on hill-top sites, such as those at
Wheathampstead (Herts.) and Bigbury (Kent), towards larger urban
units on the plains of which Verulamium, Camulodunum and Durover-
num Cantiacorum (Canterbury) were the most important. This was more
than a geographical decision. These towns were in effect the capitals of
powerful new kingdoms, controlling a wider area than the traditional
tribal organisation. Though the details are not clear it would seem that
the Trinovantes and the Catuvellauni formed a confederacy under a single
king, Cunobelinus (the Cymbeline of Shakespeare). The Romans were
able to make good use of the resentment which this monarchy aroused, to
make alliances with the southern Atrebates, the Cantiaci (of Kent), the
Iceni and the Dobunni, when they invaded Britain after Cunobelinus’
death (he died in ad 41).
Other signs testify to the importance of the changes which were taking
place in the south-east at this time. Perhaps the most important of these
was the widespread use of coins. The survival of coins in quantity indicates
the existence of a cash market and a certain level of numeracy and literacy,
at least among some segments of the population. Coins bearing the image
of the king bear witness to settled political conditions. All the signs are
that the societies of the south-east were developing economic ties with
Rome. Indirect Romanisation had already begun.
In sharp contrast with all this, the political organisation of the Highland
Zone (or the Irish Sea Province as we may prefer to call it) remained at
22 The British Isles

a more local level. Hill-forts in this area were both smaller and fewer in
number, less than a hundred as against the several hundreds of south-
east England. The characteristic unit of the area seems to have been the
enclosed family homestead, the so-called ring-fort. In Ireland and else-
where in the Highland Zone, 30,000 of these ring-forts have survived, and
their existence, together with the relative absence of hill-forts, suggests
that it was possible, as a consequence perhaps of a relatively static pop-
ulation, for small-scale political units to enjoy substantial independence.
Warfare was probably a local affair. Tribal kingdoms existed (Irish tuatha)
but the powers of the kings were limited. The large number of kingdoms,
compared with the Lowland Zone, also suggests that they were small in
size. The complete absence of coinage and of urban concentrations is
another pointer in the same direction. What appear to be at first sight
large hill-forts at Tara, Emain Macha (the Armagh of today) and Dun
Ailinne turn out on closer inspection to be ritual sites, built during the
Bronze Age and later probably used for annual assemblies.
There can be little doubt that this broad social and economic contrast
between Lowland and Highland Zones was also reflected in culture. An
obvious next step, therefore, would be to consider the extent to which
such matters as law, religion and general problems of ‘meaning and value’
differed from one Zone to another. The question, however, is easier to
ask than to answer, at least for the Lowland Zone. The Roman Conquest,
later to be followed by large-scale Anglo-Saxon colonisation, obliterated
almost all traces of Celtic cultures in the south and east of England. In
contrast, a great deal survived for Ireland. Thus we are in the paradoxical
position of knowing more about the ‘traditional’ era of the Celtic world
than about its ‘modernising’ sector.
Our knowledge of early Irish society derives largely from the evidence
of the Brehon Laws first committed to writing in the sixth or seventh
century ad but undoubtedly, thanks to the conservatism of the jurists,
casting light upon some social assumptions of pre-Christian times. Pro-
fessor Binchy, the editor of the laws, has characterised this society as
‘tribal, rural, hierarchical and familiar’. Hence, it may be seen as con-
trasting with the monarchical and relatively urbanised societies of the
Lowland Zone (though Binchy’s views are now under challenge).
Within the context of the British Isles, the relatively traditional char-
acter of Celtic societies in Ireland is suggested by several features. They
were, in the first place, oral cultures. The localised and static character
of these societies is also implied in the importance which was attached to
kinship. Power and prestige rested with the kinship group, derbfine (fine
being the term for family). This did not mean that ownership of land was
communal. It seems clear that the actual cultivation and ownership of
the land rested with individual nuclear families.
 The Celtic societies of the British Isles 23

The localised character of these societies suggests that a sense of

national identity was lacking. Hence the use of the word ‘Irish’ in ref-
erence to this period, though convenient, may be misleading. (The same
difficulty will appear later in references to Anglo-Saxon England.) The
largest political unit at this period was the tribe (tuath) under its king
(rı́). The earliest political terms refer to tribal units, e.g. the Ciarraige
(the people of Kerry) or the Muscraige (the people of Muskerry). There
were tribal kings with limited powers, but in general the structure of these
societies was aristocratic rather than monarchical.
Within the individual kinship groups there was, no doubt, a rough-and-
ready equality, tempered by deference to age and seniority. But kinship
groups themselves were not equal. The laws indicate the existence of
different grades or gráda (perhaps ‘castes’ might be a more appropriate
term) each with its own standard of compensation in the case of injury.
The basis for differentiation was the assumption that priestly and warrior
kinship groups were superior to the farming groups. By this time, a ‘mid-
dle class’ of smiths and leeches (medicine men) had managed to infiltrate
the social hierarchy, their claim being legitimised on the basis of the craft
having allegedly been founded by a particular god.
Aristocratic assumptions may also be seen in the prestige associated
with the owning of cattle. It is often, and wrongly, assumed that Irish
society rested upon cattle raising to the exclusion of arable farming. There
is no doubt that arable farming was practised, but the evidence of the laws
and other sources indicates that cattle raising was regarded as a superior
form of social activity. Wealth was reckoned in herds of cattle, not acreage.
Cattle raids were seen as an appropriate activity for the young nobility
of a kingdom. In quasi-feudal arrangements which developed between
wealthy patrons and needy clients, grants of ‘fiefs’ involved cattle not
land. The unit of exchange in society was the sét, a unit estimated as
being equivalent to one heifer. The ritual division of the year into two
halves derived from the regular movement of cattle to winter and summer
pasture. Bull symbolism also plays a large part in the Ulster epic Táin Bó
Cuailgne. All these details suggest the cultural dominance of a cattle-
raising aristocracy which relegated arable farming to lower social status.
These societies were not localised in any absolute sense. At the level
of the elite groups of druids and warriors there seems to have been a
common culture. It is easy to overstress the importance of this, however.
Most of the gods and goddesses of Ireland were extremely localised per-
sonages with a local clientele, as the early Christian saints were to be
several centuries later. Trade was confined to annual fairs within each
kingdom. The pattern of settlement, based as it was upon isolated ‘ring-
forts’ rather than nucleated settlements, also indicates heavily localised
societies. Behind the apparent unity of the Brehon Laws, Professor Binchy
24 The British Isles

