familiarized its invaders with what civilization was to be found in the
Imperial provinces of the West. What really made the difference between
the fate of Britain and that of the rest of the Roman world was the
stubborn courage of the British themselves. In all the world-wide
struggle between Rome and the German peoples no land was so stubbornly
fought for or so hardly won. In Gaul no native resistance met Frank or
Visigoth save from the brave peasants of Britanny and Auvergne. No
popular revolt broke out against the rule of Odoacer or Theodoric in
Italy. But in Britain the invader was met by a courage almost equal to
his own. Instead of quartering themselves quietly, like their fellows
abroad, on subjects who were glad to buy peace by obedience and tribute,
the English had to make every inch of Britain their own by hard fighting.

This stubborn resistance was backed too by natural obstacles of the
gravest kind. Elsewhere in the Roman world the work of the conquerors was
aided by the very civilization of Rome. Vandal and Frank marched along
Roman highways over ground cleared by the Roman axe and crossed river or
ravine on the Roman bridge. It was so doubtless with the English
conquerors of Britain. But though Britain had long been Roman, her
distance from the seat of Empire left her less Romanized than any other
province of the West. Socially the Roman civilization had made little
impression on any but the townsfolk, and the material civilization of the
island was yet more backward than its social. Its natural defences threw
obstacles in its invaders' way. In the forest belts which stretched over
vast spaces of country they found barriers which in all cases checked
their advance and in some cases finally stopped it. The Kentishmen and
the South-Saxons were brought utterly to a standstill by the
Andredsweald. The East-Saxons could never pierce the woods of their
western border. The Fens proved impassable to the Northfolk and the
Southfolk of East-Anglia. It was only after a long and terrible struggle