The lands given to or taken by the Danes were known as Danelaw

The lands given to or taken by the Danes were known as Danelaw, just as the money spent in attempts to buy them off was known as Danegold.

For the next few years, peace settled on England. The Danes tilled their new soil. Alfred went about his business, much of it concerned with precautions against another attack. He built a chain of fortified boroughs and (somehing that England had before) a fleet. Since his fellow countrymen had no experience of naval warfare, he hired his mariners from the Low Countries.

Alfred's son, Edward the Elder, merged Wessex with Mercia and continued to keep the Danes in their place. His heir, Athelstan proudly called himself the King of the English and all the nations round about. Three of his sisters were, admittedly, married to important rulers. Nevertheless, it was an exaggeration.

In 979, Alfred's great great grandson, King Edward (known as The Martyr), went to see his half-brother, Ethelred, at Corfe Castle in Dorset. Exactly what happened is a mystery. Edward was certainly murdered, but he was only eleven years old at the time. His mother seems a more likely villain, for, once Edward was dead, she quickly proclaimed her son king.

Ethelred went from one blunder to another. His greatest folly was a massacre of all the Danes in Wessex. The victims included the King of Norwa's daughter. Afterwards, Ethelred had to flee for his life to France. A Dane named Cnut took over the crown and ruled until 1035.

The unhappy King Ethelred died in 1016. His son and heir, Edward, spent the next twenty-two years in exile. For much of the time, he stayed with a distant relative named William, Duke of Normandy.

Known as 'the Confessor', Edward was a very religious man. He was, perhaps, more suited to be a priest or a scholar than a king. But in 1042, a deputation of Saxon nobles came to him and asked him to rule England, and he agreed.

He was ill at ease at the high-spirited Saxon Court, preferring to spend his time overseeing the construction of an abbey at Westminster. It was completed in 1065, but Edward was too ill to attend the first service. He died a week afterwards. Towards the end of his reign, the future King Harold (son of Earl Godwin of Wessex) attended to most affairs of state.

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Betrayal

History of Britain, Betrayal. In Scotland, the Vikings, the Picts and the Scots were all at war with one another. At last, in the same years as Turgeis founded Dublin, there was a decisive battle. After the fighting had stopped, a Scot named kenned was able to proclaim himself first King of Scotland.

Down in England, the country was ripe for invasion. In 866, York feel. The kingdom of Mercia followed, and then it was East Anglia's turn. By the winter of 878, only Wessex remained independent.

The Danes had established a base at Reading, and their supplies were coming up the Thames. At first it seemed as if Wessex might share the fate of the other kingdoms. In the winter of 878. the 22-year old King Alfred was forced to flee and hide up among the Somerset marshes.

But Alfred returned in the spring. He gathered an army, and routed the Danish forces at a battle near Southampton. Two days later, at Chipenham, the Danish leader - Guthrum - surrendered.

Guthrum was given a lesson in Christian kindness. Far from putting him to death, Alfred offered him generous terms. The Danes, he said, must promise to quit Wessex, but they could have a large slice of eastern England. They were not to strip it bare with another orgy of plunder, but to settle down and farm it. Guthrum agreed.

He must have found this demonstration of charity convincing. Not long afterwards, he asked to be baptised, and the name Alfred as his godfather. Read the next article : The lands given to or taken by the Danes were known as Danelaw

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Warriors from the North

History of Britain, Warriors of the north. They came from the cold, harsh lands of the north, like creatures of prey. Their own countries had little to offer them. To prosper, they had to travel; to be utterly ruthless, to kill and to rob without the smallest twinge of conscience.

They were the Norsemen; the most magnificent seamen the world has ever known. They crossed the Atlantic; explored the Arctic fringe into Russia; made voyages to the Mediterranean; and paid many visits to the British Isles.

IN the early part of 793, there were disturbing omens in England. The roof of St Peter's church in York appeared to drip with blood. There were exceptionally high winds, and the sky was rent by lightning. Some people said that they saw fiery dragons in the heavens. Afterwards, there was a famine.

Tha June, the meaning of these portents became clear. The longships of the Vikings (each with a dragon on its prow) came to Lindisfarne. The monastery was sacked. Many of the monks were drowned or clubbed to death - the rest were taken away as slaves. All the treasures were removed.

As the years went by, the raids became more numerous. The Norsemen occupied the Shetland Island, the Orkneys and the Faroes. From these bases, they plundered the west coast of Scotland and southwards as far as the River Mersey. They attacked Ireland, whilst, on the east coast of England, the Danes harried Norfolk and Suffolk.