has detected the existence of local codes. In the fourth century ad a con-
siderable degree of political change occurred leading to the formation of
several large kingdoms. During this earlier, pre-fourth-century period,
however, there seems little doubt that small-scale societies were typical
of Ireland, and of the Highland Zone generally.
There was, however, some social change. Kinship groups may have
been the norm but the rise of relationships based upon clientage shows
that some form of feudal relationship might exist between individuals.
Thanks to the researches of Professor Binchy, it is possible also to discern
a shift from earlier legal assumptions involving the sanction of taboos to
a social world in which the law was enforced by kinship groups or by a
powerful patron or king. The earliest level of thinking survived in such
practices as troscad in which litigants fasted, possibly unto death, in order
to bring pressure to bear upon the offending party. Such fasting was
probably regarded as a magico-religious activity, capable of transferring
the physical suffering of the faster to the person being ‘fasted against’.
By a later period troscad seems to have become largely obsolete as a legal
remedy though it was still apparently an option open to the weak and
powerless who lacked the backing of patrons or kin. If what we have said
about the localised character of these societies is correct, it may also be
expected that, within Ireland itself, some areas would be more traditional
than others, the practice of troscad being a case in point.
The only other substantial body of ‘Celtic’ law about which some-
thing is known derives from the area now known as ‘Wales’, though there
were presumably analogous legal systems operating throughout the rest
of the British Isles. Welsh ‘tribal’ societies came into direct contact with
Rome and there are good reasons for thinking that the legal practice of
South Wales, within the orbit of the Roman military base at Caerleon
(near Newport, Gwent) was influenced by Roman codes. Elsewhere in
Wales pre-Roman social structures seem to have survived to influence
assumptions about land-holding. In Welsh local cultures, as in Ireland,
specific tracts of land were regarded as belonging to aristocratic kinship
groups and hence inalienable by individuals. These assumptions prevailed
into the sixteenth century and beyond. Welsh society in the pre-Roman
period, as later, was heavily pastoral and, like Ireland, organised around
a transhumance pattern of summer and winter grazing. Elsewhere in the
Highland Zone we may assume the existence of an ‘Irish-Welsh’ style of
social structure reflected in law, religion and general culture.
It is regrettable that no equivalent sources of evidence exist for the
Lowland Zone. Even for tribal names we have only Latinised equivalents.
If such sources had survived, we might expect them to reflect in some
way the central position occupied by agriculture, the growing importance
of trade and the extensive power enjoyed by such kings as Cunobelinus.
 The Celtic societies of the British Isles 25

Figure 4. Hill-fort at Moel-y-Gaer

A hill-fort at Moel-y-Gaer (Denbighshire) set in the Welsh hills. Under
Roman occupation, this part of Britain was controlled from Chester.
Hill-forts such as Maiden Castle (Dorset) were very much a feature of
pre-Roman Britain.

Warfare, the consequence of invasion as well as of competition for land,

was probably more prominent in Lowland culture. All this is a matter for
speculation. What seems certain is that the ‘Celtic’ social arrangements
revealed by the medieval Irish and Welsh evidence were more traditional
in character than the equally ‘Celtic’ societies of southern and eastern
Britain.
The British Isles, on the eve of the Roman invasions, thus present
a broad contrast between the urbanised, monarchical societies of the
south and east and the rural, tribal and aristocratic societies of Highland
26 The British Isles

Britain and Ireland. For Lowland Britain, the Roman invasion was the
latest in a series which had subjected that area to violent change over
several centuries. Even before the Romans arrived, the political ambitions
of individual kingdoms had led to shifts in the balance of power in the
south-east. For some hard-pressed groups, such as the Regni (of what is
now West Sussex), the Romans were almost certainly a lesser evil. Perhaps
they anticipated that the invasion of Claudius in ad 43 would be similar to
those made by Julius Caesar in 55 and 54 bc, raids in force leaving Rome’s
allies in possession of the field. If so, they were wrong. On this occasion the
Romans arrived with the intention of staying permanently. So powerful
was their impact that it is only by a great effort of the imagination that
we see the need to go beyond the lasting monuments of Roman rule to
the scattered relics of the Celtic societies which everywhere in Britain
preceded it.

Postscript
This is perhaps the appropriate point to mention the contemporary
debate about the term ‘Celtic’. The most accessible introduction to this
controversial topic is Professor Joep Leersen’s excellent essay in Terence
Brown, ed., Celticism (Amsterdam, 1996), pp. 1–20. Malcolm Chapman’s
The Celts: The Construction of a Myth (Basingstoke, 1992) is essential
reading.
2 The impact of Rome on the British Isles

The tribal societies of southern Britain, already in direct contact with

Rome, would have found it difficult to avoid being drawn into a system
of ‘informal imperialism’. The social and economic consequences of this
can only be guessed at, but clearly the expansion of trade and cash-
crops together with the spread of literacy would have led to changes
in social structure, modifying without necessarily destroying traditional
institutions. ‘Modernisation’, as we have seen, was in some respects well
under way. In the event, however, the Romans decided upon a course of
conquest and colonisation which led to the total destruction of the Celtic
societies of the south.
What was the overall effect of this upon the British Isles? The North
Sea Province underwent a social and cultural revolution. South of a line
between Lincoln and Lyme Bay, the various Celtic kingdoms lost their
independence and were incorporated within an imperial administrative
framework. British Celtic language, religion, law and social institutions
totally lost their elite status and henceforth were to bear the stigmas of
the conquered. The southern Lowlands forming a military province were
the most Romanised section of Britain. North and west, a military zone
existed over which the policy of Rome was to exercise military control
rather than to administer as a civil province.
English historians of the Roman Conquest have seen it, on the whole,
through the eyes of the victors, an understandable attitude in a society
with its own strong imperial traditions. From the Renaissance onwards,
indeed, the Roman model has been looked upon as one which the English
should copy. Not surprisingly, English accounts of Roman Britain, even
the most recent, give the Romans the benefit of the doubt. We are assured,
for example, that the Romans brought ‘firm government’ (S. S. Frere,
Britannia (1967), p. 370). They are seen as having ‘put Britain on her feet
once more and restored her self-respect’ (p. 111) and inaugurating ‘a new
era in the province with far-reaching advances both in the military sphere
and in that of cultural development’ (p. 115). We are told that ‘the early
third century was a period of social advance and that the settlement of

27
28 The British Isles

The Routes by which the Concepts

of LaTène Art Reached Britain & Ireland

Early La Tène
core zone
Marne Moselle

0 200 km

Map 1. ‘The Routes by which the concepts of La Tène Art Reached

Britain and Ireland’.

Roman veterans near Hadrian’s Wall resulted in a much greater commu-

nity of sentiment between the garrisons and the local tribesmen’ (p. 214).
In the more recent Oxford History (P. Salway, Roman Britain (1981)),
similar judgements are made. Rome, it is said, imposed relative peace
by preventing inter-communal warfare. ‘The very presence of a large
army and civil establishment and other attractions which the new society
held for local leaders cannot have left the humblest family untouched’
 The impact of Rome on the British Isles 29

(p. 236). The Romans, another scholar tells us, aimed to unite Britain
with an economy and a culture superior to anything previously known
there. For the first time the whole country was united under one govern-
ment, made possible by a splendid road system. The Roman Conquest is
seen as creating a new situation tending to peace and order which greatly
stimulated rural development.
The problem with such judgements is that they tell the story from
the viewpoint of the coloniser. There were, clearly, other interpreta-
tions of events, even though we may never discover them. The work of
E. M. Forster or Joseph Conrad (or even, in the late twentieth century,
of Thomas Keneally in his sensitive study of the Australian aboriginals,
The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith) is enough to justify the placing of a
question-mark against one-dimensional accounts of the Roman Con-
quest of Britain. What is clear about the Roman invasion of Britain is
that it imposed one culture upon another. What is unclear is the extent
to which the colonised inhabitants themselves came to welcome this as
‘modernisation’; and how far we ourselves are entitled to make the judge-
ment that the Conquest was ‘all for the best’. The overwhelming weight
of the evidence, in the shape of inscriptions, pottery and buildings predis-
poses us to make a judgement in favour of the Romans. On the other hand,
the survival of such objects as the Battersea Shield and of later Irish works
of art, influenced by La Tène traditions, is a reminder that Roman-style
modernisation involved loss as well as gain. Recent excavations made at
Ferrybridge, Yorkshire suggest that ‘a burial grave venerated for centuries
may have been the last rallying point for Britons facing the prospect of
Roman colonization’ (The Daily Telegraph, 10 March 2005).
As we have seen, the Celtic societies of Britain were by no means wholly
traditional in character on the eve of the Roman Conquest. Social change,
at least in the south, was taking place in the direction of larger politi-
cal units, urbanisation and a wider market economy. The thrust towards
‘modernisation’ was greatly accelerated, however, after the Claudian inva-
sion of ad 43. By the end of the first century ad the tribal monarchies
of southern Britain had given way to one in which power rested with a
literate bureaucracy, ruling according to the standards of a cosmopoli-
tan empire, from urban centres which were linked by a centralised road
system.
The key instrument in bringing about the radical changes which trans-
formed much of Britain was the Roman army. The role played by the
army in the initial phases of the occupation was inevitable. What was
unexpected was the prolonged nature of the military occupation. Con-
trol of the Lowlands proved to be relatively easy. The Highlands, however,
were never completely subdued and even maintaining a Roman presence
30 The British Isles

