The traditional starting point for British History textbooks is 1066 and the Norman Conquest. Some other intrepid souls go back a bit further to the Romans and Julius Caesar’s raids on the Kentish coat in 55 and 54 BC. Either way it is as if the dawn of British history has to be seen through a continental lens – from the perspective of invasion from the mainland of Europe – as an invader rather than as an invadee!
This is a major injustice. The Romans were not in the habit of invading and occupying worthless territory. The opposition Caesars’ Legions met delayed a full scale invasion for nearly another hundred years. Britain already possessed a thriving and rapidly developing Celtic culture with well organised states and an intricate social system.
When the Legions landed again in 43 AD it was no walk over. It took them decades to subdue the populace and mark out the new Roman domains. Even then all Ireland and most of Scotland escaped subjugation. The Celts obviously felt that their culture was worth fighting for as they resisted ferociously! It is no surprise that the first recorded revolt by the British against foreign invasion and oppression came during this period. This revolt in 61 AD was led by the semi-legendary British heroine, Boadicea or more properly Boudicca. Boudicca, whose name means Victory, was unknown to modern scholars until the early 16th century when the works of the Roman historian Tacitus were re-discovered.
Closely related tribes had been flowing into Britain for thousands of years before the ascent of Rome. The Celts themselves started to arrive around 800 BC, heralding the dawn of the Iron Age. At the time Britain was intimately linked to North West Europe by blood, language, custom and culture. In about 150 BC, part of a powerful Celtic tribe called the Belgae began migrating here from their homeland (still called Belgium), adding impetus to the development of Britain. A more complex social structure evolved incorporating stone hill forts and market towns. The various tribes began marking out their territories, wheeled transportation flourished and Gold and Silver coinage came into use. This progress was soon to receive a nasty shock as the Roman eagle was rising over Europe.
Julius Caesar’s two largely ineffectual invasions were aimed at chastising the Belgae who had been giving succour to their continental cousins in their struggle against Rome. It was an old Roman tactic to play off one tribe against another. The resistance to Caesar had been led by the Catuvellauni, a tribe from the Hertfordshire area. Rival tribes of the Catuvellauni sided with the Roman enemy. When Caesar withdrew the Catuvellauni punished these tribes – first by attacking the Trinovantes from Essex, and then the Atrebates of Sussex. When they were defeated in 40 AD, the Atrebates asked the Roman Emperor Caligula for help. Across the channel Britain was still largely an unknown land, regarded with a superstitious dread by the Romans. Furthermore with the Channel lying as a barrier, if defeated, there could be no retreat to a safe haven.
This then is the background to the final invasion sanctioned in 43 AD by the new Emperor Claudius. This time it was better planned. A British confederacy under the Catuvellauni was defeated and their leader Caractacus fled to Wales. Wales became the centre of resistance and the last stronghold of the Druids, with Anglesey (or Mona) being their main base. The druids were the Celtic priesthood and became the focus of opposition to Rome. In 47 AD the Romans attacked Mona. This sparked off a small revolt in the south east and among the tribes roughly handled in retribution was the Iceni of East Anglia. However although Caractacus was eventually captured (betrayed by a rival tribe) and shipped off to Rome, the south eats revolt diverted Roman strength to the extent that Mona held out.
By 61 AD the Druid problem had become a running sore to the Roman occupiers and the new Roman commander Paulinus planned another attack on Mona. The Romans usually avoided tampering with local religious beliefs to avoid causing unnecessary opposition from their subject peoples. There were two notable occasions when the Romans departed from this policy. Once was with the Druids. In Britain it took 35 years of bloody warfare to suppress the local priesthood. On the other occasion, in Judaea, the revolt was crushed – roughly at the same time as the attack on Mona, in 66 to 73 AD. But the religion they suppressed was not eradicated and there were further revolts throughout the Roman period. It was perhaps easier for the Jews to survive by dispersing into the surrounding territories and preserve their religion than it was for the Druids, isolated as they were on the fringe of Europe, and with the other centre of Druidic power, French Gaul, already being rapidly Romanised.
In any case as Paulinus gathered his forces ready to attack Mona, news reached him of an outbreak of a large scale revolt in the south.
The causes of this revolt were deep seated. The main tribes involved were the Iceni and Trinovantes. Despite the minor disturbance in 47 AD, both tribes had been pro-Roman and so had expected, and initially received, preferential treatment. As is always the case when a great power subjugate a country by playing off the tribes against each other, the ‘Quisling’ tribes always end up suffering just as much in the long term as those that resist.
When the Iceni king Prasutagus died his two daughters were named as his co-heirs with the Emperor Nero. Instead the Romans claimed the lot and arrogantly plundered the land. When Prasutagus’s widow Boudicca objected, she was stripped and whipped while her daughters were raped. At the same time the Trinovantes had been insulted by the Romans using their capital Camulodunum (Colchester) as a colony, with Roman veteran soldiers settling there. This is perhaps the first example of alien immigration and settlement in Britain (as opposed to the migration of related tribes) and there was quite a reaction to it
To compound the insult, not only was their capital being swamped with foreign settlers, but a massive temple was built dedicated to Claudius, the conqueror of Britain. The Trinovantes even had to pay for the building of the temple (symbolising their religious oppression) by taxation. By 61 AD these humiliations made it easy for the Druids to raise the Iceni and the Trinovantes in open revolt.
As trouble flared up, the superstitious colonists in Camulodunum were panic stricken. A number of portents seemed to signal an impending disaster. The sea was said to have turned the colour of blood while the ebb tide left heaps of seaweed on the shore that resembled human bodies. Sure enough, when Boudicca led her irate tribesmen down, the Roman immigrants were exterminated and the city systematically destroyed. The Britons followed up this success by virtually annihilating a relieving force of 2,000 Romans from the IXth Legion.
