In the writings of Cesar and Tacitus, the two authors from whom we derive our best acquaintance with the manners of the Germanic and the Western nations of Europe, we see the warlike character of those nations, and the principles on which their military affairs were conducted. A whole male population trained to arms ; confederating in time of common danger ander some one chief; with little defensive armour, and no offensive weapons except darts, spears, and arrows ; throwing up occasionally earth-works to strengthen a position—this is the outline of their mili tary proceedings. (Tacitus, Annul. ii. 14.) There is little peculiar in the military system of the ancient Britons ; yet it must have been by long practice that their warriors attained that degree of skill which they showed at the time of Qesar's invasion.
When Britain was reduced to the form of a Roman province, a regular army was introduced and permanently settled in the island, for the purpose of enforcing sub mission, and of defence against foreign invaders. Many of the remains of Roman authority in Britain, as roads, walls, encampments, and inscriptions, are mili tary. In that curious relic of Roman time, the Notitia,' which is referred to the age of the Roman emperors Arcadius and Honorius, we have a particular account of the distribution of the whole Roman army ; and we see, in particular, how Britain was then divided fbr military pur poses, and what were the fixed stations of particular portions of the Roman legions.
It was the policy of Rome, in the latter part of the Republic, and more particularly under the Empire, to recruit its legions from among the barbarous nations, but to employ such soldiers in countries to which they did not belong. Thus. in the inscriptions relating to military affairs which have been found in England, many tribes of Gaul, of Spain, and Portugal are named as those to which particular soldiers, or particular bodies of troops, belonged. And so in foreign inscriptions, the names of British tribes are sometimes found. The grounds of this policy are apparent. The military portion of these nations was thus drawn away. There remained only the quiet and the peaceable, or the females, the young, the infirm, and the aged. As long as the Roman army was sufficient for their protection, it was well. But when that army was withdrawn, we see, as in the case of Britain, that a people so weakened would easily fall a prey to nations which had never been subdued by the Roman arms ; and we see also what was probably the true reason of the difference between the spirited resistance which was made to Caesar on his ttto landings in Britain. and the clamorous complaint and feeble resistance with which the people of Bri. Min met the Picts and the Saxons.
From this time we lose sight of any entire British population of the part of the island called England. The conquests
made by the Saxons appear to have been complete, and their maxims of policy and war became the principles of English polity. They seem to have been at first in that state of society in which every man is a soldier ; and the different sove reignties which they established were the occasion of innumerable contests. We have, however, little information on this subject ; and even the supposed policy of Alfred, in the separation of a portion of the people for military affairs, in the form of a national militia, is a part of his history on which we have not any very satisfactory information.
We find, however, that the Saxon kings bad powerful armies at their command; and the most probable account of the mode in which they were got together Seems to be this :—the male population were exer cised in military duties, under the inspec tion of the earls, and their deputies, the sheriffs, or vicecomites, in the manner of the arrays and musters of later times— being drawn out occasionally for the purpose, and being thus ready to form, at any time when their services were required, an efficient force.
We see from that curious remain of those times, a piece of needle-work repre senting the wars and death of Harold, that the Saxon soldiers were not those half clothed and painted figures which had presented themselves on the shores of Britain when the Roman armies made their first descent. We see them clothed from head to foot in a close-fitting dress of mail. They have cavalry, but no chariots. The archers are all infantry. Both infantry and cavalry are armed with spears, to some of which little pennons are attached. Some have swords, and others carry bills or battle-axes. They have shields, the bosses on which are surrounded with flourishes and other or naments ; and there are sometimes other devices, but nothing which can be re garded as more than the very rudiments of those heraldic devices which were afterwards formed into a kind of system by the heralds who attended the armies, and by which the chiefs were dis tinguished from each other, when their persons were concealed by the armour. The piece of needle-work representing the wars of Harold is supposed to be the work of Matilda, the queen of William the Conqueror, and the ladies of her court. It is preserved in the cathedral of Bayeux, whence it is commonly called the Bayeux tapestry. One of 'the many valuable ser vices rendered to historical literature by the Society of Antiquaries has been the publication of a series of coloured prints, in which we have, on a reduced scale, a perfectly accurate representation of this singular monument of ancient English and Norman manners.