there involved an inordinate amount of expenditure. Unrest among the

Brigantes of the Highland Zone (Yorkshire and the Pennines) drew the
Roman army into a never-ending series of campaigns. What the gov-
ernment originally envisaged as a buffer zone turned into a dangerous
frontier area. The construction of Hadrian’s Wall, with all the diversion
of resources which this involved, was a clear admission of the serious-
ness of the problem. Britain in fact demanded a larger outlay of military
resources than any other province within the empire.
In such a situation, in which the army played a key role in decision-
making, ‘modernisation’ took on a military colouring. Military decisions
lay behind the establishment of garrison towns at Exeter and Lincoln
with a military road, the Fosse Way, linking them. More such decisions
lay behind the foundation of York and Caerleon as the main military
centres of the Highland Zone. Most urban foundations in Roman Britain
had a military origin. Some such as Lincoln or Colchester were colonies
of army veterans. Even Bath, with its warm springs, catered largely for
the needs of army officers, on leave or in retirement. Roman towns, true
to their military origins, resembled barrack-like blocks in their regularity
of pattern.
The army was not an end in itself, however. It formed part, but the
most essential part, of a wider colonial society. Britain was a Roman
colony, run for the benefit of the empire and its representatives. It is this
undoubted fact which makes such judgements as ‘putting Britain on her
feet’ so wide of the mark. Rome modernised the various tribal societies
of Britain with the intention of exploiting its resources and raw materials.
A centralised colonial economy replaced the various local economies of
tribal society.
Within the new order the army was by far the most important single
market. Its needs for a constant supply of corn, iron, leather, wine and
pottery led to the mobilisation of a large labour force. The army was also
responsible for the exploitation of silver mines, an imperial monopoly.
The ‘splendid’ road system also required a plentiful supply of stone. All
this was achieved not by the payment of wages but by the imposition of
slavery combined with the ‘pressing’ of local labour. Convict labour was
used in the mines and, in some cases, labourers were kept underground.
The traditional status system resting upon membership of kinship groups
was replaced by one in which the army was at the top of the social hierar-
chy with a largely unfree labour force constituting its base. Slavery existed
in the tribal societies of the pre-Roman period but there was a clear dif-
ference between that situation and one in which slavery was a central
institution.
There is little direct evidence about the transference of a colonial sur-
plus abroad to the continental empire. The existence of an imperial
 The impact of Rome on the British Isles 31

Figure 5. Portchester Castle (Hampshire)

Portchester Castle, near Portsmouth, was originally one of a number of
coastal forts constructed in the late 3rd century by the Romans against
seaborne attacks. Similar forts, though less well preserved, also survive
on the east coast at Burgh Castle and Brancaster. A keep was added to
Portchester by Henry I and the castle remained in use for many centuries
afterwards.

bureaucracy, however, indicates that such a surplus existed, for other-

wise the civil servants would have had no raison d’être. The aim of the
bureaucracy was the collection of taxes. The officials responsible for tax
collection as well as for supplying the necessary quotas of forced labour
needed to maintain ‘public works’ were the decuriones. It was they who
supervised the collection of the annona, the compulsory levy of wheat
which was placed in a central state store before being distributed to the
army.
In all of this, the demands of the Roman state were paramount. Army,
bureaucracy and towns formed parts of a wider imperial organisation. It
seems likely also that the Roman villas formed part of this structure. The
600 villas discovered so far were once thought to have been essentially
rural in character, but it now seems clear that they were located relatively
near urban centres. Far from being places of leisure or retirement, the
32 The British Isles

villas, or most of them, were units of agricultural production, akin to the

hacienda of colonial Mexico, or the ‘big houses’ of eighteenth-century
Ireland. The likelihood is that they were run by slave labour, though
the evidence is not absolutely conclusive. At Hambledon (Bucks) the
numerous remains of female infants suggest that infanticide was practised
with a view to maintaining a largely male work force.
The nature of the evidence in Roman Britain means that we know
far more about the colonists than about the colonised. Historians have
concentrated their attention upon the task of working out the details of
how the army was organised or the bureaucracy was run. It is only by
placing Roman Britain within the wider context of the British Isles that
we are reminded that these institutions rested upon a conquered Celtic-
speaking population. Such was the power of Rome that Celtic culture
was almost lost to sight in southern Britain. Only in the north and west
and in Ireland, which the Romans did not attempt to conquer, may clear
glimpses of alternative social arrangements be discerned.
The impact of the Roman empire upon the Highland Zone is difficult
to gauge. Roman roads and the accompanying system of Roman forts
tended to attract clusters of native settlements. Hadrian’s Wall was also
an economic magnet in its own right. Apart from these points of con-
tact there is little reason to doubt that Celtic social institutions survived
over much of what is now northern England. York, with its cosmopolitan
population, must be seen as a garrison town in a largely Celtic ‘York-
shire’. The ‘Jackson map’ of Celtic river-names (see p. 44) offers further
evidence of the survival of Celtic culture in what we now think of as Eng-
land. Celtic religious beliefs undoubtedly survived and perhaps revived
in the course of the fifth century or earlier as the Celtic temple in Lydney
(Glos) suggests. Even in the Lowland Zone, excavation has revealed the
existence of temples on Celtic sites. We may also assume the survival of
‘native’ law in many cases.
When due allowance has been made for the survival of Celtic culture,
there still remains the factor of Roman power to be taken into consid-
eration. In her work (An Early Welsh Microcosm: Studies in the Llandaff
Charters (1978); Wales in the Early Middle Ages (1982)), Wendy Davies
has suggested that over large areas of south Wales, Roman-style land law,
based on the ‘estate’, survived for many centuries after the Roman with-
drawal. Clearly, considerable ‘Romanisation’ had taken place in what was
part of the Highland Zone. There is also the vexed question about the
extent to which the Highland Zone had been Christianised by the fifth
century ad. It was indeed this Church which produced Patrick, the Apos-
tle to the Irish, and the first clearly recognisable individual personality in
British history (more so than ‘Arthur’). If Christianity is taken as an index
Other documents randomly have
different content
“Dear me,” he said, turning to his nearest companion, who
happened to be Frances, “it is a queer-looking place—I had
almost forgotten about it. I dare say your father could tell
me something about the books,” he continued, when he
took in whom he was speaking to.

“I scarcely think so,” was the rather cold reply. “I have

never heard of his going through your library. It is only the
second time in my life that I have entered it. Indeed, it is
only since Mrs Littlewood has been here that we have got to
know the house at all well,” and Mr Morion saw that he had
made a mistake. But he was not of the nature to be easily
baffled.

“I am sorry to hear it,” he said quietly. “But I hope it is one

of the cases in which it is not too late to mend—my ways, I
should add,” and here for the first time he smiled, and his
cousin of the fourth or fifth degree was obliged to own to
herself that the smile was decidedly happy in its effect.
Somehow he was conscious of the slight thaw in Frances’
manner.

