THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. LVIL—SUFFOLK AND NORFOLK:—EARLY HISTORY. T HE

largest part of the " East Angle " of Britain was certainly occupied at the time of the first Roman invasion by a race or confederation of tribes to which the Romans gave the name of Iceni. There were also, no doubt, other local designations of tribes included within this general name ; of these that of the Cenomanni (of Caesar) appears to have been one, and they have been placed by some writers on the river Stour. The Iceni did not

come into collison with the Roman power until the second invasion of Britain, in the reign of Claudius. The important part they then played is well known, and the name of Boadicea is sufficient alone to preserve the memory of this brave Keltic race from oblivion. They then nearlysucceeded in overthrowing entirely the dominion of Rome in this island, and nothing but the calm determination and skill of the Roman commander prevented the temporary re-estab- lishment of Keltic ascendancy under the Royal house of the Iceni.

The final victory of the Romans was followed in this Province by the usual results of the conquests of that great organizing nation— centralized administration, official oppression, great public works, and an artificial civilization engrafted on indigenous cus-

toms and ideas. We know that it was traversed by several great roads linking it with LONDINIUM, CAMULODIINUM, and the

principal northern and western cities, and the names of several stations which must have been within the limits of Suffolk and Norfolk have been preserved in the Itineraries; but there is so great a discordance among antiquaries as to the exact course of these roads, and the true identification of the stations with exist- ing places or remains, that the only point which seems to be gene-

rally admitted is that the road from CAMULODUNUNI to YENTA ICENORUM—the chief town of the Iceni—passed from Colchester through some part of our present province to Caistor St. Edmund's

—a site about three miles south of Norwich—probably in those days close to an arm of the sea. There are still some remains of this Roman station on the east side of the Taes, which joins the Yare, and it seems to have covered about thirty acres. " Of a massive tower near the river, designed to guard the gate toward the river, there are considerable remains ; it is still 30 feet high, and is composed of alternate layers of Roman bricks and of flint embedded in a strong cement. The parish church, which stands within the area, is partly built of Roman bricks." Another of the stations, " Brtaxonusimr," has been identified with Brancaster, and appears in the Notitia (in the reign of Honorius) as the most northerly fortress of the Comes Littoris Saxonici, who ruled the coast from the Wash to the Southampton Water. The changes in the outline of the coast make it almost impossible to identify other

stations, but GARIANONUM, also mentioned in the Notitia, has been

identified with Yarmouth, or with some other site on the estuary of the Waveney or Yare. Roman antiquities have been found in Suffolk at Blythburgh, on Bungay Common, at Bury, Dunwich, Eye, Haughley near Stowmarket (where a Norman castle was erected on the site of a Roman camp), at Stow Langtoft

(where there are the remains of a camp), at Felixstow near the mouth of the Deben, at Wenham near Stratford, at Melford, at Ixworth near Bury, and at Ixning or Exiting near Newmarket. Both counties were included within the Roman province of Flavia Cxsariensis. There can be no doubt of the early and rather extensive spread of Roman civilization in this district. The great estuary extending inland to YENTA IcENORUM must have been an

important maritime station long before the time of the Comes Carausius, and when York became the favourite seat of the

Constantine family, YENTA ICENORUM must have been the most important station in the line of communication between the northern capital, the old capital city, CAMULODUNUM, and the great mart of commerce Losnmuum. The Province, indeed,

if we are right in placing a great belt of water in the Fen districts, on its western side must have been severed to a great degree from communication with the midland parts of Britain, and must have looked almost entirely to its northern and southern neighbours, in both of which quarters Roman civilization predominated.

That the Province at an early period became subjected to settle- ments or invasions of tribes from the Continent of a different race from the Keltic there can be little doubt, at any rate, as far as respects the maritime tract which lay within the jurisdiction of the Comes Littoris Saxonici. The Teutonic colonization of the Province we conceive to have been early, but very gradual, and the vagueness and uncertainty of the dates assigned to the foundation of the kingdom of East Anglia, which included Norfolk and Suffolk, seem to support this idea. Cerdic, the

chief of the Gewissas, is said to have made a descent on the coast ; but the conquest is attributed by the chroniclers generally to Uffa, towards the close of the sixth century. The names given to the Teutonic settlers, North Folk and South Folk, seem to have reference to the estuary which then divided this province into two parts, and to have only partially corresponded with the modern distribution of Norfolk and Suffolk. The western, boundary of the kingdom is believed to be marked by the singular-

line called the Devil's Ditch, or St. Edmund's Ditch, and at first, it is said, the Recken Dyke, on Newmarket Heath. Here, then, between the Wash and the Stour on the north and south, and with the German Ocean on the east, grew up the secondary king- dom of the Saxon principalities, called (we believe from its situa-

