THE CHARITY OF WHITTINGTON. (_By Henrietta Rue--Mrs. Normand_) " 478 THE CORONATION OF HENRY IV. IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. (_From the Froissart MS. in the British Museum_) " 515 THE MORNING OF AGINCOURT. (_By Sir John Gilbert, R.A., P.R.W.S._) " 554 [Illustration: _From the Design for the Cartoon in the Royal Exchange._ KING JOHN GRANTING MAGNA CHARTA. BY ERNEST NORMAND.] CASSELL'S ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Illustration: LANDING OF THE ROMANS ON THE COAST OF KENT. (_See p._ 6.)] CHAPTER I. THE ROMAN RULE IN BRITAIN. Earliest Notices of the British Isles--The Celts--Their Settlement in Britain--Their Character and Customs--Druidism--Its Organisation and Authority--Its Tenets--Stonehenge and other Remains--Cæsar's Preparations--The First Invasion--Peril of the Romans and their Retirement--The Second Invasion--Cæsar's Battles with Cassivelaunus--Claudius in Britain--The Resistance of Caractacus--His Defeat and Capture--His Speech before Claudius--The Conquest of Anglesea--Boadicea's Rebellion--The Capture of Camulodunum and London--Her Defeat and Death--Agricola in Britain--His Campaigns and Administration--His Campaign against the Caledonians--His Recall--The Walls of Hadrian and Severus--Rivals to the Emperor--Constantine's Accession--Christianity in Britain--Invasions of the Picts and Scots--Dismemberment of the Roman Empire and Departure of the Romans--Divisions and Administration of Britain under the Romans. Separated from the continent of Europe by the sea, the British isles were not known to the nations of antiquity until a somewhat late date. Herodotus was ignorant of their existence; but Strabo, a contemporary of Cæsar, tells us that the Carthaginians had for a long period carried on a considerable commerce with the Cassiterides, or tin-islands, which are usually identified with the Scilly islands, and doubtless included also part of the Cornish coast. Again, Pytheas, a merchant of Marseilles, who lived about 332 B.C., visited this country in the course of his life, and fragments of his diary are still extant. He seems to have coasted round a considerable portion of what is now England, and his observations on the inhabitants are singularly acute. About two centuries later, Posidonius, another Greek traveller, visited Belerion, as he called it--that is, Cornwall; but, until the invasion of Cæsar, the extent of these islands, their main geographical features, and the tribes that inhabited them, were practically a matter of more or less complete ignorance to the civilised world that dwelt round the shores of the Mediterranean.