Whenever the Norsemen came, their attacks followed the same pattern. As soon as they were ashore, they rounded up every horse in the vicinity. Then they rode inland, looting, burning, killing, Presently, rich with booty, they returned to their ships and sailed away.

But these operations were the work of small chieftains whose only interest was in the plunder. When, in 851, the Danes came to the isles of Thanet and Sheppey in Kent, it was quite another matter. They remained there throughout the winter. And it was obvious that they were now considering a full scale invasion.

One day in 839, twelve years before the Danes' winter holiday in Kent, a Norwegian named Turgeis had landed in Ireland and founded the city of Dublin. He proclaimed himself 'King of all the foreigners'. Turgeis was something of a missionary. His ambition was to convert the island's population from Christianity to his own pagan beliefs. The natives were not impressed. They drowned him in a lake.

The English and Scots Royal Houses

The Viking ships could weather the roughest seas, making long voyages to land warriors on unkind shores. To man them, a though and ruthless breed of sailor was needed.

Read previous : Christianity Comes to Britain, or read the next article : Betrayal

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Peradaban lembah sungai Kuning (Hwang-Ho)

Prasejarah. Sungai Kuning terletak di daerah pegunungan Tibet. Mengapa diberi nama sungai Kuning? Karena aliran sungai setelah melalui pegunungan Cina Utara membawa lumpur kuning yang membentuk dataran rendah Cina. Kehidupan masyarakatnya dengan bercocok tanam, seperti menanam bahan makanan pokok yang berupa gandum, padi, teh, jagung, kedelai dan memelihara ulat sutra.

Teknologi
Karena bumi Cina mengandung bahan tambang, maka barang-barang tambang diolah untuk kebutuhan hidup masyarakatnya. Misalnya : perhiasan, perabot rumah tangga dan alat-alat senjata.

Aksara dan bahasa

Masyarakat Cina sudah mengenal adanya tulisan yang berupa tulisan gambar yang merupakan lambang. Sedangkan bahasa yang digunakan berbeda-beda antara provinsi satu dengan lainnya.

Contoh tulisan masyarakat Cina :

Astronomi
Masyarakat Cina mengenal ilmu perbintangan, maka muncul pula sistem penanggalan atau kalender

Sistem pemerintahan
Raja Cina yang tertua adalah Kaisar Huang-Ti (2697 SM). Penggantinya bernama Yao kemudian Sun, lalu Yu yang menjadikan kerajaan bernama HSIA dan sistem pemerintahan turun-temurun, antara lain Dinasti :
1. Hsia (1766 SM) : dinasti ini tidak meninggalkan prasasti, sehingga disebut zaman Proto sejarah.

2. Chou (221 SM) : Sebagai peletak dasar sistem pemerintahan feodalis.

3. Chin (206 SM) : ditandai dengan munculnya ajaran dari guru besar dinasti Cjou.

4. Han (78 SM) : pemerintahannya didasarkan pada ajaran bahwa setiap orang yang ingin menjadi pegawai negeri harus diuji lebih dahulu.

5. Tang (907 M) : pendiri dinasti ini adalah Lhi Sin Min.
Tindakan-tindakannya antara lain :
a. mengeluarkan undang-undang tentang pembagian tanah
b. membuat peraturan pajak
c. membagi kerajaan menjadi 10 propinsi

Sifat pemerintahannya adalah desentralisasi, artinya daerah yang berada dibawah kekuasaannya dijadikan daerah otonomi.

6. Sung (960 M) : pendiri dinasti ini adalah Sung Tai Tsu. Perkembangannya dalam bidang seni dan ilmu pengetahuan.

7. Yuan (abad ke-12) : penguasa 1 pada tahun 1260 adalah Khubilai Khan di Mongol yang meneruskan usaha perluasan wilayah ke Jepang dan ke Indonesia.

8. Ming (1642) pendiri dinasti ini adalah Chu Yuang Chang. Pemerintahannya merupakan masa pemulihan kebudayaan Cina. Pada akhir kekuasaan dinasti Ming muncul perampokan dan pemberontakan di Cina.

Filsafat dan kepercayaan

Filsafat dinasti Chou berhasil meletakkan dasar-dasar kehidupan yang berpengaruh, seperti ajaran-ajaran :
1. Taoisme adalah ajaran Lao Tse yang berisi semangat keadilan dan kesejahteraan yang kekal yaitu Tao.
2. Konfusianisme adalah ajaran yang berisi segala bencana yang terjadi di dunia disebabkan manusia.

