and religious, carried on in the Low Countries under the duke of Alva, drove into this country a number of artizans and workmen, a body of whom settled at Colchester, where they introduced the manufacture of baize. The towns of Bocking, Braintree, and Coggleshall, participated with Colchester in this manufacture; and it still continues to employ a good many hands in these places, though it is now on the decline. The immediate neighbourhood of London gives employment to a number of people in the various works carried on about Stratford. In other respects Essex is dependent upon agriculture for its population; and the improved state of cultivation generally prevalent furnishes a demand for labour sufficient to keep up an appearance of populousness in the numerous towns and villages.

In the times of the Romans, this county, with Middlesex, and that part of Hertfordshire now in the diocese of London, made up the country inhabited by the Britains, called Trinobantes, and by Ptolomy, Trinoantes, who were, when Cæsar arrived, esteemed the stoutest people in the island. They were then governed by Immanuentius, but soon fell into Cassibelaun's hands, the most worthy, and po tent of the British kings, who being chosen by an unanimous consent to be their general against the invading Romans, slew Immanuentius, and expelled Mandubratius, his son, and so became the sole king of the Trinobantes. Mandubratius, forced out of his kingdom, fled to Cæsar then in Gaul, and put himself under his protection; and returning with him into Britain, Cæsar, at the request of the Trinobantes, who sent ambassadors to him, to desire that Mandubratius might be, his deputy-governor, and declare their submission to the Romans, restored him to his kingdom, and having taken forty hostages of them as pledges of their future subjection, returned to Rome. After this, Britain enjoyed peace for some time, the Romans being taken up with their civil dissensions at home; and Mandubratius dying, Cunobeline obtained the government of these regions. He was the son of Lud, and having had VOL. VI. No. 128.

U

his

his education at Rome, kept the Britains, by his interest, in peace, and paying their tribute, they enjoyed their own laws. He was the first that stamped the British coins after the Roman manner.

Cunobeline being offended with his eldest son Adminius, banished him, on which the prince, with a small train, fled to Rome, and submitted himself and his father's kingdom to the emperor Caligula, who immediately represented it to the senate by his letters, which he commanded to be deposited in the temple of Mars, as if the whole isle had submitted to him.

After the death of Cunobeline, Caratacus or Catácratus was regulus over the Trinobantes, who, weary of their subjection to the Romans, with-held their tribute, and grew uneasy, that such as were the betrayers of their liberties and countries were cherished by the Romans. Aulus Plautius was sent by the emperor Claudius to reduce them and the other refractory Britains to their obedience, but found a noble resistance in Caracatus to maintain the freedom of his countrymen, for which he engaged the Roman legions in several battles; the Roman soldiers however, proved victorious, and Caratacus himself being taken captive, was carried in triumph at Rome.

Togodumnus, third son of Cunobeline, and brother of Caracacus, assumed the government in his brother's absence, and with equal boldness and courage prosecuted his country's quarrel against the Romans, then conducted by Vespasian, who not discouraged by some losses in the first battle, nor deterred by the great danger of losing his life in a compleat victory in a third, wherein Togodumnus, and many of his Britains, were slain; which overthrow, when Claudius was certified of, he immediately went in person with greater forces, and in a few months reduced them into the form of a province.

From this time the Trinobantes had no more wars till Nero's reign, when they entered into a combination with the Iceni to shake off the Roman yoke, because they had abused Boadicea their queen, and her daughters, whom Prasutagus,

2

Prasutagus, their king, had left to that emperor's protection; but this insurrection was quickly suppressed by Suetonius Paulinus, with the loss of eighty thousand Britains.

When the Romans had relinquished this island, and the Britains finding themselves too weak for the Scots and Picts, were forced to call in the Saxons out of Germany for their help, the country of the Trinobantes was given to the Saxons by Vortigern, whom they had taken prisoner, for his redemption, and upon the division of the isle among the Saxon generals, it came to be the portion of Uffa, who settled his kingdom here.

The Saxons having settled themselves, changed the name into Eart-Seaxa, or Eart-rex-rcine*; which the Normans retained with very little alteration, calling it Exssesa, or Exsessa, from whence by contraction it is commonly called Essex. This was the least, and consequently the weakest of the Saxon kingdoms, who almost from their first settlement were ever warring and encroaching one upon another, and so was always a feudatory either to the kingdom of Kent or Mercia, till it was subdued by Egbert, and made a province to the West Saxon kings; yet it bore up the face of a principality for the space of two hundred and eightyone years.

