was made the capital of the province of Maxima Cæsariensis, and also of all Roman Britain. It was admirably situated for the purpose, on a large navigable river, capable of being defended, and in a fertile district, richer than the valley of the Thames, and more extensive. It was also central for Britain, and connected with the sea by water and roads in all directions; but the Romans found the Brigantes a brave, hardy, and adventurous people, who did not submit until about the year 80. Eboracum became the centre of Roman life and sovereignty, and a colonia. There were only two colonia besides in Britain, London and Verulam, and the inhabitants of these three cities had privileges equal to those of any city of the empire, having the right to say "Civis Romanus sum", like St. Paul of Tarsus.

The regular jurisdiction of the Romans extended to the Picts' Wall, between the Forth and the Clyde, and what is now South Scotland was the province of Valentia. These two provinces, Maxima Cæsariensis and Valentia, became afterwards the English kingdom of Northumberland, between the Humber and the Forth. So important was Eboracum considered that celebrated generals and emperors lived at this city, and Severus died in it. Constantius resided here, and married Helena, supposed to be the daughter of a British king; and Constantine, who afterwards became the first Christian Emperor, is believed to have been born here, though it is uncertain, about the year 272.

During the period when the early British Christians were not persecuted as they were in the reign of Diocletian, York was important as an ecclesiastical centre, having a bishop or archbishop, who was one of three bishops present at the Council of Arles, in the south of Gaul, in the year 314.

Constantine, called the Great, having succeeded his father as Emperor of the West, became afterwards sole Emperor of Rome, and having fixed his seat at Constantinople, presided at the Council of Nicea in the year 325. It was on the departure of this Emperor that York attained the height of its glory as a great city and seat of empire. Many proofs of this exist to this day. The system of great roads, all leading to York, prove also the

importance of the place. The Watling Street went from the shores of Kent to London, thence to Chester and York, and was continued northward over the River Tees, at Piercebridge, to the important city of Vinovia, and thence to the River Tyne, and forward to Scotland. But there was a more direct road from London, which was rapidly becoming an important commercial city, passing north to Lincoln, called the Ermine Street, and thence to Doncaster, where it met the Rykenild Street, and so to York. This Rykenild Street has been very little described, but it can be traced from Gloucester, through Worcestershire, Staffordshire, and the whole length of Derbyshire, as shown by the names Little Chester and Chesterfield, to Doncaster and York, whence it was continued to the mouth of the Tyne. Other roads connected York with all parts of Yorkshire, some of which remain in use at the present day. About the year 420 the Romans finally left Britain, and the city and province soon became a prey to the incursions of the Picts, who had been found to be formidable enemies when amongst their native Grampian Mountains. From this time both the city and the province become of less importance in the history of Britain, and little indeed is known of them until another conquering people makes its appearance

across the sea.

Less than thirty years elapsed, in 449 and afterwards, when mixed Jutes and Saxons came to the southern shores of Britain, and founded kingdoms. It was much later when another people, the Angles, under Ida, in 547, founded the kingdom of Bernicia at Bamborough. In 559 followed Ella, to found the small kingdom of Deira. In 593 Ethelfrith united the two kingdoms as the kingdom of Northumberland, and the capital was removed from the stronghold of Bamborough to the Romano-British City of York, which henceforth was to play its own great part in the union and civilisation of England. From 617 to 659, during the reigns of three powerful kings, Edwin, Oswald, and Oswy, the kingdom became very powerful, and York was still the most important city. London was not then of great political importance, and less so than either Canterbury or Winchester, as the capitals of Kent and the West Saxons. The strife between the two northern kingdoms having been ended, all

the people north of the Humber and to the Forth became simply Northumbrians, and as such are known in subsequent history. To this day, indeed, they are almost a separate people in many respects. The unity of the people gave political importance to the kingdom outside its own boundaries. So great had been the conquests of the three successful kings that they obtained a supremacy over a large portion of the English people, and it seemed almost possible for this supremacy to become the means of welding the various tribes of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, with Britons, Picts, and Scots, into one nation, having York as its capital.

About 658 the kingdom was at the height of its power, and as a Christian State it was doing battle with Mercia, which represented the old heathenism. Mercia triumphed, and Northumbria receded, and so, for the present, the dream of a united State was ended. The kingdom kept within its own bounds, and was saved from barbarism by Christianity and learning, by which it became more famous than it had ever been before.

