History Of The English Speaking Peoples - Vol. 1

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55 B.C.

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First invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar – supporting ships were blown off course, other ships were shattered by the full-moon tide, but Caesar barely conquered and imposed only nominal terms. “He never even pretended that his expedition had been a success.

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54 B.C.

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Caesar comes again – This time conquers more thoroughly. Leaves with captives. “But for nearly a hundred years no invading army landed upon the Island coasts."

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Cassivellaunus

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A British leader who put up a valiant fights against Caesar using chariots to avoid pitched battle but nevertheless inflict casualties.

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43 AD

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Almost 100 years after Caesar’s evacuation, a powerful well-organized Roman army of some twenty thousand men prepared for the subjugation of Britain under Emperor Claudius

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Cunobelinus

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Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. Had established an overlordship over the south-east of England, but in his old age dissensions had begun to impair his authority and on his death the kingdom was ruled jointly by his sons Caractacus and Togodumnus.

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Caractacus

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Escaped to the Welch border during the invasion under Emperor Claudius, and, rousing its tribes, maintained an indomitable resistance for more than six years. After being captured he directly addressed the Roman emperor saying “Preserve my life, and I shall remain to the latest ages a monument of your clemency,” and Claudius granted him his liberty and the other captives as well.

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Ostorius

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Roman general, who reduced to submission the whole of the more settled regions from the Wash to the Severn. Defeated Caractacus.

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61 AD

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Revolt under Boadicea. a. The king of the East Anglian Iceni had died. Hoping to save his kingdom and family from molestation he had appointed Nero, who had succeeded Claudius as Emperor, as heir jointly with his two daughters. “But,” says Tacitus, “things turned out differently. His kingdom was plundered, etc.”

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Boadicea

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Found herself at the head of a numerous army, and nearly all the Britons within reach rallied to her standard. Destroyed the ninth Legion, plundered London, and other cities. She poisoned herself upon being defeated. Of Boaicea’s revolt - “This is probably the most horrible episode which our Island has known.”

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Suetonius

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Roman Governor of England at the time of the revolt under Boadicea. Was focusing on the island Mona at the time the revolt broke out, a month away from. Finally put down the rebellion with the help of the Fourteenth legion and the twentieth. Was bent on revenge afterwards. “The extermination of the entire british race might have followed but for the remonstrances of a new Procurator, supported by the Treasury officials at Rome, who saw themselves about to be possessed of a desert instead of a province.” Nero sent a new governor, who made peace with the Britons.

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Agricola

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Was sent to Brittania in 78 AD. Immediately took field against all who still disputed Roman authority. Conducted six campaigns of expansion in Britannia – the sixth in the north

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Mons Graupius

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83 AD. The last organized resistance of Britain to the Roman power ended here. The decisive battle. Thus Britannia became one of the forty-five provinces of the Roman Empire.

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Britain as Roman province

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“For nearly three hundred years Britain, reconciled to the Roman system, enjoyed in many respects the happiest, most comfortable, and most enlightened times its inhabitants had ever had. … Even now a smaller proportion of the whole population dwells in centrally heated houses than in those ancient days. … The British thought themselves as good Romans as any. ... etc."

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London under the Romans

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“We owe London to Rome. … An extensive and well-planned city with mighty walls took the place of the wooden trading settlement of A.D. 61, and soon achieved a leading place in the life of the Roman province of Britain, superseding the old Belgic capital, COLCHESTER, as the commercial center."

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Villa system

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The comparative unsuccess of urban life led the better-class Roman Birtons to establish themselves in the country, and thus the villa system was the dominant feature of Roman Britain in its heyday.

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9th Legion disappearance

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The accession of Hadrian was marked by a serious disaster. The Ninth Legion disappears from history in combating an obscure rising of the tribes in Northern Britain. The defences were disorganized and the province was in danger. Hadrian came himself to Britain in 122 and the reorganization of the frontier began.

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Hadrian’s Wall

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Begun in AD 122 during the reign of Emperor Hadrian. Was built between the Tyne and the Solway seventy-three miles long. It consisted of a stone rampart eight to ten feet thick, sustained by seventeen forts, about eighty castles, and double that number of signal towers.

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Antonine Wall

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In the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, the Roman troops pushed northwards again over the ground of Agricola’s conquests, and a new wall was built, across the Forth-Clyde isthmus thirty-seven miles in length. Somewhere about the year 186 the Antonine Wall was abandoned, and the troops were concentrated on the original line of defence. Tribal revolts and Scottish raids continually assailed the northern frontier system.

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Emperor Severus

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Came to Britain in 208 and established stability. His accomplishments were so great it was thought he had built the wall, but he only repaired it. He died at York in 211, but for a hundred years there was peace along the Roman Wall.

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Invasion by the Scots and the Saxons

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From the END OF THE THIRD CENTURY: the SCOTS, whom nowadays we should call the Irish, and the PICTS from Scotland, began to press on Hadrian’s Wall, to turn both flanks of it by sea raids on a growing scale. A the same time the SAXONS rowed in long-boats across the North Sea and lay heavy all along the east coast from Newcastle to Dover. From this time forth the British countryside dwelt under the same kind of menace of cruel, bloody, and sudden inroad from the sea as do modern nations from the air.