“Miss Morion,” he said, speaking for once in what for him

was almost an impulsive tone, “don’t think I’m not aware of
my shortcomings hitherto with regard to this place. I shall
be more than grateful to you for any hints or information as
to the real needs hereabouts. I have heard from Miss
Littlewood how good you and your sisters are to your poor
neighbours, and—”

“Madeleine—Miss Littlewood,” she began, “sees things too

partially. In the first place, as you must know, there are
scarcely any poor on your property; such as there are, Mr
Ferraby can tell you all about far more satisfactorily than I
can. And as to other things—other places in the
neighbourhood—well, no, I suppose they are not more your
affair than that of several other people, to whom I could not
apply without seeming officious, and gaining nothing in the
end.”

But through her rather curt manner he detected a slight

hesitation. And in point of fact, at that moment she was
asking herself if she should suppress all other feeling in the
hope of gaining his interest and assistance where both were
so badly needed.

“Are you thinking of Scaling Harbour?” he inquired abruptly.

Frances’ brow cleared, while her doubts vanished. Yes, this

was her opportunity; there was now no mistake about it.

“Yes,” she replied, and for the first time she raised her eyes
and looked at him fully and unconstrainedly, “I was.”

“Thank you,” he said quickly. “I shall not forget. Now,

Horace,” he went on, turning to young Littlewood, who had
got down a big book containing some very quaint
illustrations which he was exhibiting to Betty on a side-
table. “Do the honours, can’t you? Oh, I beg your pardon, I
see you are doing them already.”

Horace looked up, but kept his place.

“What do you want me to do?” he inquired; then, without

waiting for an answer, he turned to his folio again.

“Francie,” came in Betty’s clear treble, “do look here. Did

you ever see such queer old figures?”

Frances crossed over to her sister’s side, not sorry on the

whole that her tête-à-tête was over.
“Yes,” she said, examining the pictures with interest. “They
must be about the date of—let me see—Queen Anne! or
older than that?”

“It is easily seen,” said Horace, turning back to the title-

page. There was no fly-leaf, but at the top was written in
clear, still black handwriting:

“Elizabeth Morion: the gift of her father on the 16th

anniversary of her birth.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Betty. “It was her book,” and she drew
back with a little shiver.

“Don’t be silly, Betty dear,” said Frances. “It makes it all the
more interesting.”

But Horace’s face expressed some concern, and he

murmured something, of which the word “unlucky” was the
only one audible to his companions.

“What have you got hold of over there, Horace, that is

absorbing you so?” said a voice close at hand, and, glancing
up, Frances saw Mr Morion standing beside her.

“Only one of these queer old books,” Horace replied

carelessly, though as he spoke he turned over the pages so
that the first one, with the inscription, was no longer visible.
For which piece of tact both sisters felt grateful to him.

“It would have been disagreeable to have come upon the

subject of the split in the family this very first time of our
meeting,” thought Frances, while Betty, too, was relieved,
though on different grounds.

Ryder Morion glanced at the book indifferently. Then his

eyes strayed back to the other side of the room.
“I’ve found some better books than that already,” he said.
“Just look over here, Miss Morion.”

Frances could not but follow him, though not particularly

desirous of doing so. Horace and Betty remained where
they were.

“I wish he would leave us alone,” said Betty, half petulantly.

“Frances was interested in the book, and then,” with some
hesitation, “she doesn’t mind about our great-grand-aunt
the way I do. Do you think,” she went on naïvely, “that it
can have anything to do with my being named after her, or
just—just that Frances is so sensible and good about
everything, and that I’m silly?”

“Frances,” began Horace, then he checked himself, and his

colour deepened a little. “I beg your pardon,” he said, with a
slight laugh; but Betty’s face was far from expressing
displeasure. “Your sister,” he began again, “deserves most
assuredly what you say of her, but you can scarcely expect
me to endorse what you say of yourself.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t mind in the least,” Betty rejoined. “I am

silly—very silly in some ways, I know,” and she glanced up
at him with a light in her shy eyes, which illumined all the
little flower-like face, as if it were a ray of sunshine. “I
thought it was because of that that you turned over the
pages of this creepy book so quickly.” For by this time Betty
had redeemed her promise of telling Mr Littlewood all that
she herself knew of the reputed ghost.

He looked gratified. Everybody likes to be credited with tact.

“I knew it wasn’t exactly a subject you cared to speak about

—to strangers,” he replied.
“Less still,” said Betty, “to Mr Ryder Morion, who, besides
being a perfect stranger to us himself, has to do with it, of
course.”

“He doesn’t seem to have taken your fancy,” said Horace

tentatively.

Betty closed her lips in a way she had which expressed

more than words.

“Tell me,” persisted Horace, “I promise not to let him know.

Is it a case of Dr Fell?”

“No,” said Betty, in a funny little tone of defiance, “for I do

know. Besides the old reasons, just now I’m vexed with him
for teasing Frances!”

Her remark, childish as it was, provoked no smile, but, on

the contrary, an almost grave reply, as if the speaker were
well considering his words.

“You are very, very fond of your elder sister, I see,” said he.
“I suppose you have scarcely a thought apart from her?”

“Not a single one,” said Betty eagerly; then she stopped

suddenly. “No, that isn’t quite true; just lately—well, for
some little time, I have had a thought—some thoughts, that
she doesn’t know about.” But no sooner had she uttered
this sphinx-like speech than her cheeks grew crimson,
painfully crimson. “Oh dear,” she exclaimed, “I wish I talked
at all! I always say what I don’t mean to!”

Horace was regarding her with a very perplexed expression.

“Never mind,” he said. “Can’t you get into the way of

thinking that it doesn’t matter what you say to me? I wish
you would. I really am to be trusted, and—”
“What?” said Betty, the distress in her face beginning to
fade.

“You don’t know,” he went on, “how I like being treated

quite—naturally, as you sometimes honour me by doing—as
if, so to say, you were beginning to think of me as—as an
old friend.”

Almost before he had finished speaking Betty’s expression

had undergone one of the sudden transformations so
characteristic of her. It was all but radiant.

“How nice of you!” she said. “How very nice of you to put it
like that!”

But, strange to say, though he smiled indulgently, a shadow

had crept across Horace Littlewood’s face at her eager
words.

“Perhaps,” he said, “we had better go back to the drawing-

room,” and he glanced round to see what the rest of the
party was about. Three had already left the room, Lady
Leila and Mr Charlemont escorted by Miss Littlewood, who
had come to the rescue on finding them mutually boring
each other, Mr Bryan following them with a couple of
volumes under his arm, which he meant to study at leisure.
There remained Frances and Mr Morion, who were staring
out through the unshuttered door-window into the
blackness of the Laurel Walk, as if fascinated. And when
Horace suddenly addressed her, he was startled as Frances
turned to see that her face had grown strangely pale. Or
was this only his fancy?

“There is something uncanny about the place,” he thought

to himself. “Can they have seen anything? I shall find out
afterwards from Ryder.”
For evidently, if his suspicion were true, this was not the
moment for satisfying it, as Ryder Morion hurried forward at
once.

“Yes,” he said, “we had better return to the drawing-room.”

And somewhat to his surprise, Betty started forward at his
words.

“It is getting chilly,” she said, addressing him directly. “Do

let us go,” on which he naturally accompanied her; thus
leaving Horace and Frances for a moment or two in the rear.

“Wasn’t Madeleine saying something about a walk to Scaling

Harbour to-morrow?” began the former in a low and rather
hurried tone. “If so, may I join you in it, Miss Morion? I
should be glad of the chance of a talk with you.”

Frances lifted her grave eyes to his face.

“Certainly,” she said, “we quite mean to go, if it is fine.”

The words and tone were matter-of-fact and commonplace

enough. Not so the inward surmises which his words, still
more his manner, suggested.

