cattle, accompanied the immigrants, the tonnage required would be very great; even if it be allowed that household goods and agricultural and trade implements were equivalent to the munitions of war, and that the latter were not required with women and children on board. According to Mr. Lindsay, about three hundred passengers can at present be accommodated in a sailing vessel of 1,000 tons register on a distant voyage; but in coasting vessels, he says, the number is much greater. As the passage from the Elbe to the Thames would probably occupy at that date not less than seven or eight days, it was scarcely within the class of modern coasting voyages. After making all due allowances between the requirements of the present day and those of the fifth century, and assuming that the smaller animals can be carried at a rate equivalent to six sheep per beast, it will be seen that for every three hundred passengers and their flocks and herds, at least two tons per head would be required. Thus one hundred thousand persons would employ 200,000 tons; or a thousand vessels of 200 tons each. An immigration of that extent, however, would be a very small invasion; there would not be more than twenty thousand fighting men, and an exterminating host must be much more numerous in a country so populous. For, within twenty years, the Roman colonists and army greatly exceeded that number, since seventy thousand colonists alone fell before Boadicea; and, doubtless, when the Romans left, South Britain was very populous for that period of its history. The numerous cities, towns, and stations, of which the records still survive, are evidence which cannot be refuted.

In the preceding estimate there is not any allowance for the difficulties attending the land journeys to the port of departure and from the port of arrival; the collection and which it is taken and to the quality of the hay itself; but probably at least one ton of space would be required for the keep of a horse for one week.

dispersion of miscellaneous hordes of men, women, and children, with their sequela, are attended with great difficulties.

Mr. Coote, whilst accepting the theory of a Teutonic conquest of South Britain, objects to what he terms the "dream of extirpation." He says contemporaneous history also acquits the Anglo-Saxons of extermination, by omitting to charge them with it. Besides this silent evidence, he observes, there is a fact which speaks out to the contrary. We find a kingdom in the south-east retaining the name of a British nation; two large kingdoms in the north and east retaining the British names of British nations; large kingdom in the interior which, if it do not retain a British name, has one which certainly does not belong to the conqueror, and yet we are told that all British men were rooted out and dead. It is, however, simply impossible that the foreign conqueror should call himself King of Bernicians when there were no Bernicians, King of Deirians when there were no Deirians, or King of Kentish-men when there were no Kentish-men; and yet the kings did so.*

Though I am not able to accept the whole of Mr. Coote's conclusions, it appears to me he has convincingly shown that there is a large amount of survival from the Roman occupation still vital in England, and that further remains may be found, not only in the days of the week, but in the measurement of land and distance, and otherwise; any survival is irreconcilable with the fact of anything approaching an extermination or extirpation; for under either event there would not be any vehicle for survival. Yet Dr. Freeman asserts, without, however, adducing one tittle of evidence, that everything Keltic and everything Roman was wiped out!

An immigration, however small it might be annually,

A Neglected Fact in English History. By Henry Charles Coote, F.S.A. 1864. Page 19.

which extended over ten or twelve centuries, as there is good reason to assume did that of the Belgæ or Sacsans,* would not only modify the language but also the habits of the people, and the fauna and flora. It is much more easy to import occasionally a calf, a lamb, or a foal, than to import cows, sheep, and horses, in droves; a few of each every year would work material changes in the course of a few centuries.

The difficulties of transport appear to show that it was quite impossible for the people of the Angulus to transport themselves and their flocks and herds, as is supposed by the Regius Professor; and it appears highly improbable that if such a wholesale migration had taken place, the Angulus would have remained a desert for three centuries. The difficulties inseparable from these two propositions are such as to require conclusive evidence that they agree with facts, or that they are based upon probabilities. Mere vague assertion is a foundation too unstable for such portentous events.

If Bede, and those whom he followed, and those who immediately followed him, are amenable to the charge of being slavish copyists, or of making imagination and invention supply the place of research, it may be pleaded on their behalf that opportunities for research were in their days scarcely attainable, and so it was to some extent allowable to accept the statements, not clashing with probability, of previous writers. But in the present day the responsibilities assumed by historians are very grave; and, unless he is prepared to curb his imagination until all available information is exhausted, the literary man should eschew historical subjects, except for acknowledged romances. History is as dependent as any other science on its foundation; and it is the absence of a scrupulous and almost ascetic veneration for facts which impairs the historical value of so many works,

era,

* That is, from an unknown date prior to Cæsar's incursions until the Norman if it ceased then. We know it was subsequently revived by the Flemings.

otherwise very estimable, for it leaves the authors the sport of party or personal bias. The preceding examination of the statements recorded by Bede, and adopted by his followers, will probably induce a belief that the history of England, during the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, requires careful revision and much correction.

[Since the preceding pages were in type, Dr. Mackay has published his important work on The Gaelic Etymology of the English Language, 1878, Trubner & Co., which, apart from its philological value, affords irresistible historical evidence against the assumption that the Keltic population of England was exterminated by the Teutonic immigrants; the large amount of linguistic survival precludes the possibility of such a catastrophe. Professor Rolleston observes:"Without going, however, further into this question, I will say that a comparison of the skulls here dealt with, from the stone and bronze periods, with those of the mediaval and modern tenants of these islands, coupled with other considerations, and carried on for a considerable number of years, has inclined me to hold that the two pre-historic races, though outnumbered greatly by Anglo-Saxons, are still represented in the population of Great Britain and Ireland."-British Barrows: A Record of the Examination of Sepulchral Mounds in various parts of England, by William Greenwell, M.A., F.S.A. Clarendon Press, 1877, p. 711. If two pre-historic races survive, is it likely that the Kelts were exterminated? If they were, how did the pre-historic races escape extermination ?]

1

AMY ROBSART-THE STORY OF HER MARRIED LIFE AND HER DEATH.

BY JOSIAH MARPLES.

SOME years ago, when I belonged to a small debating society, the question was proposed for discussion, "Did the Earl of Leicester kill his wife, Amy Robsart ?" Unfortunately, every one in the society believed he did; and it seemed as if there would be no debate. I was therefore asked to lead on the negative side, and to see if it were possible to find out something in favour of the Earl. As the subject was one upon which I was profoundly ignorant, I certainly had the advantage of being unbiassed in my consideration of it; and I came to the conclusion that the verdict would be one of "not proven "if the matter were now brought to trial. Since that time, however, much evidence has come to light in the researches which have been, and are still being, made amongst the manuscripts belonging to the noble families of our land, and in the possession of the governments of our own and foreign countries; and it is because the latest of these discoveries are, to my mind, tolerably conclusive that I am induced to ask your attention to the subject.

I propose, first, to take the account of Amy Robsart's life and death as stated by Sir Walter Scott, whose great acquirements as an archæologist should lead us to expect something like truth even in his romances, an anticipation the futility of which will probably be apparent before we have done. I have made a short epitome of his story of Kenilworth, so far as it immediately concerns the subject-matter of our Paper, and I will read it first. I propose then to investigate