In part 1 we touched on how the past can influence the present in ways that might be easy to overlook, and how the past can remind us of the importance to defend that which we hold dear.

We had looked at part of the story of Colchester in England and I had said there was something else there that could add to our discussion. It is here, just outside the southwest corner of the old Roman fort, next to the traffic circle and next to the police station.

This is likely the earliest known church in Britain. It’s hard to date with exactness, but it probably dates to the mid 4th century.

Here’s a closer look, courtesy of VisitColchester.

While Christianity had likely come to Britain some time before this church was built, the ease with which Christianity could spread and flourish throughout the Roman Empire was greatly facilitated by Constantine the Great and the Edict of Milan. In a sense though, the Good News was too late for Britain. This church was a symbol of a hopeful future, but a future that ultimately was overtaken by events.

When this church was built, and through the decades that followed, the Western Roman Empire was beginning to crumble. And with it, Britain would experience its own upheaval.

The process by which the Romans left Britain was a gradual one, but in short the Goths, themselves pushed on by the Huns, began to invade the western Roman Empire in the 390s and the resources Rome was spending in Britain in terms of money and manpower were needed closer to home. In 410 A.D. the Romans left Britain, the same year the Goths sacked Rome. And within a lifetime of that, only another 66 years, the western Roman Empire would be gone. What remained would live on in the East in Constantine’s new capitol until May 29, 1453.

What happened next is not all that well understood. Britain entered a kind of Dark Ages in the sense there aren’t many surviving sources that record in detail how Britain changed once the Romans left. For better or worse, the Romans had been the sole unifying authority in Britain for almost 4 centuries, and now that authority was gone. There was a vacuum, and something was going to fill it.

There are some indications of what took place over the next couple of centuries. Christianity largely receded over the next two centuries and needed to be reintroduced to Britain. (For instance, see the Gregorian Mission around 600.) What became of our little congregation in Colchester? We don’t know, but urban culture in post-Roman Britain also was reduced, perhaps a factor in this was the ebbing of the influence of bishops and the role they played in town life.

Britain was under increasing foreign pressure as Saxons and other peoples from northern Europe arrived. Some had already been there but this process increased after the Romans left. Probably related to the “Groaning of the Britons”, a few decades after the Romans left those still governing in Britain even invited Saxons in to help defend against raids from Scotland. These Saxons established communities in Britain, and with that foothold, it was easier for future arrivals to expand Saxon influence.

Dotted throughout Britain are numerous remains of Roman villas. In a way they were the Downton Abbeys of their day. These villas were centers of economy and agriculture. They supported a fair number of people and they were stores of wealth. The archaeological evidence suggests that activity at these villas largely died out within 50 years of the Romans leaving. Coinage also was drastically reduced in the post-Roman years.

Some native British tribes took to Roman culture and willingly participated in it. Others did not. Were there reprisals against the former once the Romans left? And how did all of the native British tribes deal with the Saxons? Did disunity doom them? If you’ve seen TV shows such as Vikings for The Last Kingdom, you know that within a couple of centuries, Britain had become a patchwork of kingdoms and out of that emerged 4 stronger Saxon kingdoms: East Anglia, Mercia, Northumberland and Wessex. It wouldn’t be until six centuries after the Romans left that England at least would once again be under one rule. How did the British give way to the Saxons, and how violent was this consolidation process? We don’t exactly know. Here’s one clue. The original myths of King Arthur date to the century or so after the Romans left. The original Arthur, as the stories go, was a native British leader who made his name in a struggle against the Saxons.

All of this is a preface to this question. What will happen after the end of Pax Americana? The United States has safeguarded the world order since the end of World War 2, but our ability to play that role is waning. What will fill that vacuum?

The United States is not getting richer. Our staggering debt is only increasing, and as interest rates climb the share of the budget that must be dedicated to just debt service will also increase. Couple that with potentially significant changes needed to Social Security and Medicare to keep them solvent and we may see civil unrest as social contracts change out of necessity. The US share of the global economy has fallen over time. We won’t be able scrounge several trillion dollars from beneath the sofa cushions at will because it won’t be there.

On the military side, our ability to fight a two-front war is in question. Those on the Left view the military budget as a piggy bank, one that is needed closer to home. In expecting our armed services to perform the same mission without the same commitment to the mission, the burden of maintaining our vigil on the frontiers is putting a strain on overworked service men and women.

Our ignominious flight from Afghanistan, ineloquently explained by a increasingly feeble President, was an abject sign of weakness. If you’re inclined to draw a line between that and Putin’s calculation that he could take Ukraine without serious interference from the US, I won’t stop you.

Our southern border is just a scuff mark in the sand as Leftists seek to invite in large numbers of illegal immigrants in hopes of importing a sympathetic voting bloc.

We face many of the same daunting struggles that a legion soldier in late 4th century Britain faced as he went into that little church outside the walls to pray. Foreign pressure, military pressure, economic pressure. It didn’t end well for Rome and Britain. There’s nothing that guarantees we won’t eventually face a similar fate if we don’t make some very real changes and soon.

We briefly mentioned Constantine the Great, the very same partially responsible for our little church in Colchester and for preserving the Roman legacy in Constantinople. Some time next week, in the third and final installment of our little series, we’ll look at how Constantine is perhaps not the best model for the United States in navigating these troubled times and preserving our own legacy.