Walter Besant

“ The freeman works with all his heart for himself and his family; the slave works as little as he can for his master. The bestowal of this right was actually equivalent to a grant—a grant by charter—to the City—of the spirit of enterprise and courage. Who would venture into hostile seas, and run the gauntlet of pirates, and risk storm and shipwreck, if his gains were to be swept into the treasury of a feudal lord?
As for the third point, the promise of personal protection, London was left with no one to stand between the City and the King. ”

“ The Isle of Thorney was like that courtyard: it was a great inn, a halting-place, a bustling, noisy, frequented place, the centre, and, before the rise of London, the heart of Britain. No quiet, desolate place, but the actual living centre of the traffic of the whole island. Not a fortress or a place of strategic importance, but, as regards the permanent population, a gathering of people drawn together in order to provide for the wants of travellers—a collection of inns and taverns. ”

“ The most important of all the Roman remains in London are the ruins of the wall.
Under the protection of the Citadel the merchants first conducted their business; under its shadow the ships lay moored in the river, the bales lay on the quays, and the houses of the people, planted at first along the banks of the Walbrook, stretched out northwards to the moor and westwards as far as the river Fleet.
Then came the City wall.
It is strange that nothing should be said anywhere about so strong and important a piece of work as the wall. ”

“ Observe, however, one thing about London—a thing of great significance. When there is a Jacquerie—when the people, who have hitherto been as silent as the patient ox, rise with a wild roar of rage—it is not in London. Here, men have learned—however imperfectly—the lesson that only by combination of all for the general welfare is the common weal advanced. I think, also, that London men,342 even those on the lowest level, have always known very well that their humility of place is due to their own lack of purpose and self-restraint. ”

“ They were attacked on all sides; they were driven back slowly: they did nothing but fight during the whole of that most wretched period while the Roman Empire fell to pieces. When all was over, some of the survivors were found in the Welsh mountains; some in the Cumbrian Hills; some in the Fens; some beyond the great moor of Devon; some in the thick forests of Nottingham, of Middlesex, of Surrey, and of Sussex. Most sad and sorrowful spectacle of all that sad and sorrowful time is one picture—it stands out clear and distinct. ”

“ Then imagine the relief of the London merchant travelling with his wares and his long train of loaded pack-horses from one market-town to another, and from fair to fair, when he was told that henceforth he should travel free and pay no toll. Why did the King grant this privilege, one of the largest and most beneficent in this Charter? Surely in wise recognition of the fact that the more free and unfettered trade was made, the more it would develop and increase, and make his kingdom rich and strong.
(9) No man was to be assessed beyond his means. ”

“ With an army—for the service of the fleet was nothing less—at his command, with the example of other usurpers before him, and with the rich and fertile province of Britannia in his power, it is not astonishing that this strong, able man should dream of the Purple.
But first it was necessary to become rich. Without a Treasury the army would melt away. How could Carausius grow rich? By seizing London and pillaging the City? But then he would make the whole island his enemy. ”

“ It is absurd to suppose that a city, certainly of much greater importance than Nîmes or Arles—where were both theatre and amphitheatre,—and of far greater importance than Richborough—where there was one,—should have no trace of either. Since Bordeaux, Marseilles, Alexandria, and other cities of the Roman Empire were not Christian in the second and third centuries, why should London be? Or if there were Christians here in quite early times, theirs was not the dominant religion, as is clearly shown by the Roman remains. ”

“ London, amidst all changes within and without, has always kept more or less of her ancient character as a free city. Paris was a military bulwark, the dwelling-place of a ducal or a royal sovereign; London, no less important as a military post, had also a greatness which rested on a surer foundation. London, like a few other of our great cities, is one of the ties which connect our Teutonic England with the Celtic and Roman Britain of earlier times. Her British name still lives on, unchanged by the Teutonic conquerors. ”

“ London was a city of trade, devoted wholly to trade. The more wealthy sort emulated the luxury and effeminacy of the Roman senators—but only so long as the Empire remained strong. When one had to fight or be robbed, to fight or to be carried off in slavery, to fight or to die, there was an end, I believe, of the effeminacy of the London citizens. ”

“ All the way from London down to the Nore, round a large part of the coast of Essex, and along the coast of Lincolnshire where the foreshore is a marsh, there runs a great and magnificent embankment. It is not, so far as can be judged, Roman; that is to say, it has none of the Roman characteristics: it is a great solid wall of earth faced with stone which has stood for ages, only giving way at points here and there, as at Barking in the reign of King Stephen, and at Dagenham in the reign of Queen Anne. ”

“ Ausonius himself, in being elevated to the rank of consul, betrays this feeling. He compares himself with the consuls of old: he is superior, it is evident, to them all, save in one respect, the warlike qualities. These virtues existed no longer: the citizen was a man of peace; the soldier was a policeman. If this was true of Bordeaux, then far from the seat of any war, it was much more true in London, which every day saw the arrival and the dispatch of slaves captured in some new border fray, while the people themselves never heard the clash of weapons or faced the invader with a sword. ”

