Note 1238 — Chapter V

‘The political condition of the people of Brythonic Britain,’ says Prof. Rhys (Celtic Britain, 3rd ed., 1904, pp. 57, 61), ‘towards the end of the Early Iron Age and the close of their independence, is best studied in connection with that of Gaul as described by Caesar.... The state of things, politically speaking, which existed in Gaul, existed also most likely among the Belgic tribes in Britain.’ That is to say, the professor accepts the political part of Caesar’s description as applying to the Belgic and the other Brythonic tribes of both Gaul and Britain. Yet he insists that that part of the same description which deals with Druidism, and which is indissolubly connected with the political part, has nothing to do either with the Belgae or the other Brythons.