Early Britain

History 1

England's first known inhabitants were cave dwellers who hunted and fished and lived under Stone Age conditions until after 2000 B.C. They probably were a various peoples who came from the continent of Europe before glaciers separated the British Isles from the continent.

Celtic tribes from central Europe apparently came in large numbers from about 600 B.C. They knew how to make weapons of iron and bronze and soon became dominant. Among the Celts were the Brythons (Britons), after whom the Romans called the area Britain. The Celtic tribes settled in the island's eastern part in the first century B.C.

The Britons were skilful workers. They made things of iron, bronze, tin, clay and wood, and decorated them with beautifully drawn lines and patterns. They made money out gold and silver. They began to make roads, along which they travelled about the country, buying and selling things.

There were some good and rather big houses in Britain, which had many rooms and corridors. The richer Britons lived in these big houses. When they had feasts in their houses, they sat round low tables. There were no forks or spoons. They took big pieces of meat in their fingers and tore them apart, or cut them with their knives. They drank from big cups made of earthenware or silver.

Not all parts of Britain were civilized. In the mountains and forests of the west and north there were people who did not know the use of iron and did not use money. They had no real houses, but still lived in caves. The parts in the south-east of Britain were most civilized, because they were nearest to the continent, from which people got new knowledge.

The Britons were polytheistic, that is they believed in many gods. They believed that different gods lived in the thickest and darkest parts of the forests. So plants, such as the mistletoe and the oak-tree, were considered sacred. Some historians think that the Britons were governed by a class of priests called Druids who had great power over them. Stonehenge might have been the temple of the Druids, just as it had been the temple of the primitive men before. The Druids often declared that a god was angry, and to get the god's pardon the people had to offer up sacrifices of human beings. The Druids put men into huge baskets and burned them in the pres­ence of the people.

The Roman Britain (43 – 407)

Julius Caesar landed in Britain in 55 B.C. with a few legions and returned the next year with a larger army. He defeated the Celts but soon left. The Romans did not return for almost a century.

In 43 A.D. Roman soldiers under Emperor Claudius occupied Britain.

In 60 or 61 AD Less than twenty years after the Ro­man invasion, the men of the Iceni tribe (one of the British tribes) revolted. They were head­ed by their warlike Queen Boudica (/ˈbuːdɨkə/; alternative spelling: Boudicca), also known as Boadicea /boʊdɨˈsiːə/.

Boadicea, with 100,000 fighting men destroyed the first Roman town of Colchester, and then, soon afterwards, the towns of London and Albans. These towns were all burned to the ground and all the people were cruelly killed. The Roman Governor of Britain at that time was famous soldier named Suetonius. He had about 10,000 trained Ro­man soldiers when he attached Queen Boadicea, and although Boadicea had ten times that number, Suetonius completely defeated the British.

In the second century Emperor Hadrian and Emperor Antoninus Pius built great walls in the north to protect their Roman province from the fierce, unconquered Caledonians (later known as Picts), in Caledonia (Scotland).

The Roman occupation ended in 407, when the legions were recalled to defend Italy from the Visigoths. Despite more than 300 years of occupation, few traces of Roman civilization remained in Britain, except for the fine Roman roads and the ruins of Roman cities.

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