their power; but equally misled by the mist, their motion was athwart, and Edward, whose front was to the north, proceeded too far westward; so that the battle commenced between the right of the Lancastrians, under the Earl of Oxford, and the right of the Yorkists, in which the latter, after a tenacious struggle, gave way, and fled to Barnet, and some part of them from thence to London, carrying the report that Warwick was victorious. Oxford pursued his success with more eagerness than prudence, and made a dreadful slaughter of the enemy. But in the meanwhile, the other divisions of the hostile armies saw little of the contest; and the men of Edward were not disheartened by the disasters of their comrades; nor was Warwick enabled to secure the advantages which might have followed the first vigorous and successful effort of his soldiers. The main armies now drew near together, and the contest became more furious and terrible. Warwick had lost more by the absence of Oxford's forces, than he had gained by the partial defeat of the enemy; and Fortune held the balance against him: for, when Oxford returned, the stars on his liveries were mistaken by his comrades for the suns on the liveries of Edward. He received a volley of shot which was designed for the enemy; and suspecting he was betrayed, fled from the field, crying out, "Treason!" It was now that the remembrance of the former glory and renown of Warwick was awakened: and, as he was more closely pressed by an increasing superiority of numbers, it seemed as if the ardour of his soul became more fervid, in proportion as the strength of his body was wasted. He sent away the horse on which he had rode from rank to rank, encouraging his soldiers; rushed on foot into the midst of the enemy; dealt the blows of death around him on every side, determined that his adversaries should pay dearly for the life of so valiant a soldier; and thus manfully fighting, was vanquished, and slain. He was no sooner fallen, than his brother, the Marquis of Montacute, emulating his glorious example, fell also; and victory was declared for King Edward. The Duke of Exeter was left for dead in the field, but recovered, and fled. The Duke of Somerset escaped after the Earl of Oxford. On the King's part were killed the Lords

Cromwell, and Say, with many other men of distinction; and of Yorkists and Lancastrians, nearly 10,000 men lost their lives in this battle. Thus fell George Neville, Earl of Warwick and Salisbury! a man whose hospitality was so abundant, that the ordinary consumption of a breakfast, at his house in London, was six oxen; whose popularity was so great, that his absence was accounted as the absence of the sun from the hemisphere; whose service was so courted, that men of all degrees were proud to wear the badges of his livery; and whose authority was so potent, that Kings were raised, or deposed, as suited his humour.

To commemorate this memorable battle, an OBELISK was erected by the late Sir Jeremy Sambrook, in the year 1740, near the spot where the road divides towards Hatfield and St. Alban's, On this Obelisk, which is represented by the Cut beneath, is a short inscription, recording the date of the battle, and the defeat and death of the Earl of Warwick.

HUNTINGDONSHIRE.

HUNTINGDONSHIRE, with the adjacent counties of CAM

BRIDGE, NORFOLK, and SUFFOLK, composed the extensive territory of the ICENI, a powerful British tribe, whose name, according to Owen, was derived from Cyn, signifying, first, a-head, forward, before, or foremost; with the article Y, or the, prefixed;" and thence, he continues, the people would be called Cyni, Cyniad, Cynion, Cynwys, &c. or, with the article, Y-Cyni, &c. i. e. the first, or most forward. They were also called Cenimagni, or, more properly, Cenimanni, Cenomanni, and Cenomes; all these appellations being deduced from the British language, and denoting the inhabitants of the head-most, or forward, regions.'t

The Iceni formed an alliance with the Romans at a very early period; but the oppressions inflicted during the proprætorship of Ostorius, in the time of the Emperor Claudius, incensed them so highly, that they flew to arms, and, in conjunction with some of the neighbouring states, took the field in great force. Their undisciplined bravery, however, proved of little avail against Roman weapons, and Roman discipline; and, after a sanguinary conflict, they were obliged to submit to the harsh terms proposed by their conquerors. The peace was of short duration. Exasperated by new oppressions, combined with atrocities still more galling, the Iceni had again recourse to arms. The death of Prasutagus, their Sovereign, and the impolitic arrangements of his will, had furnished the Romans with a pretext for coercive measures, and, with the most insulting rapacity, the native chiefs were deprived of their estates, and the people generally inflamed to revenge by VOL. VII. APRIL, 1808. Y. repeated

*Cambrian Register, Vol. II.

