ch were undoubtedly
held by Iberian (Basque) peoples at least to the date when Pytheas
visited those parts. The name, indeed, seems to be connected with
that of the Ligurians, a kindred non-Aryan community, surviving, in
historical times, only amongst the Maritime Alps.

F. 3.--It is probable that the status of each clan was continually
shifting; and what little we know of their names and locations,
their rise and their fall, presents an even more kaleidoscopic
phantasmagoria than the mediaeval history of the Scotch Highlands,
or the principalities of Wales, or the ever-changing septs of ancient
Ireland. Tribes absorbed or destroyed by conquering tribes, tribes
confederating with others under a fresh name, this or that chief
becoming a new eponymous hero,--such is the ceaseless spectacle of
unrest of which the history of ancient Britain gives us glimpses.

F. 4.--By the time that these glimpses become anything like
continuous, things were further complicated by two additional elements
of disturbance. One of these was the continuous influx of new settlers
from Gaul, which was going on throughout the 1st century B.C. Caesar
tells us that the tribes of Kent, Sussex, and Essex were all of the
Belgic stock, and we shall see that the higher politics of his day
were much influenced by the fact that one and the same tribal chief
claimed territorial rights in Gaul and Britain at once; just like so
many of our mediaeval barons. The other was the coincidence that
just at this period the British tribes began to be affected by the
turbulent stage of constitutional development connected, in Greece and
Rome, with the abolition of royalty.

F. 5.--The primitive Aryan community (so far, at least, as the
western branch of the race is concerned) everywhere presents to us the
threefold element of King, Lords, and Commons. The King is supreme,
he reigns by right of birth (though not according to strict
primogeniture), and he not only reigns but governs. Theoretically he
is absolute, but practically can do little without taking counsel with
his Lords, the aristocracy of the tribe, originally an aristocracy
of birth, but constantly tending to become one of wealth. The Commons
gather to ratify the decrees of their betters, with a theoretical
right to dissent (though not to discuss), a right which they seldom or
never at once care and dare to exercise.

F. 6.--In course of time we see that everywhere the supremacy of the
Kings became more