On arrival at Rome Caractacus was imprisoned with some of his countrymen and in course of time brought before the Emperor Claudius.  The brave and fearless speech he made before the Emperor on that occasion is one of the most famous recorded in history, and has been immortalised both in prose and poetry.

  “Now I have spoken, do thy will;
    Be life or death my lot. 
  Since Britain’s throne no more I fill,
    To me it matters not. 
  My fame is clear; but on my fate
  Thy glory or thy shame must wait.”

  He ceased:  from all around upsprung
    A murmur of applause;
  For well had truth and freedom’s tongue
    Maintained their holy cause. 
  The conqueror was the captive then—­
  He bade the slave be free again.

Tradition states that one of his companions in the prison in Rome was St. Paul, who converted him to the Christian faith, with two of his fellow-countrymen, Linus and Claudia, who are mentioned in St. Paul’s second Epistle to Timothy (iv. 21).

Descendants of Caradoc are still to be traced in England in the family of Craddock, whose shield to this day is emblazoned with the words:  “Betrayed!  Not conquered.”

We awoke quite early in the morning—­a fact which we attributed to the church clock, although we could not remember hearing it strike.  My brother started the theory that we might have been wakened by some supernatural being coming through the open window, from the greensward beneath, where “lay the bones of the dead.”  Aldborough church was dedicated to St. Andrew, and the register dated from the year 1538—­practically from the time when registers came into being.  It contained a curious record of a little girl, a veritable “Nobody’s child,” who, as a foundling, was brought to the church and baptized in 1573 as “Elizabeth Nobody, of Nobody.”

[Illustration:  KNARESBOROUGH CASTLE.]

Oliver Cromwell, about whom we were to hear so much in our further travels, was here described in the church book as “an impious Arch-Rebel,” but this we afterwards found was open to doubt.  He fought one of his great battles quite near Aldborough, and afterwards besieged Knaresborough Castle, about eight miles away.  He lodged at an old-fashioned house in that town.  In those days fireplaces in bedrooms were not very common, and even where they existed were seldom used, as the beds were warmed with flat-bottomed circular pans of copper or brass, called “warming-pans,” in which were placed red-hot cinders of peat, wood, or coal.  A long, round wooden handle, like a broomstick, was attached to the pan, by means of which it was passed repeatedly up and down the bed, under the bedclothes, until they became quite warm, both above and below.  As this service was performed just before the people retired to rest, they found a warm bed waiting for them instead of a cold one.  But of course this was in the “good old times.”  Afterwards, when people became more civilised (!), they got into bed between linen sheets that were icy cold, and after warming them with the heat of their bodies, if they chanced to move an inch or two during the night they were either awakened, or dreamed about icebergs or of being lost in the snow!