A History of England Author:Markham Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN. [Years after Christ, 43—420.] The Britons had a long respite of nearly a hundred years befor... more »e the Romans again thought of invading them. There is a story told of Caligula who was afterwards an emperor of Rome, and who thought it a noble project to invade Britain as Caesar had done. He assembled an immense army on the opposite coast; but, instead of crossing the sea, he only gathered some shells from the shore, and sent them to Rome, calling them " the spoils of the conquered ocean." At last, in the year 43 after the birth of Christ, and 97 years after .Caesar's invasion, the Romans determined on making another attempt to conquer Britain; but there was much difficulty in getting any soldiers to go there, they had such a frightful idea of the country and its inhabitants. It was so far off, they said, that it was like making war beyond the limits of the world. At length an army of fifty thousand men was collected, which was sent to Britain under the command of Aulus Plautius. The Britons defended themselves and their country with great bravery; but their imperfect skill in the art of war could not withstand the Roman power and discipline. After fighting many battles, . the Romans at length took prisoners a British king, named Caractacus, and his family. They were all sent to Rome; and the king with his wife and two daughters were made to walk through the streets, loaded with chains, while the emperor and empress, and all the people, were assembled to look at them, as if they had been so many wild animals. Poor Caractacus, as you may suppose, was very indignant at this treatment, and made such a moving speech to the emperor, which you will hereafter read in other histories of England, that he immediately ordere...« less