(Source: senchus.files.wordpress.com)
This is the first 'chapter' of a series which should help you complete several projects during the next school year. I am going to quote various sources and try to illustrate these posts as well as I can, just to make them more attractive.
I will begin with a couple of very old sources: Gildas The Wise's The Ruin Of Britain and the Venerable Bede's The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. You may notice different points of view in them. At some point Boadicea/Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, is depicted in an... unflattering manner, when in fact she was a brave leader who did her best to stop the Romans from invading her people's territory, just the same as our own Decebal did. But when one sees her as an obstacle on the road to civilisation and as a heathen, she will be presented in a bad light, unfortunately.
(Source: www.boadicearesources.com.au)
Note: This statue stands at the end of the Westminster Bridge in London, close to the Houses of Parliament.
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(Source: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons)
According to Lisa Sabbage, in her ebook Kings and Queens of England, we can identify the following rulers:
Notable Romans
43-54 - Emperor Claudius
77-84 - Governor Agricola
117-138 - Emperor Hadrian (Note: see the famous Wall)
138-161 - Emperor Atonius Pius
193-211 - Emperor Septimius Severus
260-274 - Marcus Postumus; Tetricus (Breakaway Emperors)
286-296 - Carausius; Allectus (Breakaway Emperors)
306-337 - Emperor Constantine I the Great
364-375 - Magnus Maximus (Breakaway Emperor)
395-410 - (Western) Emperor Honorius
Hadrian's Wall
(Source: hadrians-wall.org)
The Dark Ages - Notable Kings (450-850)
c.490-500 - Ambrosius Aurelianus
c.540 - Constantine, King of Dumnonia
577 - Condidan; Conmail; Farinmail (all killed at Battle of Dyrham)
590 - Urien, King of Rheged (Cumbria)
633 - Cadwallon, King of Gwynedd
642 - Owen, King of Strathclyde
750 - Teudubr, King of Strathclyde
844-872 -Merfyn, King of Gwynedd
(Source: www.essential-humanities.net)
The Anglo Saxons - Bretwalda Kings
449 - Hengest and Horsa
c.477-c.491 - AElle, King of Sussex
c.560-593 - Ceawlin, King of Wessex
c. 560-616 - Aethelbert, King of Kent
? - c.627 - Raedwald, King of East Anglia
616-633 - Edwin, King of Northumbria
633-655 - Penda, King of Mercia
634-642 - Oswald, King of Northumbria
642-670 - Oswy, King of Northumbria
685-705 - Aldfrith, King of Northumbria
688-726 - Ine, King of Wessex
716-757 - Aethelbald, King of Mercia
757-796 - Offa, King of Mercia
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Gildas The Wise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gildas)
(Source:1mpkoh2uj7ew36r28p3t8kxt11gl.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com)
From: On the Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae)
"The island of Britain, situated on almost the utmost border of the earth, towards the south and west, and poised in the divine balance, as it is said, which supports the whole world, stretches out from the south-west towards the north pole, and is eight hundred miles long and two hundred broad, except where the headlands of sundry promontories stretch farther into the sea. It is surrounded by the ocean, which forms winding bays, and is strongly defended by this ample, and, if I may so call it, impassable barrier, save on the south side, where the narrow sea affords a passage to Belgic Gaul. It is enriched by the mouths of two noble rivers, the Thames and the Severn, as it were two arms, y which foreign luxuries were of old imported, and by other streams of less importance. It is famous for eight and twenty cities, and is embellished by certain castles, with walls, towers, well barred gates, and houses with threatening battlements built on high, and provided with all requisite instruments of defence. Its plains are spacious, its hills are pleasantly situated, adapted for superior tillage, and its mountains are admirably calculated for the alternate pasturage of cattle, where flowers of various colours, trodden by the feet of men, give it the appearance of a lovely picture. It is decked, like a man's chosen bride, with divers jewels, with lucid fountains and abundant brooks wandering over the snow white sands; with transparent rivers, flowing in gentle murmurs, and offering a sweet pledge of slumber to those who recline upon their banks, whilst it is irrigated by abundant lakes, which pour forth cool torrents of refreshing water.
(Source: beatricea.e.b.f.unblog.fr)
This island, stiff-necked and stubborn-minded, from the time of its being first inhabited, ungratefully rebels, sometimes against God, sometimes against her own citizens, and frequently also, against foreign kings and their subjects.
(Source: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons)
(...) I will only endeavour to relate the evils which Britain suffered in the times of the Roman emperors, and also those which she caused to distant states; but so far as lies in my power, I shall not follow the writings and records of my own country, which (if there ever were any of them) have been consumed in the fires of the enemy, or have accompanied my exiled countrymen into distant lands, but be guided by the relations of foreign writers, which, being broken and interrupted in many places are therefore by no means clear.
(Source: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons)
For when the rulers of Rome had obtained the empire of the world, subdued all the neighbouring nations and islands towards the east, and strengthened their renown by the first peace which they made with the Parthians, who border on India, there was a general cessation from war throughout the whole world; the fierce flame which they kindled could not be extinguished or checked by the Western Ocean, but passing beyond the sea, imposed submission upon our island without resistance, and entirely reduced to obedience its unwarlike but faithless people, not so much by fire and sword and warlike engines, like other nations, but threats alone, and menaces of judgments frowning on their countenance, whilst terror penetrated to their hearts.
(Source: www.ancient-origins.net)
When afterwards they turned to Rome, for want of pay, as is said, and had no suspicion of an approaching rebellion, that deceitful lioness (Boadicea) put to death the rulers who had been left among them, to unfold more fully and to confirm the enterprises of the Romans. When the report of these things reached the senate, and they with a speedy army made haste to take vengeance on the crafty foxes, as they called them, there was no bold navy on the sea to fight bravely for the country; by land there was no marshalled army, no right wing of battle, nor other preparation for resistance; but their backs were their shields against their vanquishers, and they presented their necks to their swords, whilst chill terror ran through every limb (...).
(Source: thewearypilgrim.typepad.com)
The Romans, therefore. having slain many of the rebels, and reserved others for slaves, that the land might not be entirely reduced to desolation, left the island, destitute as it was of wine and oil, and returned to Italy, leaving behind them taskmasters, to scourge the shoulders of the natives, to reduce their necks to the yoke, and their soil to the vassalage of a Roman province; to chastise the crafty race, not with warlike weapons, but with rods, and if necessary to gird upon their sides the naked sword, so that it was no longer thought to be Britain, but a Roman island; and all their money, whether of copper, gold, or silver, was stamped with Caesar's image.
(Source: s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com)
(...) At length also, new races of tyrants sprang up, in terrific numbers, and the island, still bearing its Roman name, but casting off her institutes and laws, sent forth among the Gauls that bitter scion of her own planting Maximus, with a great number of followers, and the ensigns of royalty, which he bore without decency and without lawful right, but in a tyrannical manner, and amid the disturbances of the seditious soldiery. He, by cunning arts rather than by valour, attaching to his rule, by perjury and falsehood, all the neighbouring towns and provinces, against the Roman state, extended one of his wings to Spain, the other to Italy, fixed the seat of his unholy government at Treves, and so furiously pushed the rebellion against his lawful emperors that he drove one of them out of Rome, and caused the other to terminate his most holy life. Trusting to these successful attempts, he not long after lost his accursed head before the walls of Aquileia, whereas he had before cut off the crowned heads of almost all the world.
(to be continued)
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