In the year 306 Constans found it necessary to repair to Britain in person, to repel the attacks of the Cale donians. The Romans were successful, but their gene ral died at York.
In the reign of the emperor Valentinian, the Scots and Picts made a general attack upon the Roman pro vince, and advanced as far as London, which they plundered, but being attacked by Theodosius, re treated.
The remaining transactions of the Romans in Bri tain were few and unimportant.
The Emperors had found it necessary to recruit their legions from the frontier provinces, where the spirit of war was not totally extinguished. These mercenary forces, careless of laws, and indifferent to civil institu tions, established a military government dangerous to the authority of the sovereign, and inimical to the li berty of the people.
The barbarous nations in the north of Germany, known by the name of the Goths and Vandals, assailed the frontiers of the Roman empire; and all the distant legions in which the Emperors could confide, were re called for the defence of the capital and the centre of the empire, which had become a prey to faction and disorder. The legions in Britain revolted, and trans ferred the supreme power to Gratian; and, after his death, to Constantine, who conveyed the army that had invested him with the purple, to Gaul, in order to maintain their election.
As the Roman power was weakened in Britain, the Scots and Picts advanced, and harassed the provinces. In this extremity, the latter made supplications to Rome; and a legion was sent to their assistance. This force was an overmatch for the invaders, who were overthrown in every engagement, and the Romans, for the last time, repaired the fortifications that had long overawed the British tribes. Having performed this last office, the Romans informed their allies that they must thenceforward depend upon their own valour to preserve their independence; arid then took their final leave of Britain, after being masters of the greatest part of it for nearly four centuries.
But no sooner had they evacuated the island, than the Scots and Picts, regarding the country as their prey, attacked the northern wall and the adjacent country with great fury. Subdued by their own fears, the dispirited natives deserted their station, and left the country entirely open to the inroads of the victori ous enemy. They addressed a letter of supplication to Rome, in which they pathetically deplored their hapless condition. •"lhe barbarians," said they,
"chase us into the sea; the sea throws us back on the barbarians, and we have only the hard choice left us of perishing by the sword or by the waves." To these complaints the Britons received a despond ing answer. Reduced to despair, they deserted their habitations, abandoned tillage, and fleeing for shelter to their forests and mountains, suffered equally from the sword and from hunger. The invaders them selves began to feel the pressure of famine in a country which they had ravaged, and being attacked by the Saxons, whom the Britons had invited to their assist ance, they retreated beyond the wall of Antoninus.
Unawed by the Romans, the Picts became the most potent people in the north of Caledonia. The five rnanized tribes assumed the character of independence, and established their own government and laws. Their territory extended from the river Eden and the Solway Frith, to the northern wall. It included Liddisdale, Tiyiotdale, Dumfries, Galloway, Ayrshire, Renfrew shire, the middle and west parts of Stirlingshire, and the greater part of Dumbartonshire. Aleluyd, now Dumbarton, was the metropolis of this kingdom.
The Angles invaded it soon after the Saxons had seized South Britain. Though the Britons opposed their invaders with persevering bravery, the latter overran the country as far as the northern wall, and concluded a treaty with the Picts. The enfeebled Britons soon sunk under the superior power of the Angles; and, in the beginning of the seventh century, Ethelfrid a Northumbrian chief, entirely subdued them. Edwin, a rival contemporary, succeeded Ethel frid.
The history of the Picts is obscure. The first Pict ish monarch was Drust, the son of Erp, who for a long period rendered himself terrible to the Roman ized Britons, and the series is as follows: Towards the end of the seventh century, Elfrid, the Northumbrian prince, attacked the Picts. Having crossed the Forth and the Tay, he advanced into An gus as far as Dunnichen, where he received a total defeat. Few of the Saxons escaped, and so complete was their overthrow, that the Tweed, for a short time, became the northern boundary of their principality. The Picts were tempted by their success to make an irruption into Northumberland, but they sustained a defeat, and Bridei their king was slain.