For the first time Frances allowed her thoughts to entertain

a possibility which till this evening she had resolutely
refrained from even considering.

Could it be that her fanciful little sisters had any ground for
the castle they were busily constructing, of which the
foundation hitherto she would have refused to believe more
stable than “in the air?”
 Chapter Fifteen.
Breaking Ground.

Mrs Littlewood glanced up quickly as Betty and Ryder

Morion entered the room. She was seated not far from the
door, showing some photographs of her grandchildren to
Mrs Charlemont. A curious expression, half annoyance, half
expectancy, stole into her face as she caught sight of the
two, and between handing the portraits to her friend and
listening: to her comments thereupon, she managed to
keep a keen though unobtruded watch on the doorway.

She had not long to wait. Scarcely a minute had elapsed

before her son and Frances made their appearance. Mrs
Littlewood’s perceptions and instincts were very quick:
something told her that the two had been talking more or
less confidentially, for Horace looked eager and slightly
nervous; his companion, on the other hand, grave and
almost absent, with a dreamy look in her eyes, which her
hostess—little as, comparatively speaking, she knew her—
felt intuitively was not Frances’ habitual expression.

“It cannot surely have come to anything serious as yet,”

with a sudden rush of alarm which almost startled herself.
“He would never dream of it without consulting me,
dependent on me as he is, and surely I have more hold on
his affection and respect than that would show!”

But the misgiving was there. Had she been a woman of less
breeding and self-control she could scarcely have hidden
her uneasiness. Even as it was, she did so less completely
than she imagined, or else Frances herself was all but
morbidly acute to-night, for as Mrs Littlewood moved to her
with some polite commonplace, the girl felt that the
courtesy but overlay increasing coldness and disapproval.

“She has never really liked me,” thought she, “and now she
is on the way to less negative sentiments, I fear.” Nor was
this belief in any way softened by the hostess’ manner when
the time came for saying good-night—the difference
between her kindly, all but affectionate tone to Betty and
the chilly though irreproachably courteous farewell to
herself was so marked.

And it deepened the impression of Horace’s words. “His

mother is afraid of it,” said Frances to herself; “I can feel
that she is.”

She was glad that he had kept away from her during the
rest of the evening, talking more to the two younger girls,
Eira and Miss Charlemont, with whom Betty had taken
refuge.

Altogether, the sister’s well-balanced mind had good need of

its practised self-restraint that evening. And during the
drive home, short as it was, it was all she could do to reply
in an ordinary way to the comments on her family’s
unwonted piece of dissipation, which not unnaturally came
to be expressed.

It had left a favourable impression on her father and

mother; thus much Frances was satisfied to see. Beyond
this she felt incapable of further discussion.

“I am a little tired, dears,” she said to her sisters as they

were making their way upstairs. “Don’t let us talk over
anything till the morning.” And, though with a little
disappointment, Betty and Eira yielded at once to her wish.
“Frances is, don’t you think, a little strange, not quite like
herself?” said Betty, when she and Eira were alone in their
room. “She might have told us a little about the dinner, who
took her in, and all that. We were so pleased to make her
look so nice,” and she gave a little sigh.

“You are rather stupid, Betty,” was the reply. “Things

couldn’t be better. Even her wanting not to talk to-night.”

“Talking” was easy to avoid, not so thinking. Frances felt,

with a strange sensation of excitement, as if she were on
the verge of some great change or changes in life; almost,
as it were, on the brink of some discovery. And this was not
solely owing to her scarcely avowed anticipation of distinct
intention as regarded herself on the part of Horace
Littlewood. He had not been mistaken as to the startled,
strange expression on Miss Morion’s face at the moment of
his suggestion that they should leave the library, which had
caused her to turn somewhat suddenly from the window
overlooking the Laurel Walk. She had seen, or at least
believed that she had seen, something mysterious and
inexplicable, and, what was more, she knew that her
companion, Ryder Morion, had seen it too.

“What was that?” were the words which had escaped her in
a low tone, with an involuntary appeal to him; and his reply,
“Some curious reflection of the light in here, I suppose,”
though intended as reassuring, had not achieved its object,
not even so far as to make her feel that he was expressing
his own conviction.

For what they had both perceived was no stationary gleam

such as is often thrown on glass with a dark background in
such circumstances: it was a faintly luminous something,
slowly moving down the path towards the church, gradually
fading into nothingness as it neared the little gate.
“What can it have been?” Frances now asked herself, with a
shiver of sympathy for Eira, as she recalled the girl’s
impressive words about the effect of “really having heard
something.”

“I do feel,” thought the elder sister, though with a little

smile at her own weakness, “as if I had really seen
something! It looked about the height of a small woman
moving slowly. Can such things be? Shall I speak of it again
to Mr Morion? I have such a shrinking from any allusion to
him, to that old story. No, I would rather leave it. Possibly
he may tell Mr Littlewood about it, and in that way I may
hear if it made any impression on him.” And with the
reference to Horace, her thought grew again absorbed by
the still vague surmises which his manner, even more than
his words, had given rise to.

“To-morrow will give me more grounds for real

consideration,” she thought. “It isn’t as if I were a mere girl
who could be excused for beginning fancying things which
after all may have no existence. It isn’t even as if I were
one of the younger ones. I am rather ashamed of myself.
After all, I doubt if I am not older than he, and in any case I
probably seem so to him,” with a little sigh. “It all comes, I
suppose, from this strangely isolated life of ours—things of
no importance in the eyes of others seem to us so
wonderful.”

Yet in spite of herself the impression was made, and

deepened undoubtedly—much as this would have been
regretted by the lady herself—through the unmistakable
change to increasing coldness and formality in Mrs
Littlewood’s bearing to her that evening.

Considerably to Frances’ relief, somewhat too to her

surprise, though the former feeling prevented her dwelling
on the latter, she was not subjected the next morning to
any cross-examination on the part of her sisters as to her
experiences the night before, previous to their own
appearance on the scene. On the contrary, Betty and Eira
seemed fully absorbed by the plans for that day. They had
arranged more definitely than Frances knew with Madeleine
and her young guest for the expedition to the fishing village
which Horace had alluded to.

“They are to call for us,” said Betty, “or we for them. That is
to say, we are both to start from our own doors at half-past
one; most likely we shall meet in the park. You must
manage, Francie, to get us some sort of luncheon before we
go. We’ve asked mamma, and she doesn’t mind, if you can
arrange it with the cook.”

Betty’s prevision came true. The sisters had just entered

the Craig-Morion grounds when they caught sight of a little
group coming to meet them.

“Dear me! what a lot of people they seem,” said Eira.

“Whom has Madeleine brought? Oh, I see,” she went on, “it
is only Miss Charlemont and her father and one of those
other men: do you know his name, Frances?”

But Frances did not reply; indeed, she scarcely heard her
sister’s remarks. For perhaps the first time in her life, she
was feeling self-conscious and constrained. He was there of
course, Horace, that is to say, looking his best in his rough
tweed suit and brown leather gaiters, bright and eager and
evidently in excellent spirits as he shook hands with his fair
neighbours. Though underneath this, one who knew him
intimately—his sister, had she been on the lookout for it—
might have discerned a certain nervousness, of which a
superficial judgment would little have suspected this very
smart young man of the day of being capable.
The air was exhilarating; with one exception they were all
young, and as they walked on together, the sound of their
voices in lively talk, broken now and then by Betty’s silvery
laugh in response to some merry speech, told their own
tale, and that a pleasant one.

Frances glanced at her little sister with satisfaction.

