The history of Aldborough, the old burh or fortified Saxon settlement, in spite of its Saxon name, could clearly be traced back to the time of the Brigantes, the ancient Britons, who inhabited the territory between the Tweed and the Humber.  A Celtic city existed there long before Romulus and Remus founded the city of Rome, and it was at this city of ISUER, between the small River Tut and its larger neighbour the Yore, that their queen resided.  Her name, in Gaelic, was Cathair-ys-maen-ddu ("Queen of stones black"), rather a long name even for a queen, and meaning in English the Queen of the City of the Black Stones, the remaining three, out of the original twelve, being those, now known as the Devil’s Arrows, which we had seen the preceding night.

[Illustration:  CAER CARADOC HILL, CHURCH STRETTON.]

The Romans, however, when they invaded Britain, called her Cartismunda, her city ISURIUM, and the Brigantes’ country they named Brigantia.  But as the Brigantes made a determined resistance, their invasion of this part of England, begun in A.D. 47, was not completed until A.D. 70.

Queen Cartismunda was related to the King of Siluria, which then embraced the counties of Hereford and Monmouth, besides part of South Wales.  He was one of the greatest of the British chieftains, named Caradoc by the Britons and Caractacus by the Romans.  He fought for the independence of Britain, and held the armies of the most famous Roman generals at bay for a period of about nine years.  But eventually, in A.D. 50, he was defeated by the Roman general Ostorius Scapula, in the hilly region near Church Stretton, in Shropshire, not far from a hill still known as Caer Caradoc, his wife and daughters being taken prisoners in the cave known as Caradoc’s Cave.  He himself escaped to the Isle of Mona, afterwards named Anglesey, with the object of rallying the British tribes there.

It so happened that some connection existed between Queen Cartismunda and the Romans who had defeated Caradoc, and after that event Ostorius Scapula turned his army towards the north, where he soon reached the border of Brigantia.

As soon as the queen, of whose morals even the Britons held no high opinion, heard of his arrival, she and her daughters hastened to meet the conqueror to make terms.  If beauty had any influence in the settlement, she seems to have had everything in her favour, as, if we are to believe the description of one of the Romans, who began his letter with the words “Brigantes faemina dulce,” the Brigantes ladies must have been very sweet and beautiful.

A most objectional part of the bargain was that Caractacus should be delivered up to the Roman general.  So the queen sent some relatives to Mona to invite him to come and see her at Isuer, and, dreaming nothing of treachery, he came; but as soon as he crossed the border into the queen’s country he was seized, bound and handed over to Ostorius, who sent him to Rome, together with his already captured wife and daughters.