tion, and not from any distinction in its population) East Anglia,

or the people of the East Angle of the Angular Island. In the beginning of the seventh century a prince of this State- Raedwald—is said to have succeeded in obtaining the Bretwalda- ship of the Saxon principalities, and to his reign the first triumph of Christianity in this district is assigned. Raedwald is said, during a visit to Ethelbert of Kent, to have declared himself a convert to the Christian faith, but to have soon afterwards abandoned it, at• the persuasion of his wife and friends. Bede tells us, however, that, as a middle measure, he caused to be erected in the same temples an altar to Christ by the side of one devoted to pagan rites. His son, Eorpwald, became a Christian, but was murdered by a pagan. We suspect that the so-called Kingdom of the East Angles was at this time, and for many years, divided into several minor principalities, the North Folk and South Folk at least being under separate rulers, perhaps of cognate origin. The first establishment of Christianity in the Province is attributed to a Prince Sigebert, in the same century, who is said to have imbibed the faith during his exile in Gaul, and to have ultimately resigned his crown for the retirement of the cloister. The comparative isolation of this Saxon kingdom threw it back, naturally enough, on its mother land on the Continent, and not only are the German names of places especially well preserved here, but legends connect it closely with the mainland, in its history before the consolidation of the Anglo- Saxon kingdoms. Thus Edmund, who reigned in East Anglia in the ninth century, is said to have been a son of an Edmund, King of Saxony, and to have been born at Niiremberg. The superior strength of Northumbria ere long overbore that of its southern neighbour. Towards the close of the eighth century its western neighbour, Mercia, under its great king, Offa, obtained the supremacy of East Anglia, and according to most accounts it was from that time tributary either to the Mercians or the Kings of Kent, until Wessex began to predominate under Egbert and his successors.

The fate of Ethelbert II., of East Anglia, or St. Ethel- bryht, in the year 792, has made him more generally known than most of his predecessors. Going to the Court of Offa of Mercia, to treat of a marriage with that king's daughter, he is said to have been slain at Sutton-Wallis, about four miles from Hereford, through the malice of Offa's queen, Quendreda. He was beheaded, and then privately interred at Maiden ; but accord- ing to the legend, a luminous pillar pointed out the place of his burial, and his body was subsequently transferred to Hereford,. where it performed so many miracles that the cathedral there, as well as the church of Marden, were dedicated to him. " Mayo, Bishop of Hereford, in his will, dated March 24, 1515, directs that his corpse be laid in the cathedral at the feet of the image of St.

Ethelbert. The site of Mayo's grave is well known, and behind it is an empty bracket, on which once rested the effigy referred to in the will. Some forty years since," says Mr. Cuming, in a paper read at a meeting of the Archaeological Association in 1865, " an image was dug up at the entrance of our Lady's Chapel, now used as a library, and which seems to be the one which once stood on the void pedestal. It is of stone, about five feet in height, the brow encircled by an open crown or coronet, and the body clothed in a long tunic. It has been richly decorated with gold and colours, armorial bearings and inscriptions being still faintly discernible on the drapery. It appears to be the work of the fourteenth century." There are several other churches dedicated to St. Ethelbryht—one at Little Dean, in Gloucestershire, six in Norfolk, and three in Suffolk. Sixty-one years after the murder of St. Ethelbryht, or Ethelbert, another sainted king, Edmund, ascended the throne of East Anglia. Asser, in his life of Alfred, gives the year 855 as that of his accession, and he tells us that the next year, on Christmas Day, he was consecrated as king, in the fifteenth year of his age, by Bishop Humbert, of the East Angles, in the royal town called Bum, in which at that time was the royal seat. Next we find, under the year 870, the following entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:—" The army [the Northmen] rode across Mercia into East Anglia, and took up their winter quarters at Thetford ; and the same winter King Edmund fought against them ; and the Danes got the victory, and slew the king, and subdued all the land, and destroyed all the minsters which they came to. The names of their chiefs who slew the King were Hinguar and Hubba." This battle is said to have been fought at Seven Hills, near Thetford; and according to other accounts, after its disastrous result Edmund fled to Framlingham, and thence to Hoxne, where he fell into the hands of the Northmen, who offered him his life if he would renounce his faith. Refusing to do this, he was bound to a tree, beaten with clubs, and then shot at with arrows. " Tradition," observes Mr. Cumiug, " had long pointed out St. Edmund's Oak, in Hoxne Wood, as the site of the King's mar- tyrdom; and when this venerable relic fell down in September, 1848, there was found deeply imbedded in its trunk an iron cusp, believed to be one of the actual arrow blades directed by the Danes against the royal victim." The legend of St. Edmund goes on to tell that after being shot at the King was beheaded ; that on the departure of the Danes the East Anglians found his mangled body, but without the head. After forty days' search it was at last discovered in the woods of Eglesden, guarded by a wolf, who held it between his fore paws, and who, as soon as he had resigned his charge uninjured, retired into the wood. Hence for the arms of Bury St. Edmund's we have three crowns, said to have been the ensign of East Anglia. transfixed with arrows, and having for crest a wolf holding the King's head between its fore paws. The head on being placed on the trunk immediately united with it, so that nothing was visible but a thin line like a purple thread. The corpse was then interred in a wooden chapel at Hoxne, and in 903 transferred to a larger church at Bedrickesworth, now Bury St. Edmund's. When the Danes again overran the Province in 1010, the monks of Bury brought the saint's shrine to London, where a church in Lombard Street was dedicated to him. The shrine of the saint at Bury became a celebrated place of pilgrimage, and the original resting-place of the corpse at Hoxne was also regarded as a sacred spot.