Paulinus realised he could not stop the revolt in the south and abandoned the new thriving and sprawling trading settlement on the banks of the River Thames Londinium to its fate. Boudicca’s host descended on what was little more than a shanty town, and completely destroyed it with fire and the sword. This was the first great fire of London and to this day whenever a new building is built in the City a distinctive red burn layer can be seen in the soil. In the words of Tacitus “All those left behind were butchered. The British took no prisoners, nor did they consider the money they could get for selling slaves, it was the gibbet, fire and the cross”.
Captives were sacrificed to the goddess Andrasta (the unconquerable). Both men and women were hideously tortured. Shortly afterwards Verulamium (St Albans), the capital of the Catuvellauni was also destroyed. This was a deliberate act of vengeance against the Catuvellauni who had ironically by now become the most Romanised of all the British tribes and had refused to join the revolt. They suffered accordingly.
The three biggest settlements in Roman Britain had been wiped out and upwards of 80,000 people had been slain. But the Britons now lost vital time in looting. Their success had gone to their heads. From being a fine military force, of individualistic but fine swordsmen, the British army degenerated into being about as effective as a mob of football hooligans. This was due to hangers on, faint hearts and scum swelling the ranks after the initial victories. They did more harm than good.
Paulinus did not waste any time. He pulled back from Mona and concentrated his forces in the Midlands. Despite the losses already suffered he had maybe as many as 13,000 crack Legionaries at his disposal.
Eventually Boudicca’s host marched north to confront him. Roman sources claim the British army numbered 230,000 men, but this is a ridiculously figure. It would be impossible to feed such as large number for any length of time. The largest recorded battle on domestic soil for which we have anything like reliable numbers was in Towton in Yorkshire during the Wars of the Roses in 1462. This unprecedented battle involved around 80,000 combatants and was particularly bloody, with perhaps 35,000 casualties. These figures should be borne in mind when reading the inflated propaganda figures given by the later Roman historians. When they quoted a large number it really only mean ‘there were loads of them’. All we can say with certainty is that Boudicca’s host definitely well outnumbered Paulinus’s army, but that the British force included many who were more of a hindrance than a help.
No one knows where the final confrontation took place. It was believed to be somewhere along Watling Street, the Roman road that stretched from London to the north west, probably in the vicinity of Coventry.
Using his poetic license to the full, Tacitus had the opposing commanders start the proceedings with stirring speeches. Boudicca’s finale was: “Nothing is safe from Roman pride and arrogance. They will deface the sacred and will deflower our virgins. Win the battle or perish. This is my resolve as a woman – follow me or submit to the Roman yoke”.
Paulinus’s oration was more business-like: “Ignore the racket made by these savages. There are more women than men in their ranks. They are not soldiers – they’re not even properly equipped. We’ve beaten them before and when they see our weapons and feel our spirit, they’ll crack. Stick together. Throw the javelins, then push forward: knock them down with your shields and finish them off with your swords. Forget about booty. Just win and you’ll have the lot.”
Then battle was joined. The Romans had chosen their ground well to nullify the British advantage in numbers. They defended a narrow front protected by a natural ditch or gorge with forests on either side limiting the scope for a flank attack. When the Britons charged they could not effectively use their best weapon, the Celtic long sword, in the crush. The Romans met the charge with two volleys of javelins and counter attacked in wedge formation. The Britons were impeded from either advancing by their own dead and from retreating by their own baggage train and multitude of camp followers. Great slaughter resulted. The disciplined Legions of Rome triumphed. According to Tacitus 80,000 Britons perished against only 400 Romans. As noted these are hardly credible figures, but then the victors are the ones who write history! Coincidentally Tacitus’s 80,000 British neatly balances the 80,000 Romans slaughtered in the revolt. Quid pro quo!
Nevertheless, Boudicca’s revolt was over at a stroke and she committed suicide. The Romans sacrificed their prisoners to Mars Ultor, the god of vengeance. But this was a severe shock to Rome. As an indictor of her true military losses, 7,000 reinforcements were sent immediately. From then on the permanent Roman garrison of Britain was 50,000 men. This was a massive military commitment to hold a province populated by a few million subjects. It is more than the number of European soldiers that we used to station in India to hold down a population numbering hundreds of millions. Further Roman expansion into Britain ceased for twelve years and Mona held out until 78 AD. From then on Rome adopted the policy of reconciliation rather than repression.
The British warriors, true to their blood, were superb individual fighters. When they fought with discipline and on their own terms, they were more than a match for the Legions of Rome. The rebellion only failed when the original army’s ranks were swelled by undisciplined hangers-on. The Romans were eased in their task by petty jealousies and divisions between the tribes. If there had been more unity, the Romans may have been flung back across the channel. The main unifying force in Britain was the Druids. They were staunch defenders of the Celtic culture. The Romans saw that to undermine resistance to their rule their first had to undermine native culture. In France for example they were completely successful and the Celtic Gauls became totally Romanised. In Britain the Romans were never so successful. When they eventually withdrew from Britain 400 years later, under attack from the Angles and Saxons, the native Britons still spoke their Celtic tongue, as is seen by they modern day survival of Welsh (Cymraeg) and Cornish (Kernowek). Above all the story of Boudicca’s revolt portrays the long standing fighting spirit of our nations. It shows that Britons do not meekly submit to being a nation of slaves.
http://www.britishpride.org/?p=197
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