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Emperor Diocletian

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Emperor from 284 to 305. Has gone down to history principally as the persecutor of the early Christians, and the enormous work which he achieved in restoring the frontiers of the ancient world has remained under that shadow. There were to be two Emperors and two Caesars at the time, he himself being the senior of the four.

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Co-emperor Maximian

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Emperor from 286 to 305. Sent to Gaul in 285, and responsible for Britannia, was deeply concerned by the raiding of the Saxon pirates. He strengthened the Channel fleet, and put at its head a sea officer from the Low Countries named Carausius.

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Carausius

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Maximian sought to bring him to execution, but Carausius, landing in Britain declared himself Emperor in 286, gained the Island garrison to his cause, and defeated Maximian in a sea battle. In 287 Carausius was recognized as one of the Augusti in command of Britain and of Northern Gaul. Reigned for six years. Was assassinated by one of his own officers.

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367 AD

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– In that fatal year the Picts, the Scots, and the Saxons seemed to work in combination. All fell together upon Britannia. The Imperial troops resisted manfully. The Duke of the Northern Marches and the Count of the Saxon Shore were killed in the battles. A wide-open breach was made in the defences, and murderous hordes poured in upon the fine world of country houses and homesteads.

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Theodosius

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After the disasters of 367 Emperor Valentinian sent him as general. He achieved his task and once again we find on the coastal fortifications the traces of a further strong reconstruction.

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Magnus Maximus

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Was Western Roman Emperor from 383 to 388. Held the command in Britain and declared himself Emperor. Scraping together all the troops he could find, and stripping the Wall and the fortresses of their already scanty defenders, Maximus hastened to Gaul and defeated the Emperor Gratian near Paris. Gratian was murdered at Lyons by his troops, and Maximus became master of Gaul and Spain as well as Britain. For five years he struggled to defend his claim to these great dominions, but Theodosius, who had succeeded Gratian, at length defeated and slew him.

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Marcus

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Was a Roman usurper emperor (406–407) in Roman Britain. All that is known of his rule is that he did not please the army, and was soon killed by them and replaced with another short-lived usurper, Gratian.

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Gratian

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Was a Roman usurper (407) in Roman Britain. The army wanted to cross to Gaul and stop the barbarians but Gratian ordered them to remain. Unhappy with this, the troops killed him after a reign of four months and chose Constantine III as their leader.

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Constantine III

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A Roman general who declared himself Western Roman Emperor in Britannia in 407 and established himself in Gaul. Instead of protecting the Island, found himself compelled to defend upon the Continent the titles he had usurped. He drained Britani of troops, and, as Magnus Maximus had done, set forth for Boulogne to try his fortune. In the supreme theatre for three years, with varying success, he contended with Stilicho, and was finally captured and executed, as Maximus had been before him.

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Britain under Emperor Honorius

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By the beginning of the fifth century all the legions had gone on one errand or another, and to frantic appeals for aid the helpless Emperor could only send his valedictory message in 410, that “the cantons should take steps to defend themselves.”

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St. Germanus

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Came from Auxerre in order to uproot the Pelagian heresy, which in spite of other preoccupations our Christian Island had been able to evolve. The doctrine consisted in assigning an undue importance to free will, and cast a consequential slur upon the doctrine of original sin.

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Four windows into Britain during the Saxon invasions

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a. Tract of Gildas the Wise
b. Venerable Bede
c. Historia Britonum
d. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle – 9th century – probably written at the direction of King Alfred.

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Vortigern

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Likely the name of the chief who, in 450, brought in a band of mercenaries, which proved to be a trap, simply opening the way for more invaders to come.

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King Arthur

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Nennius tells us what Gildas omits – the name of the British soldier who won the crowning mercy of Mount Badon. Twelve battles, all located in scenes untraceable, with foes unknown.
a. Geoffrey of Monmouth – writing six hundred years later elaborates on the tales of King Arthur. Followed up by Mallory, Spenser, and Tennyson
b. Arthur was a great British warrior, who kept the light of civilization burning against all the storms that beat.
c. Mount Badon – the date of this battle seems to be fixed between 490 and 503.

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Wergild

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The exact value or worth of every man assigned by Saxon law. An aetheling, or prince, was worth 1500 shillings, an erol, or nobleman, 300 shillings…etc. Under Saxon law there was no crime committed which could not be compounded by a money payment.

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Britons vs. English (Saxons)

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Much has been written about the enervating character of Roman rule in Britain, and how the people were rendered lax and ineffectual by the modest comforts which it supplied. There is no doubt that Gildas, by his writings, imparted an impression, perhaps in this case well founded, of gross incompetence. But justice to this vanished epoch demands recognition of the fact that the Britons fought those who are now called the English for nearly two hundred and fifty years. For a hundred years they fought them under the aegis of Rome; but for a hundred and fifty years they fought them alone.