devrai lui compter la fortune de mes ancestres? ... C'est la Code qui le veut ainsi! mais ce sont donc des cannibales qui l'ont rédige votre Code, qui se dit civil, je crois l'impertinent.'

We learn far more from such sketches as these of the characteristics of the race, than from any history that has ever been written; and if Thomas Stamply affords us a view of the fidelity and reverence for the lord, common to the Latin race, the Marquis himself assists us in understanding the careless haughtiness and pride of birth prevalent among the nobles of this race. To them the divine right was a real and valid title, and we know that there are people, even in Anglo-Saxon England, who still adhere to this dogma. It is because the masses were of so little importance in the estimation of the Latin, that they drop out of sight completely in history. Their gradual appearance later on marks the growth of the Teutonic spirit and its influence on progress. But in early times the Teutons seem to have had no distinctive characteristics. They are described as boisterous jovial fellows, fond of war and the chase, and addicted to drinking and horseplay. Although they contributed largely towards the breaking up of the Roman Empire, and were always physically superior to the Latins, they were conquered by the learning and the religion of the older race. How complete this conquest was I shall endeavour to show in the next chapter.

1 "Mademoiselle de la Seiglière," Acte II. sc. iv.'

CHAPTER VII

THE EVOLUTION OF THE ANGLO-SAXON

THE CHRISTIANISING OF THE ANGLO-SAXON

THE first step towards the subjugation of the Anglo-Saxon was made by the Latin when Ethelbert, grandson of Hengist, during the life of his father Eseus, King of Kent, married Bertha, only daughter of Caribert, King of Paris. Bertha had been trained as a Roman Catholic, and stipulated for complete freedom to worship in accordance with the rites of her religion as a condition of her marriage. She took a French bishop with her to Canterbury, and thus paved the way for the conversion of her husband from paganism to Christianity. After the death of his father, Ethelbert governed the Kingdom of Kent for fifty years and introduced Christianity there. In the meantime Christianity had been introduced by other channels among the Celts, and had spread more rapidly among these Latinised people than it did among the Anglo-Saxons. It is not impossible that, if Britain had been separated from Rome by distance as well as by language, as Greece, Armenia, Egypt or Abyssinia were, a distinct form of the racial religion might have grown up there, as it did in these countries, but Britain was more under the direct influence of Rome through the Latinising of the population of Western Europe than these countries. It is useless to speculate, however, on what might have happened. What we know is that this British form of Christianity was finally

stamped out, and Rome became the paramount power throughout the islands, though not without opposition from the Anglo-Saxons, who frequently lapsed from the new religion to their old paganism. Thus Eadbald, son of Ethelbert, soon after his accession to the throne, A.D. 616, " seduced by a passion for his mother-in-law, deserted for some time the Christian faith, which permitted not these incestuous marriages; and his whole people immediately returned with him to idolatry. Laurentius, the successor of Augustine, found the Christian worship wholly abandoned, and was preparing to return to France, in order to save himself the mortification of preaching the Gospel without fruit to infidels ... but made an effort to reclaim the King. He appeared before that Prince, and throwing off his vestment, showed his body all torn with bruises and stripes, which he had received. Eadbald, wondering that any man should have dared to treat in that manner a person of his rank, was told by Laurentius that he had received his chastisement from St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, who had appeared to him in a vision, and severely reproving him for his intention to desert his charge, had inflicted upon him these visible marks of his displeasure." 1 The fact that this barefaced imposture sufficed to induce Eadbald to divorce his mother-in-law and to return to the Church may afford us some idea of the childish simplicity of the Anglo-Saxon at that stage of his development.

THE MINGLING OF THE RACES

When Adelfrid, King of Bernicia, laid siege to Chester, a body of 1250 monks from the monastery of Bangor attended the army of the Britons (Celts), a fact which goes far to show that the racial religion was then spreading independently among

1 Hume, "History of England,” vol. i., ch. 1.

And

these Latinised people more rapidly than it was among the Saxons. But Edwin, son of Adelfrid, married Ethelburga, daughter of the King of Kent, and she, following the example of her mother, took a bishop with her and thus laid the foundation of the See of York as her mother had laid the foundation of the See of Canterbury. It is unnecessary here to follow the Christianising of England, particularly because until the records are interpreted from the racial standpoint no advance can be made towards compiling a true history of the time. My object is, not to write a history of the Anglo-Saxon, which is I think at present impossible, but to indicate the course the inquiry should take to enable this history to be written at some future time. here it seems necessary to point out that, as a rule, in the invasion of a distant country it is the men who go first while the women follow later. If this was the case with the Saxon invaders of England, then the Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Angles, Danes and other Teutons, who first colonised this country, took but few of the women of their own race with them, and the majority of the young men sought wives among the original inhabitants of the country. It is of little consequence whether they captured these wives by force, as the Romans had previously captured the Sabine women, or whether they wooed them in gentler fashion: the result, so far as the children born of these unions was concerned, would have been the same, and the majority of the children of that day born in England would have been crosses between the Latinised Celt and the Saxon, and this, taken in conjunction with the influence of the mothers over their children, would without doubt greatly facilitate the spread of the new religion. The subjugation of the Saxon, therefore, proceeded rapidly under the influences of heredity and education, and this simple-minded, childish people exchanged the superstitions, which they had inherited from the races

from which they sprang, for those of the more matured race under whose influence they had fallen. Edward the Confessor was the first King of England who touched for the King's Evil.

CHARACTERISTICS OF OUR EARLY FOREFATHERS

"With regard to the manners of the Anglo-Saxons we can say very little, but they were in general a rude, uncultivated people, ignorant of letters, unskilled in the mechanical arts, untamed to submission under law and government, addicted to intemperance, riot, and disorder. Their best quality was their military courage, which yet was not supported by discipline or conduct. Their want of fidelity to the Prince or to any trust reposed in them appears strongly in their later period, and their want of humanity in all their history. Even the Norman historians, notwithstanding the low state of the arts in their own country, speak of them as barbarians, when they mention the invasion made upon them by the Duke of Normandy. The conquest put the people in a situation of receiving from abroad the rudiments of science and cultivation, and of correcting their licentious manners."1 This picture of our early forefathers is not a very flattering one, but when we compare it with what we know of the Anglo-Saxon of to-day, we see what a vast change has taken place in the character of this people, and we also note that our histories do not afford us any information as to this development of our racial characteristics, or of the date when each or any of the mental characteristics, which now differentiate the Anglo-Saxon from the Latin, first made its appearance.

TRUE RACES AND CROSS-BREEDS

In my summary of the characteristics of the Latin I have pointed out that the Latin has no self-governing

1 Hume, vol. i., Appendix I,