dua would be sufficient to attest the pos- | the people were able to interfere regusibility of the female succession. Royal prerogatives; check of the druidical order. If, however, we should look for the full prerogatives of royalty among the ancient Celts, we should look in vain. Nominally the kings had the right to command the nation in war; but the secular nobility—that is, the horsemen, or knights-greatly impeded the freedom of the sovereign in this respect. And the druidical check was even greater, as it interposed the edict of heaven against any campaign or policy that was distasteful to the priestly order. Besides, the old British Celts could not have been induced to fight against the warnings and imprecations of the Druids. Dio Chrysostom has declared that the Celtic kings were not allowed under the constitution of the race to do anything without the sanction of the Druids. Though the kings were permitted by the priests to keep a show of royalty, to have their palaces, their nobles, and ministers of state, they were nevertheless subjected to the galling bondage of the superstitions and willfulness of the druidical order. Influence of the It appears, moreover, that at the time of the Roman conquest a popular element had appeared in many Celtic states. Ambiorix, one of the Gallic kings whom Cæsar met beyond the mountains, insisted that a popular clamor had compelled him to assault the camp of Cæsar against his stipulation not to do so. Some British chieftains who had infringed the rule of good faith by imprisoning the Roman ambassadors gave a similar excuse to the general, namely, that they had been driven to the arrest of the legati by the clamor and violence of the people. with recruits larly in the administration of affairs, the Celtic con The Druids, then, were the lawmaking power among the Celtic peoples. They were also the judges. Power of the This, added to the fact that priesthood; they were the ministers gresses. of the national religion, made them es pecially powerful; and no doubt their tyranny was great. We are not informed as to what extent insurrection and the other weapons which native races, as well as civilized, are wont to use against their oppressors were employed by these ancient tribesmen to check the other. wise unlimited prerogative of the ruling order. It is thought by those who have looked attentively at the question that the great laws of the Celtic race were for the most part prepared, debated, enacted, promulgated at the annual assembly of the race at Dreux. This assembly might well stand for the Amphictyonic council of the Greeks. It was the We should not think. however, that Celtic congress. Whether the nobility M.-Vol. 2-30 that is, the secular chieftains and the | ular height. It is called Bryn-Gwyn, or knights-had much active participation Brein-Gwyn; that is, the supreme or in the lawmaking and judicial proceed- royal tribunal." ings of the assembly we are left to conjecture, but the Druids were the dominant order. Rowland's account of the cirque of Angle In Britain, the seat of the national tribunal was in the Isle of Anglesea. It is believed that traces of this ancient holy place of the British Celts are still discoverable. Rowland, in his account of Ancient Mona (Anglesea), has given us the following account of the place: sea. law for woman. We are not well acquainted with the actual method of making laws among the Celts, or of the style Nature of punof administering justice. ishment; the Something is said in Cæsar relative to the kind of punishments which were inflicted. These were various, according to the nature and degree of criminality. The husband had the power of life and death over his wife and children. It is in evidence that penalty, and that it was a part of the method of obtaining evidence. As usual among barbarians, the law bore heavily on the woman. She who was suspected of having conspired against the life of her husband was put to torture. "In the other end of the township of | torture was sometimes added to the death Tre'r Dryw, wherein all these ruins already mentioned are, there first appears a large cirque or theater, raised up of earth and stones to a great height resembling a horseshoe, opening directly to the west, upon an even, fair spot of ground. This cirque or theater is made of earth and stones, carried and heaped there to form the bank. It is, within the circumvallation, about twenty paces over; and the banks, where whole and unbroken, about five yards perpendic We have not thus far referred to the general concubinage and sexual license which seems to have prevailed among the British Celts. Nor is it known whether the druidical laws tolerated so TREATY BETWEEN SAXONS AND THE BRITISH KING. was an importation from the East, and | ple were more conformed to the printhat the domination of the man and the sexual slavery of the woman were relics of Oriental usages which the Cymric Celts ciples of Roman society than were those of Britain and Ireland. Cæsar recites the principle of a Gallic law which re quired that the dowry brought by a wife | Hebrides had no existence except in his own imagination, or perhaps in his acquaintance with the Atlantis of Plato. to her husband should have added thereHints of the do- to an equivalent sum by the by the Caledonians on their king. Solinus has recorded a singular theory of government which was in vogue in the Restrictions laid Caledonian islands; that is, the Hebrides. It was to interdict the accumulation of property by the sovereign. He was not He was not allowed to own anything in his own right. But as compensatory for this deprivation he was permitted to take freely whatever he required for his use from any of his subjects. It was held that the monarch thus having no right of personal ownership could not be tempted to act the part of an oppressor in the hope of gain. The principle was carried out to the social and family relation of the king. He was not permitted to have a wife of his own. But the wives of his subjects were his in the same sense that their property belonged to him. Since his children under these circumstances could not be known, no such thing as heredity could be recognized. The classical scholar will not fail to recognize in this an exact duplication of one of the principles which Plato devised for his government of the ideal republic. In the Atlantis the king, or ruler, was to be supported in the identical manner here described of the Caledonian monarch. It should be stated, however, that some historical critics have supposed that Solinus drew upon his imagination for his facts, and that the custom which he ascribes to the inhabitants of the Pressure of the the west. If we now take a general view of the destinies of the Celtic race in Europe, we shall find that it was pressed from behind by Celtic race to the constant aggressions of other peoples. To what extent its own migrations were accelerated by ethnic annoyances on the eastern flank we may not know. Look at the broad countries between the Rhine and the western shores of Britain. They were all Celtic. This is said of the primeval condition, before the beginnings of history. But there was a there was a constant tendency of the race to mass itself in the west, to recede toward the Atlantic, under the impact of the Romans and the Germans. This pressure produced its greatest effect in Gaul. We have seen how this country was subdued at the beginning of our era, how it was Romanized and Latinized, how the population was gradually conformed to the Roman character. With the downfall of the empire of the West the Franks came in on the eastern borders, and the Burgundians. Meanwhile the Celtic race had slipped to the west. It had accumulated in Bretagne, all along the western parts of Gaul, in Britain, in Scotland, in Ireland, in the Isle of Man. They were even as flocks and herds be- | from its original seats of one of the fore their pursuers. They were beaten into the earth. They fled to the west. They sought safety in the mountains of Wales and Cornwall. Never had the Celtic population been more completely principal Aryan families made room for the transplanting of other The Gaulish emfamilies in its stead. It thus pire yields to happens that the Celtic Germans. country ceases to be a Celtic country. the Romans and displaced by conquest than were they | First the Romans and then the Germans of all Southeastern Britain. If in the sixth century we glance at the Celtic race, we shall find it already accumulated in the westernmost parts of the British Isles and in the Highlands of Scotland. This disturbance and forcing away are poured into the Gallic territories until a new ethnic constitution is prepared. In England-that is, in a part of England-it is the Low Germanic stock that is planted in the place of the Celtic tree. The peoples of Celtic extraction become more and more limited |