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Christianity Comes to Britain

History of Britain, History of christianity. The Romans had brought their own religious customs with them to Britain, and built temples in which to whorship their gods. Apart from their loathing of the Druids, they were tolerant of the islander's beliefs. As in so many other things, the men of Rome and the people of Britain went their own, differen, ways.

But one morning in 313 an event occured that was to affect the whole world, and which, eventually, enabled Romans and Britons to worship side-by-side. The Roman Emperor Constantine I was converted to Christianity.

The Lindisfarne Gospels were
copied out by hand at the and
of the 7th century. The task
took the monks 23 years. The
bishop supplied the decoration.

Inevitably, word of this reached the empire's outposts; and, just as certainly, the old gods were put on one side. The message of Christianity was universal. The Briton, too, accepted it.

But when the Romans withdrew, the Barbarians brought their pagan gods with them. For 150 years. Christianity was driven underground. When it returned, the message travelled across the land from the north and from the south.

During one of theur raids on Wales, the Irish had snatched a Christian boy named Patrick from his home near the River Severn. Patrick was sold as a slave.

He learned the Irish language; and, some years later, he escaped to England. He studied to become a priest. In 432, the Pope ordered him back to Ireland as a missionary. Within ten years, Patrick had converted very nearly the whole island.

King Cnut was a man of great
power-and of wisdom, too. He
believed in good relations with
 the church (a change from his
unruly ancestors). Here, he is
seen giving an altar cross to a
recently built abbey near
Winchester.

Thanks to his work, it was an Irishman who took Christianity to Scotland. In 561, a monk named Columba landed on the island of Iona off the wetern coast.

He built a monastery, and taught the gospel to the picts. From this base, the new faith spread across Scotland and southwards into England. Seventy years later, monks from Iona were preaching in Northumberland, where they built a monastery a Lindisfarne.

Christianity returned to southern England in 597, when Pope Gregory sent forty monks, led by a man named Augustine, from Rome. These men were afraid.

They had heard such tales of British brutality that travelled very far, they asked Augustine to return and beg Gregory to release them from their task. But Gregory refused and the journey continued.

They were fortunate. They landed on Thanet. As it happened, the ruler of Kent, King Ethelbert, had a Christian wife. He told them to go ahead with their work; and even offered them lodgings in his capital at Canterbury. Some while later, he himself became converted.

During the year of their missions, Augustine and his monka baptised ten thousand people.

Right : England in the reign of King Alfred was a land divided between the Danes and the men of Wessex. King Alfred could never rest easy. He built a navy and fortified his towns against the day when war would come. The arrows show the Danish and Viking invasion routes in the 8th and 9th centuries.
Left : The prow of an excavated Viking ship. It somehow expresses the vessel's qualities of strength, sea-worthiness, and speed.

Read previous : King Arthur and Seven Kingdoms or, the next article : Warriors from the North

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King Arthur and Seven Kingdoms

King Arthur

History of Britain, King Arthur and Seven Kingdoms. The populer picture of King Arthur and his knights is of a band of vhivalrous gentlemen clad in shining armour. This is far from the truth. So far as we know, Arthur was a general serving a British king named Ambrosius Aurchanus.

When the monarch died, he took over the task of harassing the Saxons. His troops were probably mounted, and disciplined like Roman soldiers. Many of the engagements seem to have been fought at crossroads and fords. Possibly, they were ambushes.

Arthur's men certainly seem to have been unusually mobile - making sudden attacks, and then melting away into the forest. In the year 516, they fought a full scale battle against the Saxons at a place named Mount Badon somewhere in the West Country. They were victorious, and this success seems to have halted the Saxon advance for the better part of fifty years.

King Arthur was killed in a civil war - about twenty years afterwards.

The Seven Kingdoms

It took one hundred years for the Anglo-Saxons to complete their occupation. Britain now was divided up into seven kindoms. Among them were Northumbria, which reached from the Humber to Edinburgh and eventually westwards to the Lancashire coast; Mercia - the Midlands; and Wessex - southern England.

Offa, the ruler of Mercia (he who built Offa's Dyke running from Prestatyn to the Wye as a boundary between England and Wales) once described himself as 'King of the English', but this was a mere boast. When, in the 9th century, King Egbert of Wessex helped himself to Kent and other Saxon lands in the south-east, it became generally accepted that the Wessex king was the senior monarch - and that, therefore, he ruled England.

