Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/604

 let them compare marriage to a bag of snakes and eels (stuff!), to a lottery (pshaw!), to a birdcage—those who are in wishing to get out, and those who are out wishing to get in (rubbish!), we despise such bitter churls (out on them). They know well enough (a pest on 'em!) the sour wretches, that every pair of us has deserved the blessed flitch, and that no one of us ever repented his marriage within the year—at least, let them say so who will. It was a goodly ceremony, and impressed on the Essex maidens those fine lines of the ex-shrew, Katherine:

The last flitch given away was in 1860.

At Colchester-on-the-Colne the crow is bound to descend for two reasons: first, for the sake of its old and immortal monarch, King Cole; secondly, for the sake of the touching story of the two Cavalier friends, who were here shot by Fairfax for defending the city stoutly against the Parliament. This Essex town, situated on the eminence above the river, was an old British post, appreciated by the Romans, and moulded by their strong hands into Camalodunum (temp. Claudius). Here it is supposed Cunobelin and his sons, Guiderius and Arviragus (Caractacus), reigned. (Shakespeare has endeared these names to us by culling them from early British history, Bede or Gildas, and making them the sons of his Cymbeline.) This town, where the Romans built temples and theatres, and established a mint, was one of their favourite colonies, and was often fought for, especially in 62, when the fierce Boadicea chased the Romans from the town, and slew the entire ninth legion.

It was not till the third century that the real King Cole shone forth; but alas! he had no fiddlers three, and therefore never called for them. He was really a most respectable potentate, fond of oysters, and naturally much respected by the natives. Like a true British sailor, he rebelled from the Romans, resolving that Britons never, never, should be slaves, and was instantly besieged in Colchester by Constantius Chlorus, a vigilant Roman general.

The siege lasted for three years, and promised to be as long as that of Troy, when one day of truce the susceptible Roman happened to see Helena, old King Cole's beautiful golden-haired daughter, on the ramparts, and, exclaiming "Dea certe!" proposed immediate peace, so that he might marry Helena. King Cole joined hands on that bargain with the gallant officer, and the result was Constantine the Great, who was born at Colchester, and who deserves a statue there if ever man did. In 306 he was proclaimed emperor at York.

Those tormenting vermin of England, the Danes, when not foraging up the Blackwater, were fond of investigating the Colne, and there either opening oysters, or breaking open houses. They grew fond of the place, stuck close to the oysters, and made the place a stronghold, a fortified port, and a centre of departure for murder and plunder. But hard times came for them in 921, when Edward the Elder stormed the town, put the wild Danes to the sword, and repeopled the place with stolid, honest West Saxons.

When grave men sat down to prepare the Doomsday Book, Colchester was still a thriving town. In 1218 (Henry the Third) Louis the Dauphin took the town on the Colne. In Edward the Third's reign Colchester sent five ships and a hundred and seventy seamen to the royal fleet, raised for the blockade of Calais, when our great king took the key of France, and his noble-hearted wife begged the lives of the six burgesses, as history has immortalised.

Then Colchester went on very quietly, feeding on her "weaver's beef" (sprats), till Lady Jane Grey's friends tried to seize the throne; when the Colchester men stood out for gloomy Queen Mary, who, after her accession, complimented them by visiting the town. In Elizabeth's time the persecuted Flemings began to gather in the place to such an extent, that the jealous bailiffs and aldermen grew alarmed, and issued a command that no stranger should be permitted to reside within the precincts of Colchester, without their special consent.

But the crowning legend of the town, in the crow's eye, is the touching story of the death of those brave gentlemen, Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle, who, under Goring, Earl of Norwich, held Colchester, in 1648, against Fairfax and the Parliament. The deaths of these gallant, though mistaken, Cavalier officers happened thus: Cromwell had just smashed up the Scotch army of the Duke of Hamilton in the North. The Prince was with his fleet in the Downs, the poor King a prisoner in Carisbrook, the Earl of Holland had been taken near Kingston in an affair of cavalry, in which young Villiers was struck down, and Goring and Lord Capel, with the Kentish and Essex Royalist troops were shut up in Colchester. The Cavaliers there, having eaten nearly all their horses, and despairing of relief from the tardy Scotch army, sent to Fairfax to propose terms.

Fairfax would dismiss the common soldiers, but would grant no conditions to the officers and gentlemen. A day or two was spent in deliberation. The fiercer sort were for a brisk sally at all hazards, but they had too few horses, and those that were left were weak for want of sufficient food. Some were for dashing open a port, and for dying sword in hand; but that was only to be butchered without chance of revenge, so at last the calmer counsel prevailed. They all surrendered, threw open the gates, and were at once led to the Town Hall, locked in and guarded. Presently a Puritan officer entered the room, and demanded a list of the prisoners'