First, in 55 B.C., we see Julius Cæsar, as governor of Gaul, arriving to punish the interfering islanders of Britain for the help they had given to the Gallic tribes in their resistance to him; meeting with little success, and so withdrawing, only to return again the following year, with five legions instead of two. Then we see the British king, Cassivelaunus, whose capital was where St. Albans now stands, uniting with hostile neighbours to meet the common foe. We see him fixing sharp stakes in the bed of the Thames at the only fordable point, in a vain attempt to check the Roman legions; which stakes were still to be seen in the river-bed seventy years ago, and are probably there still. The next picture shows Cæsar's return to Gaul in the same year, taking with him British hostages, {7} to ensure the payment of tribute, and exhibiting as a trophy a corslet of British pearls. After this there was what Tacitus calls "a long forgetfulness of Britain," so far as conquest was concerned. He says of Cæsar that "he rather discovered the island for his descendants than bequeathed it to them." For ninety-seven years there was peaceful communication with Rome, and the whole island, according to Strabo, became "intimate and familiar to the Romans." The British king, Cunobelin, the Cymbeline of Shakespeare, was brought up at the Court of Augustus, and no doubt did something to introduce Roman laws and customs. But still the people were as free as if Cæsar had never landed. Then, in 40 A.D., we see the demented Caligula (or "Little Boots," the nickname his soldiers gave him) deciding in a moment of caprice to invade Britain, but returning after no more than a glance at the white cliffs of the island, and with sea-shells from the beach at Boulogne as his only trophy. The Emperor Claudius comes next, in 43 A.D. Stirred up by discontented British fugitives at Rome, he sent troops to Britain, under Aulus Plautius and Vespasian. When the expedition succeeded, he came in person, stopping only sixteen days in the island, but celebrating a stupendous triumph on his return to Rome. On the strength of his victorious campaign, he called his infant son {8} Britannicus, and had the name of Britain stamped on his coins. Aulus Plautius was the first consular governor of Britain. His wife, Pomponia Græcina, was a Christian. Was she, perhaps, the first Christian to land on our shores? Ostorius Scapula succeeded Plautius, and it was into his hands that the British king, Caradoc (or Caratacus), the son of Cunobelin, fell, after offering a brave resistance for at least seven years. Our next picture shows the entry of Caradoc and his family into Rome, in 50 A.D., as prisoners of war. The noble bearing of the king alone saved him from death in the arena.