“Betty is looking ever so much better than last night,”

thought she; “perhaps she is one of those people—they are
often really the loveliest—who are at their best by daylight,
though as far as dress goes she and Eira are almost more at
a disadvantage than in the evening,” as her eyes strayed
from her sister’s neat but unmistakably “home-made”
country attire to the perfect finish and cut of Madeleine’s
and Gertrude’s short-skirted “tailor” costumes.

For the days are past, if indeed they ever existed, in which
“anything,” however dowdy or shabbily fine, was considered
“good enough” for country wear. Partly, perhaps, owing to
the fact, ignored or scarcely realised, that our ancestresses
at no very remote period—those who figured, and
deservedly, in books of beauty or on immortal canvases—
knew not what country life in our modern sense of the word
really is or should be. They never walked; for who would
call a stroll up and down a terrace or across a park in
clinging draperies and lace “fichus” worthy of the name?

As they emerged from the lodge gates, the party fell

naturally into twos and threes. Madeleine, with her usual
unselfishness undertaking the entertainment of Mr
Charlemont, led the way. And soon Frances, though,
needless to say, by no connivance of her own, found herself
to all intents and purposes tête-à-tête with Horace.
“What has become of Mr Morion?” she asked, more for the
sake of saying something than from any real interest in that
personage’s movements.

“I really don’t know,” Horace replied, half absently. “He’s a

queer fish. He went off this morning early somewhere;
that’s rather his way. When you’re staying at Witham-
Meldon you never see your host till late in the day. He
doesn’t mind how many people he has to stay so long as
they look after themselves or each other till late afternoon
or dinner-time. I have even known him stroll into the
drawing-room when everybody was assembled as if he had
nothing to do with it all, and greet people here and there
with an offhand ‘good-morning.’”

“It must be rather uncomfortable,” said Frances, “rather as

if you were all staying at a hotel?”

Horace laughed.

“Wait till you see it,” he said. “It’s splendidly managed, even
though for the greater part of the year he lives in a corner
of it shut up with his books. No,” warming to enthusiasm as
he went on, “it is simply perfection to stay at. Besides his
huge wealth, which he knows how to use, he is far cleverer
than you would think in some ways. I don’t mean his
learning, but socially speaking, as the string-puller, so to
say. He knows how to get the right people together, and
you’re always sure of somebody interesting there; and he
very often has my sister-in-law—his sister, you know—to act
hostess, and she is quite charming, though almost plain.”

Frances had grown interested by this time, and forgetful for

the moment of her own preoccupation.

“You put Mr Morion in rather a new light to me,” she said.

“Somehow I have always thought of him, if indeed I have
thought of him at all, as a sort of bookworm and recluse,
with no sympathy or geniality about him—indifferent to the
rest of the world. That is why I have sometimes almost—”
She stopped short.

“Do go on,” said Horace, with the persuasive charm of

manner, sometimes quite irresistible, about him. “You know
surely by this time that you can trust me perfectly?”

“It was more,” she replied, “that I felt ashamed of what I

was going to say. It was that I have almost grudged him his
wealth, thinking him one of those people that did not know
how really to use it—for others.”

“There you wrong him,” said Horace quickly: “he is by no

means selfish, or even self-absorbed—as I have good cause
to know,” he added, in a lower voice, as if thinking aloud.
“His manner is certainly against him,” he went on; “he gives
one the impression of being much more indifferent—cynical
—than he really is. In point of fact I know few men, if any,
that would have been what he is in the same position; quite
unspoilt by coming into all that money and property—
Witham-Meldon is really princely—so young as he did.”

Frances was one of those people who instinctively respond

to expressions of generous appreciation or admiration of
others. There was real pleasure in her face as she turned to
Horace, quite unrestrainedly now, for as the conversation
went on its increasing: interest had tended more and more
to make her for get her perplexing thoughts of the
preceding night.

“You and he must be really friends,” she said. “He must be

quite different from what I thought.”

Horace smiled, but without speaking. Then half nervously

he began to flick at some withered leaves at the side of the
path where they were walking, with the stick he held. And
almost instantaneously Frances again became self-
conscious, or conscious, rather, that her companion was
feeling so.

She was right: the young man’s first words confirmed her
suspicion.

“Miss Morion,” he began, “do you remember my saying last

night that I should be so glad of the chance of a quiet talk
with you? I hope it won’t bore you, if—if I try to make you
realise a little how I am placed. I have never minded it, or
thought much about it till lately, and now everything seems
coming upon me at once. Not that for worlds I—I would be
without these—new experiences—I would almost say,
whatever the end may be! I have never in my life, I don’t
think, felt really alive till now. Never so happy, and yet—the
other thing too, so terribly anxious—oh! I can’t express it! I
have always been a duffer at putting feelings into words.
Most men are, don’t you think so?”

“Perhaps,” Frances replied, forcing herself to speak in an

ordinary matter-of-fact tone, as her instinct of dignity
demanded; but that was all.

“But I may explain a little to you, may I not?” he went on

eagerly. “You see, I am the younger son, and entirely, or as
good as entirely, dependent on my mother. And she has
been a very kind mother, for I have cost her more than I
should have done, and she has never reproached me. Now
she wants me to leave the army, and—as she expresses it
—‘settle down,’ as my brother Con has done. But, then,
think of the huge difference between his position and mine.
I couldn’t—I really couldn’t think of marrying for money;
indeed, if I was inclined to care for a rich girl I think the fact
of her being so would destroy her attraction! I am not
hitting at my brother in saying this: he had plenty on his
side too to offer, and he did care for Elise. The only way out
of it I can see is for me to stay where I am, to stick to my
profession. Then, if the worst came to the worst—it’s
horribly difficult for me to say it—but if it were against my
mother’s wishes, there would still be something to fall back
upon. That is to say, if I was fortunate enough to find I
might hope. What do you think?”

Frances was silent. She seemed to be reflecting deeply,

though no one would have guessed from her quiet manner
the internal tumult which his half-disjointed speech had
aroused.

“Is there any necessity,” she at last managed to say, “for

you to decide anything—as to your plans—just yet? It all
seems to me so—so sudden.”

Her voice was low and somewhat tremulous. He glanced

with a quick shade of apprehension in his honest blue eyes.

“You don’t mean to say,” he asked anxiously, “that I had

better not build upon—what it all hangs on, after all?”

“I—I don’t mean to say anything,” she replied, her tone

growing firmer as she went on, “to influence you one way or
the other. I—naturally it is rather bewildering—it is difficult
for me to take it in—all at once.”

“But you can’t but have known it was coming, that it must
come?” he said questioningly. “At least I feel as if you must
have known it, as if every one must! I suppose when one is
so absorbed by a thing like this, it feels as if it were written
on one’s very forehead. Ever since that first afternoon at
your house when I was so stupid—you remember?—and
thought none of you would ever look at me again—I
understand now why I minded so much—ever since then, I
see how it has been with me.”

Frances felt strangely touched, and the real feeling which

his straightforward words evoked somehow made it easier
for her to reply. She even looked up at him with a touch
almost of tenderness in her eyes.

“Don’t you see,” she said, “how very difficult it is, how
wrong it would be, for me to risk misleading you? I must
think it over; besides the personal questions, there is the
fear, the reluctance, to risk disturbing your happy relations
with your mother. Indeed, they would be more than risked—
she would not like it.”

His face fell.

“To some extent I am afraid you are right,” he answered.

“But two people, if I may dare think of it as concerning two,
are more than one, and that one not a principal in the
matter. Little as you have said, Miss Morion, I thank you for
that little—more even than if you had said more—for I trust
your every word. The question of returning to India,” he
went on, “seems to me almost decided, and for myself I
don’t mind. But I have always shrunk from it for—for a wife.
There is so much that goes against the grain for a girl—a
woman—of refinement and all that sort of thing.”

