"These, O Prefect," replied Helena, "If but thou wilt remove thy cohorts to Londinium, I pledge my father's faith and mine, that he will, within five days, deliver to thee as hostage for his fealty, myself and twenty children of his councillors and captains. And further, I, Helena the princess, will bind myself to deliver up to thee, with the hostages, the chief rebel in this revolt, and the one to whose counselling this strife with Rome is due."Both the matter and the manner of the offered terms still further pleased the prefect, and he said: "Be it so, Princess." Then summoning his lieutenant, he said: "Conduct the envoy of Coel of Britain with all courtesy to the gates of the the city," and with a herald's escort the girl returned to her father.
Again the old king rebelled at the terms his daughter had made.
"I know the ways of Rome," he said. "I know what their mercy meaneth. Thou shalt never go as hostage for my faith, O daughter, nor carry out this hazardous plan.""I have pledged my word and thine, O King," said Helena. "Surely a Briton's pledge should be as binding as a Roman's."So she carried her point, and, in five days' time, she, with twenty of the boys and girls of Camalodunum, went as hostages to the Roman camp in London.
"Here be thy hostages, fair Princess," said Constantius the prefect as he received the children; "and this is well. But remember the rest of thy compact. Deliver to me now, according to thy promise, the chief rebel against Rome.""She is here, O Prefect,"said the intrepid girl. I am that rebel--Helena of Britain!"The smile upon the prefect's face changed to sudden sternness.
"Trifle not with Roman justice, girl," he said, "I demand the keeping of thy word.""It is kept," replied the princess. "Helena of Britain is the cause and motive of this revolt against Rome. If it be rebellion for a free prince to claim his own, if it be rebellion for a prince to withstand for the sake of his people the unjust demands of the conqueror, if it be rebellion for one who loveth her father to urge that father to valiant deeds in defence of the liberties of the land over which he ruleth as king, then am I a rebel, for I have done all these, and only because of my words did the king, my father, take up arms against the might and power of Rome. I am the chief rebel. Do with me as thou wilt."And now the prefect saw that the girl spoke the truth, and that she had indeed kept her pledge.
"Thy father and his city are pardoned," he announced after a few moments of deliberation. "Remain thou here, thou and thy companions, as hostages for Britain, until such time as I shall determine upon the punishment due to one who is so fierce a rebel against the power of Rome."So the siege of Camalodunum was raised, and the bloodless rebellion ended. Constantius the prefect took up his residence for a while within King Coel's city, and at last returned to his command in Gaul and Spain, well pleased with the spirit of the little maiden whom, so he claimed, he still held in his power as the prisoner of Rome.
Constantius the prefect came again to Britain, and with a greater following, fully ten years after King Coel's revolt, for now, again, rebellion was afoot in the island province.
Carausius the admiral, biding his time, sought at last to carry out his scheme of sole supremacy. Sailing with his entire war-fleet to Britain, he won the legions to his side, proclaimed himself Emperor of Britain, and defied the power of Rome.
So daring and successful was his move that Rome for a time was powerless. Carausius was recognized as "associate" emperor by Rome, until such time as she should be ready to punish his rebellion, and for seven years he reigned as emperor of Britain.
But ere this came to pass, Helena the princess had gone over to Gaul, and had become the wife of Constantius the prefect,--"Since only thus," said he, "may I keep in safe custody this prisoner of Rome."The imperial power of Carausius was but short-lived. Crafty himself, he fell a victim to the craft of others, and the sword of Allectus, his chief minister and most trusted confidant, ended his life when once again the power of Rome seemed closing about the little kingdom of Britain.
Constantius became governor of Britain, and finally caesar and emperor. But, long before that day arrived, the Princess Helena had grown into a loyal Roman wife and mother, dearly loving her little son Constantine, who, in after years, became the first and greatest Christian emperor of Rome.
She bestowed much loving care upon her native province of Britain. She became a Christian even before her renowned son had his historic vision of the flaming cross. When more than eighty years old she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There she did many good and kindly deeds, erected temples above the Sepulchre of the Saviour, at his birthplace at Bethlehem, and on the Mount of Olives. She is said, also, to have discovered upon Calvary the cross, upon which had suffered and died the Saviour she had learned to worship.
Beloved throughout her long and useful life she was canonized after her death, and is now recognized one of the saints of the Romish church.
To-day in the city of London you may see the memorial church reared to her memory--the Church of Great St. Helena, in Bishopgate. A loving, noble, wonderful, and zealous woman, she is a type of the brave young girlhood of the long ago, and, however much of fiction there may be mingled with the fact of her life-story, she was, we may feel assured, all that the chroniclers have claimed for her--"one of the grandest women of the earlier centuries."
