Nearly a hundred years passed before Britain was to see another Roman army. The successors of Julius Cæsar left the island to itself, and it was only by peaceful commerce with the provinces of Gaul that the Britons learnt to know of the great empire that had come to be their neighbour. But there grew up a considerable intercourse between Britain and the continent: the Roman traders came over to sell the luxuries of the South to the islanders, and British kings more than once visited Rome to implore the aid of the emperor against their domestic enemies.
Invasion of Claudius, A.D. 43.
But such aid was not granted, and the island, though perceptibly influenced by Roman civilization, was for long years not touched by the Roman sword. At last, in A.D. 43, Claudius Cæsar resolved to subdue the Britons. The island was in its usual state of disorder, after the death of a great king named Cunobelinus—Shakespeare's "Cymbeline"—who had held down south-eastern Britain in comparative quiet and prosperity for many years. Some of the chiefs who fared ill in the civil wars asked Claudius to restore them, and he resolved to make their petition an excuse for conquering the island. Accordingly his general, Aulus Plautius, crossed the Channel, and overran Kent and the neighbouring districts in a few weeks. So easy was the conquest that the unwarlike emperor himself ventured over to Britain, and saw his armies cross the Thames, and occupy Camulodunum (Colchester), which had been the capital of King Cymbeline, and now was made a Roman colony, and re-named after Claudius himself.
South-eastern Britain subdued.
The emperor returned to Rome after sixteen days spent in the island, there to build himself a memorial arch, and to celebrate a triumph in full form for the conquest of Britain. Aulus Plautius remained behind with four legions, and completed the subjection of the lands which lie between the Wash and Southampton Water, and thus formed the first Roman province in the island. There does not seem to have been very much serious fighting required to reduce the tribes of south-eastern Britain; the conquerors consented to accept as their vassals those chiefs who chose to do homage, and only used their arms against such tribes as refused to acknowledge the emperor's suzerainty.
Rebellion of Boadicea.
Under successive governors the size of the province of Britain continued to grow, till in the reign of Nero it had advanced up to the line of the Severn and Humber, and included all the central and southern counties of modern England. But the wild tribes of the Welsh mountains and the Yorkshire moors opposed a determined resistance to the conquerors, and did not yield till a much later date. While the governor Suetonius Paulinus was engaged in a campaign on the Menai Straits, against the tribe of the Ordovices, there burst out behind him the celebrated rebellion of Queen Boudicca (Boadicea). This rising began among the Iceni, the tribe who dwelt in what is now Norfolk and Suffolk. They had long been governed by a vassal king; but when he died sonless, the Romans annexed his dominions and cruelly ill-treated his widow Boudicca and her daughters. Bleeding from the Roman rods, the indignant queen called her tribesmen to arms, and massacred all the Romans within her reach. All the tribes of eastern Britain rose to aid her, and the rebels cut to pieces the Ninth Legion, and sacked the three towns of Londinium, Verulamium, and Camulodunum, [1] slaying, it is said, as many as 70,000 persons in their wild cruelty. But presently the governor Paulinus returned from his campaign in Wales at the head of his army, and in a great battle defeated and destroyed the British hordes. Boudicca, who had led them to the field in person, slew herself when she saw the battle lost (A.D. 61).
Agricola Governor of Britain, A.D. 78-85.
Southern Britain never rose again, but the Romans had great trouble in conquering the Silurians and Ordovices of Wales, and the Brigantes beyond the Humber. They were finally subdued by the great general Agricola, who governed the British province from 78 to 85. This good man was the father-in-law of the historian Tacitus, who wrote his life—a document from which great part of our knowledge of Roman Britain is derived. After conquering North-Wales and Yorkshire, Agricola marched northward against the Gaelic tribes of Scotland. He overran the Lowlands, and then pushed forward into the hills of the Highlands. At a spot called the Graupian Mountain (Mons Graupius) somewhere in Perthshire, he defeated the Caledonians, the fierce race who dwelt beyond the Forth and Clyde, with great slaughter. It was his purpose to conquer the whole island to its northernmost cape, and even to subdue the neighbouring Gaels of Ireland. But ere his task was complete the cruel and suspicious emperor Domitian called him home, because he envied and feared his military talents.
The province of Britain remained very much as Agricola had left it, stopping short at the Forth, and leaving the Scottish Highlands outside the Roman pale. It was held down by three Roman legions, each of whom watched one of the three most unruly of the British tribes; one at Eboracum (York) curbed the Brigantes; a second at Deva (Chester) observed the Ordovices; and a third at Isca (Caerleon-on-Usk) was responsible for the good behaviour of the Silurians.