“But,” said Frances, more timidly than she had yet spoken,
“if two people really care for each other, must not that
make all the difference in the world?”

Though scarcely had the words passed her lips before she
regretted them; she would indeed have given worlds to
recall them. Had she any right to say as much? Was it not
distinctly wrong to do so, uncertain of herself and of the
possibilities of her own feelings as she was? A sort of cold
misgiving seemed to creep over her, which in her peculiar
inexperience she was unable to explain. Was this what all
girls felt or went through, she asked herself, on first actual
realisation of a man’s devotion? She was gratified, touched;
but was that enough? Were her motives entirely pure as
regarded him—what he deserved?—or was she influenced
by secondary ones, laudable enough in themselves, but to a
woman of her character no longer so if allowed to interfere
with the plan of the one great question—could she love
him?

All this surged through her mind far more quickly than it
takes to tell it. She looked up with the intention of some
attempt at modifying her last speech, but what she saw in
Horace’s face told her it was too late. It was illumined with
pleasure.

“Of course,” he replied, “that is everything—everything.

Thank you a thousand times, Miss Morion; it is more by far
than I was daring to hope for at present.”

Something, an impalpable something, struck her in his

words: was it his still addressing her by her formal name?
All things considered, this seemed scarcely natural, scarcely
consistent. A quick terror seized her that her inferred
encouragement, grateful as he was for it, might have
seemed premature!

“Don’t put more into my words than I meant,” she forced

herself to say; “remember it was an ‘if.’”

But the radiance did not fade from his face.

“Do not deprive me of the little I have got,” he said, “and do

trust me. I shall do nothing further without your full
knowledge and approval.”
And again, as at that moment a summons from others of
the party interrupted them, Frances felt a touch of
perplexity.
 Chapter Sixteen.
“I Don’t Quite Remember.”

The summons had come from one of the younger girls, for
they had reached a point on the road to Scaling Harbour at
which there was a question of two ways thither.

“Shall we take the sea-road?” said Eira, “or the higher one?”

Frances hesitated and glanced at Horace.

“Which do you think gives the best view, the most

picturesque to newcomers?” she asked.

“The sea-road, I should say,” he replied, “decidedly so. Shall

we lead the way?” he went on, addressing Betty as he
hastened forward to where she, Eira, and Miss Charlemont
were standing; and in a moment or two, Frances, who by
this time had attached herself to Madeleine and the two
other men, heard by the sound of their merry voices that
Horace’s spirits were at their highest.

“How considerate he is!” she thought to herself, “so careful

not to involve me in any kind of notice. I wish I could—I do
hope—” but then she put it all resolutely aside for the
moment; the time had not yet come for a good thorough
“thinking out” of it all, and in spite of Madeleine’s evident
readiness to leave her undisturbed should she wish it, she
joined with seeming interest in the talk going on around
her, thereby winning still more golden opinions from her
friend as to her unselfishness and self-control. For the little
manoeuvres by which her brother had cleverly secured the
coveted tête-à-tête had been by no means unperceived by
his sister.
A few minutes’ quick walking now brought the party on to
what was called the sea-road; another quarter of an hour
and the queer little village lay close before them.
Unanimously they came to a halt.

“It is indeed picturesque,” said Gertrude, whose taste lay in

the direction of sketching.

“If only it were summer—not too cold for sitting still!”

“Wait till we have gone a little farther,” said Horace. “It isn’t
only the place, the people themselves will tempt you still
more.”

And when they found themselves in the one straggling

street, where the reddish sandstone cottages looked much
as they might have done at any time since the famous
Armada days, when—so ran the legend—the strange little
colony had first been founded, Miss Charlemont fully agreed
with him. Here and there swarthy-faced men were seated at
their cottage doors, occupied in the never-failing resource
of a fisherman’s “off-hours”—mending their nets. A few
women looking out, or here and there gossiping with each
other, had a strangely un-English air, not only as to their, in
most cases, black hair and eyes, but in the very colour and
tone of their carelessly adjusted garments, in which a vivid
blue and almost orange-scarlet, however stained and faded,
still predominated. The very children, from the tumbling-
about babies to the bare-legged, brown-skinned urchins of
both sexes, who, considering the cold especially, seemed to
take life uncommonly easily, all shared the same distinct
and peculiar characteristics.

The strangers were much struck.

“Curious,” said Mr Charlemont meditatively, “how the

Southern strain is still so predominant. It reminds me of—”
but his daughter interrupted him.

“It’s worth coming any distance to see,” she said

enthusiastically. “Even the very smell of the place isn’t like
an English village! Do you often come here?” she went on,
turning to the Morion sisters.

“I don’t,” Betty replied. “I like our own poor people far

better. But Frances and Eira—and Madeleine too—have
taken to rushing off here this winter, as often as they can
get; once or twice a week sometimes.”

“What for?” asked Miss Charlemont. “Sketching? I don’t

mean out of doors, of course, but the people themselves?”
and as, at that moment, a woman passing along the road—
a young and handsome woman—looked up with a smile and
a half-graceful, half-bashful gesture of greeting, she added,
glancing at her, “Is she a model of yours?”

Frances and Eira smiled.

“Oh no,” said the latter, “we are not half as accomplished as
you think us. It is for something quite different that we
come. And but for Madeleine we should never have been
able to do it at all.”

Eira and Gertrude were now walking together; Horace and

Betty behind them. Madeleine, who was just in front, caught
Eira’s words, and looked back with a smile of deprecation.

“Don’t praise me so undeservedly,” she said. “I assure you,

Gertrude, it is all their doing. I have only helped in the
smallest way. I don’t see how I could possibly have done
less.”

“Tell me about it,” said Gertrude to her companion; and

Eira, by no means unwillingly, gave her a rapid little sketch
of their “plan” for helping and instructing the poor,
neglected fisher-folk of this outlying little village.

Gertrude listened with interest, the greater perhaps for the

impression made upon her by the uncommon aspect of her
surroundings.

“So you see,” Eira concluded, with her usual frankness, “we
couldn’t possibly have managed it without Madeleine’s help,
though Mrs Ramsay’s money did come in for the first start.
Madeleine has given us, I know, all she possibly could, out
of her own money.”

“But she has plenty,” said Gertrude, though with no wish to

decry one for whom her admiration was unbounded.

“Of course I know she is rich,” said Eira in a lower voice;

“but then she does and helps such heaps of things already.
It isn’t as if this were her home. I don’t know,” she went on
reflectively, “if she will be able to continue things here when
she leaves. It doesn’t do to look forward—we had never
hoped to manage half we have already got done this
winter.”

“But doesn’t the village belong to Mr Morion, Mr Ryder

Morion I mean?” asked Gertrude, a practical little person in
her way.

“Only part of it,” was the reply; “and he has never,”—she

stopped abruptly. “Oh, Gertrude,” she exclaimed—for the
two young things had already arrived at the Christian-name
stage of intimacy—“oh, Gertrude, speak of—” and again she
stopped, for at that moment down a steep, rocky path,
leading on to the main street from some cottages perched
above, appeared two figures, those of the part-proprietor of
the village and of Mr Darnley, the Craig Bay curate-in-
charge, the eager aspirant to the same post at Scaling
Harbour.

He was talking eagerly, with some explanatory

gesticulation, to his companion as they came along. Mr
Morion, on the contrary, looked cooler, almost colder, than
his wont. It was he who first caught sight of the little
procession of visitors. A shade, though but a slight one, of
annoyance crossed his face: he had heard something of the
projected expedition, but had hoped and intended to get his
own business there completed in time to leave before
coming across any of the others. But his investigations,
even under Mr Darnley’s experienced guidance, had taken
longer than he anticipated; taken longer and impressed him
more deeply and more painfully than he had been in any
way prepared for. But he was not the man to show this; on
the contrary, he hastened forward with more than usual
alacrity to meet the party.