The Church was the first in the field, and, indeed, she was the mother of learning. The good St. Gregory of Rome, who himself disclaimed any supremacy over the churches, instructed Augustine to divide Britain into two archbishoprics, Canterbury for the south and York for the north, the native British part being excluded for some centuries. These two cities became, therefore, the ecclesiastical centres of Britain, though the hold of York upon the Far North was not strong. In 627 Paulinus was made Archbishop of York, and tried to convert the Northumbrians. In this he failed, and retired to Kent. King Oswald invited Aidan from Iona to undertake the conversion of his people, and the see was formed at Lindisfarne, where a school was also established. Missionaries from this school went to various parts of the land, and among the most eminent of them were two brothers-Cedd, who became Bishop of the East Saxons, and Chad, who was the founder of the See of Lichfield, for the Mercian kingdom. The Conference at Whitby, in 664, tended to unite the kingdoms as well as the Churches, by bringing the north and the south together. With the failure of the supremacy of Northumberland a

new life and energy was built up in the north, and it looked rather to Iona and Ireland (then called Scotia) for its religious centre, so that there was a close connection between Britain and Ireland. The meeting of kings and prelates at Whitby altered this, and a union with Canterbury was the result, especially as at this time. there was no Archbishop at York, and the learned Theodore was the sole Archbishop in the whole of Britain.

York still continued to be the greatest centre of English life and learning, though its political importance had somewhat decreased. A great scholar was born in 673, who was not only the most learned man of his age, but who was the cause of the great spread of learning in Northumberland. The Venerable Bæda, or Bede, gathered around him, at the Monastery of Jarrow on the Tyne, numbers of students, said to amount to six hundred. He was the true father of national education, for he taught his pupils to translate from Latin into the native Northumbrian tongue. He was also connected with the monastery or school at Wearmouth, and libraries were formed there, and at the monastery or school which had been formed at York. Bede stands alone as a translator and historian, and his influence extended to York and other places. He died in 735, after a life of literary labour, and one of his pupils was Alcuin, a native of York. Alcuin was educated by two learned Archbishops, Egbert and Albert, and he became the most learned and accomplished man of his age, adding to the fame of York as a place of learning. He was invited by Charlemagne, Emperor of the West, to his dominions, where he founded various schools of learning. Thus, in the middle of the eighth century, York and Northumberland became the literary centre of Christian Europe in its western parts. A great school had been founded at Canterbury, and the influence of this in the south, and of York in the north, penetrated throughout all England, and created a great advance of learning. Whitby had been early famous for its Abbey, under the Lady Hilda, and it produced one of the greatest lights of the day in the humble cowherd named Cadmon. The first true English song was heard there, and it was a spontaneous talent which produced it. "What shall I sing?" he said; and the answer was, “The beginning of created things And so the poet sang, in

Northumbrian speech, of the creation of the world, of the leading events in the history of Israel, the birth of Christ, and of the future state.

During this most glorious period of the history of the kingdom, Alfred, or Ælfrith, was king from 685 to 705, and he and his successors were in intimate communication with the sovereigns of Western Europe, as this was considered the most powerful kingdom in the country, and York the greatest capital. This state of things continued until 827, when Northumberland-nominally, at leastsubmitted to the supremacy of Egbert, King of the West Saxons; but it was not until the time of Athelstan that there was a real King of all England in fact and in name.

Serious troubles again affected York and the Earldom of Northumberland, when the Danes conquered the country in 867, and finally settled in it, becoming blended with the people. Guthrum, however, was supreme over the old kingdom, as well as a great part of the east country, being recognised as king at York, whilst Alfred reigned over the remainder of England.

In time the two peoples became one, superior in energy to the inhabitants of other parts of the country, and retaining the distinctive characters of their Anglian and Scandinavian forefathers.

After London had grown in importance and become the capital of the whole country, York was considered the second city of England, which position it still nominally holds, by its chief magistrate being styled "Lord Mayor". In ecclesiastical matters it was the capital of the North, and until the foundation of the Archbishopric of St. Andrews, in 1446, all Scotland was really or nominally under its jurisdiction, with the exception of the Western Isles, which for two or three centuries were under the authority of Drontheim, in Norway.

York has lost its great school at St. Mary's Abbey, once so famous, and which ought to have been made into a University, so that it might have still remained the literary as well as ecclesiastical centre of the north of England. It is, however, well represented by its daughter, the Royal Grammar School of St. Peter. If the ancient glories are departed, compared with other places, York has a grand history to look back upon, and it has done its part in the life and learning of England.