“ Very soon we hear no more of Danes and English as separate peoples, either in London or in the country. London, indeed, has always received all, absorbed all, and turned all into Londoners. During this first Danish occupation, of which we know nothing, one of two things happened: either the occupiers settled down among the citizens, leaving them to follow their trades and crafts in their own way; or they murdered and pillaged, drove away all who could fly, and then sat down quietly and remained, an army in occupation in a strong place. ”

“ Archdeacon Baldwin and Clerk Eustace look in from Canterbury, to chat over young Thomas and his chances of promotion in the curia of Archbishop Theobald; there is a kinsman, too, of Gilbert’s, a citizen of his own stamp, Osbern Huitdeniers, ‘of great name and repute, not only among his fellow-burghers, but also with those of the Court.’ Without the home, the Norman influence makes itself felt in a new refinement of manners and breeding; the young citizen grows up free and genial enough, but with a Norman horror of coarseness in his geniality. ”

“ Remember—a point already advanced—that in a city of many343 industries, if any industry or craft becomes regarded as especially the work of a slave, no freeman will ever after touch it; and if the slave is emancipated, he will never again do any of that work. But in London there has never been any prejudice against any kind of work. I cannot understand how London, at such a time, could have been composed entirely of freemen; but of the slaves, if there were slaves, I can find no trace, no memory, and no indication. ”

“ Let us imagine London obliterated from the valley of the Thames; let us picture that valley as it was more than two thousand years ago, when the uplands north of the river were covered by a dense forest, and the Andreds Wald (as it was afterwards named) extended from the Sussex coast to the slopes of the Kentish Downs. We gaze, as we have said, upon a broad valley, through which the tidal Thames takes its winding course, receiving affluents from either side. These are sometimes mere brooks, sometimes rivers up which the salt water at high tide makes its way for short distances. ”

“ I have considered this Charter clause by clause, because in it Henry seems to have given the citizens everything that they could ask or obtain by purchase. London was left, save in one respect, absolutely free. In fact, the citizens never did ask for more. The Charter was framed in order to allow the City to get rich without let or hindrance. One right the King reserved: that of taking their money for himself; and this right, there can be no doubt, was the reason why he surrendered all the rest; the reason why London was encouraged to grow so wealthy and so strong. ”

“ It was a grievance exactly like that of the present day, when more cases are set down for the day than can possibly be heard, and plaintiff, defendant, and witnesses, and solicitors have to attend, day after day, until their case comes on; those who come up from the country have to live in hotels at great cost; those who live in London have to neglect their business at great loss. It is strange that we should now be submitting to a system quite as iniquitous and, one would say, as intolerable, as that from which London was relieved early in the second quarter of the twelfth century. ”

“ If one stands in the Museum of the Guildhall and looks round upon the scanty remains of Roman London there exhibited, one feels a cold doubt as to the alleged wealth and greatness of the ancient city. ”

“ We should merely note the facts, and should acknowledge that humanity being common to every age and every country, such rules must be laid down and maintained by every such association as a Company or Guild in the interests of any trade or mystery. So far and no farther the Anglo-Saxon Guild is a copy of the Roman collegium. Unless further points of resemblance are found, we shall be justified in believing that the Guild was not derived by the Saxon from the Roman, and that the latter was not preserved among the provincial towns of England. ”

“ All over the country the people bred slaves and sold them; they sent to London large quantities of wool; they also sent lead, tin, iron, jet, fish, and cattle. And there was a great demand among the foreign merchants, though there was but a small supply, for the lovely embroidery of the Anglo-Saxon women, and for the beautiful goldwork of the Anglo-Saxon goldsmiths. The position of the goldsmiths in London, where they were the richest and most important citizens, proves that there was more than a home demand for their work. ”

“ The Roman legions were at last withdrawn. Britain was left to defend herself. She had to defend herself against the Saxon pirates in the east; against the Picts and Scots in the north; and against the wild tribes of the mountains in the west. Happily we have not in these pages to attempt the history of the two centuries of continual battle and struggle which followed before the English conquest brought at last a time of rest and partial peace. But we must ascertain, if we can, how London fared during the long interval. ”

“ First they chose the Atheling, but when the great bell of St. Paul’s rang for the Folkmote, to Paul’s Cross all flocked—the craftsmen in their leathern doublets, the merchants in their cloth. All assembled together; all the citizens and freemen of the City, according to a right extending beyond the memory of man, and a custom as old as the City itself, claiming for every man the right of a voice in the management of the City. ”

“ The chief weapon of the Church at a time when the executive is weak is penance. For the Anglo-Saxon his priest was armed with a code of penances so long and so heavy that one cannot believe that it was ever enforced. Can we, for instance, believe that free men would consent to live on the coarsest food and do penance for three years as a punishment for eating with too great enjoyment? We are told that if a man killed any one in public battle he was to fast forty nights. Then King Alfred must have been doing penance all the days of his life—which is absurd. ”

“ IV. The evidence of Tradition is negative.
Of Augusta, of Roman London, not a fragment except the wall and the bridge remained above ground; the very streets were for the most part obliterated; not a tradition was left; not a memory survived of a single institution, of an Imperial office or a custom. I do not know whether any attempt has been made to trace Roman influences and customs in Wales, whither the new conquerors did not penetrate. Such an inquiry remains to be made, and it would be interesting if we could find such survivals. ”