“So there you are,” he said, in a pleasant but somewhat

nonchalant manner. “I have had the start of you, however;
indeed, I scarcely expected to see you down here.”

“But you will wait, now we have met, and walk back with
us, won’t you?” said Madeleine. “You don’t know the treat
that is in store for us all,” she went on, turning with her
hearty smile to Frances and the others. “Tea and buns! half-
past three, at Mrs Silver’s! I sent down about it this
morning.”

“What a good idea!” “How nice!” were the exclamations that

greeted this announcement. For the walk in the keen air
and the very early luncheon had naturally an invigorating
effect on everybody’s appetite.
“I am specially glad to hear of it,” said Mr Darnley, “on Mr
Morion’s account. I’m afraid I have used you very badly,” he
went on, turning to the person in question. “We have been
at it since ten this morning, and you have had no luncheon
at all. Though,” with a touch of admiration and pleasure that
he was too young and enthusiastic to suppress, “I must say
it wasn’t all my fault, you have gone into things so very
thoroughly!”

A look of real annoyance flashed into Mr Morion’s eyes at

these words, to be, however, as instantaneously expelled,
for he caught sight of the flush of gratification on his
companion’s eager, still boyish face, and he had not the
heart to snub him. One person only, of those about him,
saw and understood this little by-play, and that was
Frances. And often in days to come she was glad that she
had done so. For the memory of it helped to obviate, or at
least modify, misconstruction of a character none too easy
to interpret.

“And how about your own luncheon, my good fellow?” were

the words genially substituted for the cold rejoinder which
had been on the speaker’s lips. “You deserve at least three
buns and two cups of tea.—Yes, Madeleine,” he went on,
“yours was a capital thought, and if some one will lead the
way to Mrs Silver’s we shall all gladly follow.”

“It is distinguished,” said Madeleine, “by being the cleanest

cottage in the place, you will be glad to hear. Indeed,”
catching sight of a slightly apprehensive look on Betty’s
face, “it is more than that, it is really clean.”

“Thank goodness,” Betty murmured to herself, at which

Horace, who was beside her, could not repress a smile.
“You don’t share your sister’s enthusiasm for—no, I won’t
say ‘slumming,’ it is such a hateful word, and has been so
abused,” he said.

“Slumming?” repeated Betty, “I don’t quite know what you

mean.” And she looked up in his face naïvely.

The questioning in her eyes made her look even more

childlike than usual. For a moment Horace seemed to have
forgotten what they had been saying; then he pulled
himself together, as it were.

“I am very glad you don’t,” he said, “and of course anything

your sister does would be on quite different lines from that
kind of sensational philanthropy. I only meant that you have
a natural shrinking from—well, dirty cottages and people,
and that sort of thing! I am sure I sympathise with you in it.
Any one so sensitive—”

But, rather to his surprise, Betty’s expression had grown

somewhat shamefaced.

“Oh,” she said quickly, “it’s just selfishness, I’m afraid. I

often think I am rather the spoilt one at home; Frances and
Eira are so good, and never think about themselves. I dare
say disagreeable things are quite as disagreeable to them
as to me. But they always save me from them in every way.
I believe it began by my not being as strong as they when I
was quite a little girl. And even mamma petted me much
more than the others.”

“I don’t wonder at it,” said Horace; “there are some people

made to be petted, and the world would be a worse place
than it is without them.”

“But,” said Betty, again scarcely seeming to notice his

words, and with a funny little air of dignity, “I am really not
so babyish as you might think! With such an elder sister as
Frances, how could I be? I do help a little, even in what
they do here. I write out a good deal. We have made large
sheets of directions in printed letters of what to do in
accidents and so on, copied from our books, of course, and
the others say I can print better than they can. So that is
something,” with a touch of satisfaction.

“Yes, indeed,” said her companion, “a pretty big something,

I should say. It must be tiresome work. I hope,” he went on,
with a little hesitation, “that now Ryder has seen things for
himself more thoroughly than before—indeed, I doubt if he
ever walked through this village before to-day—I hope that
he will give some substantial help.”

“I hope so too,” said Betty dryly. “Oh,” she went on, with a
little gasp, “it would be nice to be rich!”

Horace’s face fell a little.

“Do you feel that?” he said quickly. “Don’t you think that
people are often quite as happy, or happier, who are not
very rich, especially if they are without great
responsibilities? Of course few things would be worse than
to be a large proprietor with lots of people you should look
after, and no means for doing it.”

“Yes,” Betty agreed, “it reminds me of what mamma has

often told us about grandpapa’s and Uncle Avone’s
difficulties in Ireland. But with your Mr Morion it is quite
different, of course—isn’t he very rich?”

“I should say so,” said Horace.

“I don’t think I should wish to be very rich like that,” said

Betty simply. “There would be such a lot of trouble about it,
and I should not be clever enough to manage things well—
even a woman’s part of things. Now Frances, for instance,”
she went on thoughtlessly, “would be perfection in such a
position.”

“I can well imagine it,” said Horace cordially; but, instantly

realising that she had said one of the things she had better
have left unsaid, Betty looked up at him with one of those
sudden changes of expression peculiar to her, and by no
means always easy to interpret.

“Oh, but don’t misunderstand about her,” she said. “She’s

not a bit ambitious or fond of being important, or—or
anything like that. She would be quite happy in a far
simpler kind of life. Indeed, I don’t know any sort of life she
couldn’t fit herself into, though Eira and I can’t help feeling
that she is thrown away here, in this little out-of-the-way
corner.”

“But yet what would you do without her?” said Horace.

“Could you—can you imagine for yourself—we’ll say—the
ever being happy away from her?”

“Oh yes,” said Betty, eager to remove any false impression

she might have given. “She often says it would be better for
me to have to depend a little more on myself.”

“I can scarcely picture your ever being very independent,”

said Horace. “I should not like to do so. But—you may not
always have her to take care of you, and yet not be left
quite to your own devices!”

He glanced down at her as he spoke, with some scrutiny in

his smile.

“No,” she replied, in a matter-of-fact tone, “of course there

would still be Eira, though she says she would make me be
the elder sister.”
Mr Littlewood turned away half abruptly. “Here we are,” he
remarked, “this must be Mrs Silver’s abode!”

He was right. The young woman who was to act as their

hostess, or, as she would have expressed it, “to serve tea to
the gentlefolk,” was on the lookout for them. She was a
pleasing-looking person, though of a slightly different type
from the people about, with fairer hair and skin, which
rather curiously contrasted with her dark eyes. For her
mother had been an “inlander,” to use the term of the
fisher-people for any one not purely of themselves. Her
husband did not appear. He had been out for two days, she
informed her visitors, on some remark being made about
the weather and the fishing prospects, but she expected
him home that evening.

“Isn’t it dreadfully dull for you when he is away?” asked

Gertrude Charlemont, “and don’t you get terribly frightened
if you hear the wind at night?”

The young woman shook her head with a little smile.

“We get used to it, miss,” she replied. And Mr Morion, whom
the girl’s questions had struck as scarcely judicious, came
to Mrs Silver’s assistance.

“Dwellers by the sea learn to have brave hearts,” he said;

“and then there is always the pleasure of a safe home-
coming to look forward to.”

“It will be an out-of-the-way pleasant one to-night, if all’s

well, thanks to you, sir,” the young woman replied; and
turning to Frances, she added, “It’s the pigsty I’m thinking
of, miss. I’m that pleased about it. We’ve been wishing for
one so long. It’ll be company for me when Joe’s away!”
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