Essex was one of the first provinces that embraced Christianity; king Sebert, being nephew to Ethelbert, king of Kent. Under the Danes the inhabitants of this province were more favoured by that rude people than any other in England. They submitted at the Norman conquest to the ruling powers, and continued loyal till the insurrection of Wat Tyler; to make amends for which, no country suf

* "The name of East-sex-shire having been abbreviated to Essex f. or Essex fc, for schire, may support a conjecture, that what in forms of law is read for Essex and Middlesex, scilicit, should be read shire. It is allowed to be an useless word as it is now understood, and it would be a significant one if it were intended to take in the whole county. It we read Oxford scilicet, the meaning seems confined to the city or university; if we read Oxfordshire, the whole county seems comprehended.”--Salmon's Essex.

fered more than this for its loyalty, during the unhappy reign of Charles I. Essex also was one of the first to restore peace to the country by the recal of Charles II. This county, jointly with Hertfordshire, was antiently under the jurisdiction of one high sheriff, from the reign of Henry II. to Elizabeth; since which each county has been governed by its own sheriff.

The whole county of Essex is at present divided into fourteen hundreds, five half hundreds, and one royal liberty. The parishes are reckoned at four hundred and three; the market towns at twenty-four; but in some of these the markets are disused. The county is legally comprehended within the home circuit; and its county town is Chelmsford. It is in the diocese of London, of which it composes the greater part; and it is subdivided into the archdeaconry of Essex, containing seven deanries, one hundred and seventy-five churches and chapels; of Colchester, five deanries, one hundred and sixty-one churches and chapels; of Middlesex (part) three deauries eightythree churches and chapels; making a total of four hundred and nineteen..

Essex sends eight members to parliament, two for the county, and two each for Colchester, Harwich, and Malden. It pays twenty-four parts in five hundred and thirteen of the land tax, and furnishes nine hundred and sixty men to the militia.

We enter the county of Essex at Stratford Langthorn, three miles and a half from London, in the parish of West Ham. At Maryland Point, in this hamlet, is Stratford House, noted for its extensive gardens. The village is straggling, but there are several good houses, and considerable gardens attached to them. Stratford has recently greatly increased in houses and inhabitants, with the addition of two new built hamlets, on the forest side of the town; namely, Maryland Point, and the Gravel Pits; one facing the road to Woodford and Epping, and the other that to

* So called because built by a merchant who had raised an estate in that colony, in North America.

Ilford:

Ilford: it is also nearly joined to Bow, in spite of rivers, canals, marshy grounds, &c. *

The same increase of buildings may be seen propor, tionally in the other villages adjacent, especially on the forest side; as at Low Layton, Layton Stone, Walthamstow, Woodford, Wansted, West Ham, Plaistow, Upton, &c. and this, mostly of handsome houses, chiefly the habitations of rich citizens, able to keep a country as well as town houses, or of such as have left off trade altogether. The number of carriages which are kept in the circle already mentioned, do not amount to less than between five and six hundred.

The land in the neighbourhood of Stratford, Maryland Point, &c. has been much improved by the cultivation of potatoes, which have increased so much, as that some hundred acres are annually planted there; but, by the culture of these roots, the great tithes of these parishes are reduced to less than half of their former value, since it has been determined that the tithe of potatoes belongs to the vicar,

Hence the great road passed to Layton Stone, by the sign of the Green Man, formerly a lodge upon the edge of the forest; and, crossing by Wansted House, went over the Roding near Ilford; and, passing that part of the great forest called Henault Forest, came into the present great road a little on this side the Whalebone, a place so called, because a rib bone of a large whale, taken in the river Thames, was fixed there in 1658, the year that Oliver Cromwell died.

The remains of a great stone causeway, supposed to have been the highway, or great road, from London to Essex, instead of that which now leads over the bridge between Bow and Stratford, have been disco vered towards the bottom of Hackney Marsh, between Old Ford and the Wyke. That the great road lay this way, and that the great causeway continued just over the river, where now the Temple Mills stand, and passed by Sir Henry Hicks's house at Ruckholt, is not doubted; and that it was one of the highways made by the Romans, there is undeniable proof, by the several marks of Roman works, by Roman coins, and other antiquities, found there, some of which were collected by the reverend Mr. Strype, then vicar of Low Layton,

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