What was the government of London itself at this time? We can find an answer in the constitution of other Roman towns. London never became a municipium—a town considered by the Imperial authorities as of the first importance. There were only two towns of this rank in Britain, viz. Eboracum (York) and Verulam (St. Alban’s). It was, with eight other towns, a colonia. Wright16 is of opinion that there was very little difference in later times between the colonia and the municipium. These towns enjoyed the civitas or rights of Roman citizens; they consisted of the town and certain lands round it; and they had their own government exempt from the control of the Imperial officers. In that case the forum would not necessarily be placed in the fort or citadel, which was the residence of the Vicarius when he was in London with his Court and establishment. At the same time this citadel occupied an extensive area, and the City being without walls till the year 360 or thereabouts, all the public buildings were within that area. The governing body of the City was called the curia, and its members were curiales, decuriones, or senators; the rank was hereditary, but, like every hereditary house, it received accessions from below. The two magistrates, the duumviri, were chosen yearly by the curia from their own body. A town council, or administrative body, was also elected for a period of fifteen years by the curiales from their own body; the members were called principales. The curia appointed, also, all the less important officers; in fact it controlled the whole municipality. The people were only represented by one officer, the defensor civitatis, whose duty it was to protect his class against tyrannical or unjust usurpations of power by the curiales. No one could be called upon to serve as a soldier except in defence of his own town. The defence of the Empire was supposed to be taken over by the Emperor himself. Let every man, he said, rest in peace and carry on his trade in security. But when the Emperor’s hands grew weak, what had become of the martial spirit? The existence of this theory explains also how the later history of the Roman Empire is filled with risings and mutinies and usurpations, not of cities and tribes, but of soldiers. At the same time, since we read of the British youth going off to fight in Germany and elsewhere, the country lads had not lost their spirit.17 The people of London itself, however, may have become, like those of Rome, unused to military exercises. Probably there was no fear of any rising in London, and there was not a large garrison in the citadel. The citizens followed their own trade, unarmed, like the rest of the world; even their young men were not necessarily trained to sports and military exercises. Their occupations were very much the same as those of later times: there were merchants, foreign and native, ship-builders and ship-owners, sailors, stevedores and porters, warehousemen, clerks, shopmen, lawyers, priests, doctors, scribes, professors and teachers, and craftsmen of all kinds. These last had their collegia or guilds, each with a curialis for a patron. The institution is singularly like the later trade guilds, each with a patron saint. One would like to think that a craft company, such as the blacksmiths’, has a lineal descent from the Collegium Fabrorum of Augusta. But as will be proved later on, that is impossible. London was a city of trade, devoted wholly to trade. The more wealthy sort emulated the luxury and effeminacy of the Roman senators—but only so long as the Empire remained strong. When one had to fight or be robbed, to fight or to be carried off in slavery, to fight or to die, there was an end, I believe, of the effeminacy of the London citizens.

Let us consider this question of the alleged British effeminacy. We have to collect the facts, as far as we can get at them, which is a very little way, and the opinion of historians belonging to the time.

Gildas, called Sapiens, the Sage—in his Book of Exclamations,—speaks thus contemptuously of his own people:—

1. The Romans, he says, on going away, told the people that “inuring themselves to warlike weapons, and bravely fighting, they should valiantly protect their country, their property, wives and children, and what is dearer than these, their liberty and lives; that they should not suffer their hands to be tied behind their backs by a nation which, unless they were enervated by idleness and sloth, was not more powerful than themselves, but that they should arm those hands with buckler, sword, and spear, ready for the field of battle.

2. He says: “The Britons are impotent in repelling foreign foes, but bold and invincible in raising civil war, and bearing the burdens of their offences; they are impotent, I say, in following the standard of peace and truth, but bold in wickedness and falsehood.”

3. He says: “To this day”—many years after the coming of the Saxons—“the cities of our country are not inhabited as before, but being forsaken and overthrown, lie desolate, our foreign wars having ceased, but our civil troubles still remaining.”

Bede, who writes much later, thus speaks, perhaps having read the evidence of Gildas: “With plenty, luxury increased, and this was immediately attended with all sorts of crimes: in particular, cruelty, hatred of truth, and love of falsehood: insomuch that if any one among them happened to be milder than the rest, and inclined to truth, all the rest abhorred and persecuted him, as if he had been the enemy of his country. Nor were the laity only guilty of these things, but even our Lord’s own flock and His pastors also addicted themselves to drunkenness, animosity, litigiousness, contention, envy, and other such-like crimes, and casting off the light yoke of Christ. In the meantime, on a sudden, a severe plague fell upon that corrupt generation, which soon destroyed such numbers of them that the living were scarcely sufficient to bury the dead; yet those who survived could not be drawn from the spiritual death which their sins had incurred either by the death of their friends or the fear of their own.” This declaration of wickedness is written, one observes, ecclesiastically—that is, in general terms.

The opinion of an ecclesiastic who, like Gildas, connects morals and bravery, and finds in a king’s alleged incontinence the cause of internal disasters, may be taken for what it is worth. One undeniable fact remains, that for two hundred years this effeminate people fought without cessation or intermission for their lives and their liberties. Two hundred years, if you think of it, is a long time for an effeminate folk to fight. Deprived of their Roman garrison, they armed themselves; deprived of a government which had kept order for four hundred years, they elected their own governors; unfortunately their cities were separate, each with its own mayor (comes civitatis). They fought against the wild Highlander from the north; against the wild mountain man from the west; against the wild Irish from over the western sea; against the wild Saxon and Dane from the east. They were attacked on all sides; they were driven back slowly: they did nothing but fight during the whole of that most wretched period while the Roman Empire fell to pieces. When all was over, some of the survivors were found in the Welsh mountains; some in the Cumbrian Hills; some in the Fens; some beyond the great moor of Devon; some in the thick forests of Nottingham, of Middlesex, of Surrey, and of Sussex. Most sad and sorrowful spectacle of all that sad and sorrowful time is one picture—it stands out clear and distinct. I see a summer day upon the southern shore and in the west of England; I think that the place is Falmouth. There are assembling on the sea-shore a multitude of men, women, and children. Some of them are slaves; they are tied together. It is a host of many thousands. Close to the shore are anchored or tied up a vast number of ships rudely and hastily constructed, the frame and seats of wood, the sides made out of skins of creatures sewn together and daubed with grease to keep out the water. The ships are laden with provisions; some of them are so small as to be little better than coracles. And while the people wait, lo! there rises the sound of far-off voices which chant the Lamentation of the Psalmist. These are monks who are flying from the monastery, taking with them only their relics and their treasures. See! they march along bearing the Cross and their sacred vessels, singing as they go. So they get on board; and then the people after them climb into their vessels. They set their sails; they float down the estuary and out into the haze beyond and are lost. In this way did England give to France her province of Bretagne.