PREFACE.

I HAVE long felt a contempt, beyond the expression of words, for the histories of this country which have appeared within the last half century, and it is my belief that the intense ignorance of their own country, which prevails among so-called educated Englishmen, is owing to their amusing themselves with the ephemeral writings of modern historians instead of studying the standard works on which modern history is founded.

It is with the object of enabling my fellow-countrymen to go to the fountain-head for their knowledge, that I, without misgivings, take up my pen to begin this, the first of a series of faithful transcripts from the works of recognised historical authorities. I intend to give a translation of the text, weeding out such portions as may have no direct bearing upon the subjects in question. Old historians are often discursive, and it is the province of an editor to strike out those parts of their works which he may consider unnecessary. An accurate rendering of the text itself, without additions of my own, will be the principal aim and object of my labours.

The early part of the Ecclesiastical History of the Venerable Bede will form then the first of a series of a hundred volumes, treating of the history of the English nation. The public must content itself with this instalment until I think proper to issue another.

I beg the student to bring to his work an unbiassed mind and a perceptive judgment. Let him put aside all prejudice and form his own independent opinions from the evidence that shall be put before him, bowing to nothing but the stern necessity of facts. Such is the right spirit in which to approach the great science of history.

The lesson which the reader will be kind enough to learn from this portion of the writings of Bede is that the Established Church of England is the descendant and representative of the Ancient British Church, founded in this country five centuries before the schism introduced from Rome by Saint Augustine, and he will be so good as to consider the earliest English Papists as little better than dissenters. Any further inferences which he is to draw will be pointed out to him as the work proceeds.

PRIG'S BEDE.

INTRODUCTION.

BEFORE introducing the reader to the text of the Venerable Bede, it is well to premise that, being a Romanist historian, whatever he says must be received with reserve and caution. Unquestionably, Bede is the standard writer about the peoples and periods of which he treats. The modern historian, therefore, must make his writings the foundation of his work when dealing with this part of British history; but it cannot be too strongly insisted upon that while he honestly, industriously, and reverently studies the priceless words of this great authority, he must give credence to exactly so much as he may find convenient, and to no more. Contenting myself with these few prefatory remarks, I shall now proceed to present my readers with the Text of Bede, leaving it to speak for itself, and the student to form his own opinions thereon.

Lucius, king of Britain, writing to Pope Eleutherius, desired to be made a Christian.

In the year of our Lord's incarnation 156, Marcus Antonius Verus, the fourteenth from Augustus, was made Emperor, together with his brother, Aurelius Commodus. In their time, whilst Eleutherius, a holy man, presided over the Roman Church, Lucius, king of the Britons, sent a letter to him, entreating, that by his command he might be made a Christian. He soon obtained the object of his pious request.1

1 The student will not fail to observe that this important sentence describes the foundation of the British Church, and consequently that of our glorious mother, the Established Church of England, the Church which was destined to make such a gallant stand against the attempted encroachments of Vaticanism.

Let not the reader for one moment lose sight of the fact that the Church of England is no child of the comparatively modern Church introduced by St. Augustine, but the lineal and only descendant of the grand old British Church, founded by Lucius, king of the Britons, in the year 156, a time when many were living whose fathers had seen and spoken to the very Apostles themselves. While Romanists boast of the antiquity of their Church, we may proudly point to the evidence of their own writer, Bede, to prove that our Church was founded by Lucius only a century and

a half after Christ, whereas theirs, however ancient it may be in Rome, is but a modern exotic in this country. This shows the advantage of going to the fountainhead in search of history.

A neophyte in documental research might, for a moment, be confused by the apparent inconsistency of the founder of the Church of England "entreating the Pope of Rome "that by his command he might be made a Christian;" but his confusion would arise. entirely from putting his own construction on Bede's words. The text says "be made a Christian :” it says nothing whatever about being "made a Roman Catholic." Those who infer the latter add to the text in a most unwarrantable manner. Contemporaneous histories state that Eleutherius sent two Papal emissaries SS. Fugatius and Damianus-to Lucius. This was probably done with a deeply-laid plan of making that king a Papist; but for once crafty Rome outwitted itself, and in attempting to make a Roman Catholic, accidentally made a Christian.

Alban being yet a pagan, at the time when the cruelties of wicked princes were raging against Christians, gave entertainment in his house to a certain clergyman.2

2 Few historical incidents have been more perverted than the history of St. Alban. The unprejudiced