has upon the vast world outside, of authors, printers, publishers, and readers, I cannot but think that English-men and English-women would readily respond to the appeal; and that it might be carried out by a wide-spread subscription of a limited amount. Caxton's first book is, I believe, dated about A.D. 1471, so that just four centuries have been suffered to elapse without a memorial of the fact being raised; but "better late than never" should be our motto, and the present year, 1871, would seem a very fit season to set about the work. Ashford, January, 1871. THE HISTORY OF THE WEALD OF KENT. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.-THE BRITONS.-THE DRUIDS. S it is expected of the Christian that he should be able A giv in him, ou ought our increasing population in these days of education to possess a knowledge of the history of their country, especially of the locality in which they reside; but such knowledge is becoming, I fear, more and more limited. A stock of old books is almost as rare as a stock of old wine. The stall at the railway station supplies the light and sensational reading of the day, as the case of cheap wine takes the place of the well stored cellar in days of yore. I would ask, how many of the children in our schools (now to be found, thank God, in almost every parish in the county) could tell you the meaning of the word "Weald ?" Might I not ask the same question even among the inmates of many of our own houses? How many of the inhabitants are aware that in this county alone more than seventy parishes are situate cither wholly or in part within B CHAP. I. Introduction. CHAP. I. the Weald? How many are aware that from the time of the Romans until the end of the last century parts of this county, and larger portions of the adjoining one, were full of iron mines, where a "black district" was formed, with furnaces and noisy hammer mills? Again, how many are aware that the Flemish weavers invited by King Edward III. settled in Cranbrook and its vicinity, and that they and their descendants for many a generation worked up our Kentish wools into broadcloth, until the coal found in the north, aided by a better supply of water, drove the people of Kent out of the market as manufacturers of iron, as well as of broadcloth? How often do we find a stranger with an enquiring mind possessing more knowledge of our own locality than we do! Though a certain section of the Americans may profess to sneer at us, still as a nation they are proud of tracing their parentage through us; and are more fond, I believe, of studying our early history than are the rising generation of England.* It is with a view then to promote a spirit of inquiry among our youth, and at the same time to perpetuate the testimony of those who have gone before us, that I have undertaken to publish this work, an outline of which was delivered by me, as a lecture, in some of the neighbouring towns during the last winter, in aid of local charities. I am about to speak of a portion of the earth's surface strongly marked for many centuries with the primeval curse of the Almighty, when He declared : "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; thou in sorrow *In a recent conversation with a London bookseller, he assured me that just before the civil war broke out in America he exported to that country old standard English works to the value of £2,000 in one year. Whether or not the "outward face and fashion" of this extensive district was altered by the deluge, as some geologists suppose, certain it is that for many a century it was a desert and a waste, neither planted nor peopled, and filled only with wild animals, herds of deer and game. The Britons called it Coid Andred (Camden, Somner), Coit Andred (Harris, Hasted). "Anrhsed," in British, signifies, Lambarde tells us, great or wonderful. It was also called the Briton's Vale and the Briton's Woody Vale. CHAP. I. Our early history is involved in impenetrable darkness. The Britons. The first inhabitants of this island, whether descended from Gomer the son of Japhet and grandson of Noah, or whatever their origin may have been, had neither leisure nor ability to deliver their beginnings to posterity. Foreign aggressors and continual feuds occupied most of their time. Macaulay (by many considered an unsafe guide in everything not classical) calls this period of our history an age of fable, and says that "nothing in the early existence of Britain indicated the greatness she was destined to attain. Her inhabitants when first they became known to the Tyrian mariner were little superior to the natives of the Sandwich Islands." This may be quite true in general, but the south-eastern portion of Britain was in advance of other parts of the Island, for a colony from Belgic-Gaul, called by Cæsar the Belge, had improved the inhabitants in civilization. They maintained a considerable foreign commerce. They formed towns or large communities along and near our coast, and used chariots as well for civil as warlike purposes, and their internal communications were on the whole free and numerous. Between the outskirts of this great forest and the sea, the country was thickly populated; and the inhabitants were industrious and had cultivated the soil, of which the Roman invaders, we shall presently find, took advantage; while *These Belgae must not be confounded with the Belgians of the present day. The Belgic people of Northern Gaul have been thought to be a mixed race of borderers, a branch of the great Teutonic family. CHAP. I. those who lived in the interior of the island subsisted chiefly on milk, and flesh got by hunting, without attempting to till the land. Kent had acquired the reputation of being more civilized than other parts of Britain, for Cæsar says of them, that the most civilized by far were those that dwelt in Kent, which was a country lying altogether by the sea coast. Neither did its inhabitants differ much in customs from the Gauls. They deemed it unlawful to eat the hare, the hen, and the goose; these animals, however, they bred for amusement. They painted their bodies with woad, which produced a blue tinge, to give them a more horrible appearance in war. They wore long hair on their heads, but shaved it from other parts of their bodies except the upper lip. They were taller than the Gauls, but not so strong. As bearing on the history I have undertaken to furnish, the following observations by Caesar and other ancient. writers, as Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, will shew the importance attached by the Britons to such a woody district as Coit Andred in time of domestic feuds or foreign invasions. "Woods stood them instead of cities and towns; for when they had by felling trees mounded and fenced therewith a spacious round plot of ground, there they built for themselves halls and cottages, and for their cattle set up stalls and folds; but it was all done for present use." Again "A town, the Britons call some thick wood a space in which they clear, and which they then enclose and fortify with ditches and barriers of trees, made for a place of refuge and retreat where they build their huts and fold their cattle." "They possessed a great quantity of cattle, which, with their land in cultivation, constituted their wealth, and as agriculture was then in its infancy the soil was more adapted for the nourishment of cattle than of men." 66 They lived after the manner of the old world. Their houses were for the most part of reed or logs-they housed |