Ibid. See also under Cambridgeshire, Vol. II. p. 3.

repeated spoliations. The widow of Prasutagus, the brave Boadicea, was ignominiously scourged; and her daughters were violated by the Roman officers. These successive outrages excited a general spirit of resistance; and, under the conduct of Boadicea, the Iceni commenced an exterminating war. The Roman cities at Camalodunum (Colchester) and Verulam (St. Alban's) were reduced to ashes; the infantry of the ninth legion were cut to pieces; and the inhabitants of London were massacred with unsparing fury, from the consideration of their being in alliance with the Romans. Seutonius Paulinus, the Roman General, who was in Anglesea at the commencement of the insurrection, marched hastily to arrest the progress of the exulting foe, whose numbers had now increased to between 200 and 300,000 men. The utmost he could oppose to this immense force, was a body of scarcely 10,000 troops; yet these were veteran soldiers, accustomed to victory, and regardless of every thing but the disgrace of discomfiture. With this intrepid band he awaited the threatened attack in a spot encircled with woods, narrow at the entrance, and sheltered in the rear by a thick forest,' the force of the enemy being extended over an open plain which lay before him. The dire conflict terminated in the total defeat of the Britons, who, flushed with their former success, fought in such tumultuous disorder, that their vast superiority of numbers tended only to their own destruction. "The glory of the day," says Tacitus, "was equal to the most splendid victory of ancient times. The waggons in the rear of the Britons obstructed their flight a dreadful slaughter followed. Neither sex nor age was spared; and the cattle falling in one promiscuous carnage, added to the heaps of slain." When the pursuit had ceased, the British chiefs endeavoured to collect their scattered troops, and for some time kept the field; but they durst not again contend with the Roman power; and from this period history is silent as to the annals of the Iceni as a separate nation. In the Roman division of the kingdom, their country was included in the district named FLAVIA CESARIENSIS.

米

The

* Ann. B. XIV. S. 37.

The principal Roman stations in Huntingdonshire, were DUROLIPONTE, or Godmanchester; and DUROBRIVE, near Dornford Ferry, about midway between Chesterton in this county, and Castor in Northamptonshire. The principal ancient roads, of which there appear to have been three, intersected each other at Godmanchester: one of them has been called the British Ermin. This seems to have entered the county from the neighbourhood of Casar's Camp, or Salena, in Bedfordshire, and to have proceeded by Crane Hill, in the track since known by the name of Hell Lane, whence passing through Toseland, Godmanchester, and Huntingdon, it continued by Alconbury, Weston, and Upton; and falling into what is now called the Bullock Road, passed to the east of the spot marked in our maps, the Ruins of Ogerston;' and finally, entered Northamptonshire at Wandsford. The Roman Ermin Street entered this county from Cambridgeshire, in the vicinity of Papworth St. Agnes, and proceeding to Godmanchester, nearly in the line of the present high road, followed the course of the British Ermin to the neighbourhood of Alconbury; when branching off to the eastward, it again assumed the line of the high road, through Sawtry, St. Andrews, Stilton, and Chesterton, to Durobrica, whence crossing Northamptonshire, it entered Rutlandshire near Stamford. The Via Devana, the third and last of the principal ancient roads in Huntingdonshire, entered from Cambridgeshire, in the neighbourhood of Fenny Stanton, and proceeded to Godmanchester, in the same course as the present turnpike road; thence pursuing the tract of the British Ermin to Alconbury, it passed to the north of Buckworth and Old Weston, and entered Northamptonshire in the vicinity of Clapton. In the early Saxon times, this county formed part of the kingdom of East Anglia, and was then called Huntedunescyre, and Huntandunescyre. It was afterwards subjugated by the Mercian Sovereigns, aud continued under their dominion till the union of the Saxon states into one monarchy by Egbert.

"In the decline of the Saxon government," says Camden,* "this county had an officiary Earl (named) Siward; for earidoms Y 2

Brit. Gough's Edit. Vol. II. p. 155.

were