Althoug these early kings were based in strategically sited towns, they spent much of their time travelling - collecting rents and taxes and administering justice. The Saxons believed in handing down the throne from father to son - unless the their turned out to be unsuitable. In such cases an advisory council appointed another member of the royal family.

Apart from supervising the law and collecting his money, the king settled feuds, led hunting and military expeditions, and gave sumptuous banquets. He was assisted by an official known as the Ealdorman.

The Anglo-Saxon kings did not maintain large standing armies. They did, homever, keep small, well-equipped, bands of warriors for emergencies. In wartime, these forces were strengthened by peasants conscripted from the fields. They fought with fanaticism; for they knew that, if they were captured, they and their lives is slavery.

The small farmer depended for his land, his livestock and his supplies, on his local lord. In return for these things, he spent two ar three days each week working for his master. Sometimes - after, for example, an exceptionally bad harvest - the only chance of survival was for the whole family to become slaves.

The alternative was to go without food. It was a dismal outlook. As they knew very well, even the law against murder did not apply to these unfortunate people. If a slave was slain, his killer could be prosecuted only for 'destruction of property'.

Tintagel Castle in Cornwall was built in 1145 by a son of Henry I. Before that, this site had been occupied by a monastery. It is one of several sites in Britain that has been connected with the legend of King Arthur.

Read previous : The Anglo Saxon Invasions,or read the next article : Christianity Comes to Britain

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The Anglo Saxon Invasions

History of Britain, The Anglo Saxon Invasions. The Roman Empire was in trouble. By the middle of the 4th century, Rome itself was under attack by barbarians from the north and east. The legions had to be withdrawn from Britain. With no soldiers to defend it, the island was now at the mercy of invaders.

In 446, a British chief wrote to the Emperor. It was a sad, desperate appeal - asking him to send back the legions. He received no reply.

The Romans had been prepared to teach the Britons so much. They had shown the way to civilization, but the Britons had refused to learn. The system of central gevernment collapsed; small local kingdoms, each with its own ruler, were estabilished. Had they been united, they might have driven off the barbarians from across the Channel. All too often, however, they were fighting among themselves.

When saxon kings were buried, their possessions

were interred with them. At Sutton Hoo, Suffolk,

a 27-metre-long ship was discovered.

It was loaded with treasures-such as this helmet

A few cities, such as St Albans, maintained the Roman way of life. The majority - Bath, for example - became deserted. Their streets were empty; their buildings falling into ruins.

Ireland had not been invaded by the Romans. Her people were still living in the last of the Iron Ages. Using boats made from skins, Scots (which was probably the Irish word for raiders) crossed the sea, and helped themselves to portions of south-west Scotland. From elsewhere in Scotland, the Picts (who had overrun the Lowlands in 209) brought havoc to the north of England. In southern and eastern England, the trouble came from Europe.

About the year 449, a king named Vortigern whose realm strechted from Wales to Kent became anxious. In the north, there was anarchy. It could not be long until it spread to the south-east. In a attempt to make himself more secure, he offered land on the Isle of Thanet in Kent to a pair of Jutish chiefs (from north-west Germany) named Hengist and Horsa. They accepted.

Poor Vortigern; his plans went wrong. Hengist and Horse quickly realized that this was a land of opportunity. The Britons seemed to be a cowardly people, unable to defend the little that was theirs. Land and pluder were to be had by anyone who came and took them. They sent back messages to Europe and their fellow countrymen poured in.

Hengist slew Horsa and overwhelmed the whole of Kent. Vortigern was now even worse off; but that, as the Romans had discovered, was the snag about employing mercenary fighters. They usually ended up by taking the vey thing they had been hired to defend.

And the invaders continued to arrive. The pattern was nearly always the same. At first, there were small parties; then much larger numbers. The Angles (from the Elbe and Rhine districts) and the Saxons (from north west Germany) moved in. The former occupied Norfolk and Suffolk; the leatter - Essex, Middlesex, Sussex and eastern parts of Wessex.

The newcomers pushed on. Following the rivers, they made their way into a land of forests, rough moorland, and bogs. Occasionally, they came across the mouldering remains of a Roman city. They had never seen buildings on this scale, and they assumed they had been built by a race of giants. They didn't care for them. instead of occupying them, they built their settlements beyond the defensive walls.

On and on they moved - through forests inhabited only by wolves and bears, clearing away the trees and making farms. They were tough, brutal men who knew no mercy. it is impossible not to admire their courage; but, for the Britons, their arrival was catastrophic. Those who remained behind became slaves. The majority sought sanctuary amid the hills of Wales or Scotland. Nowhere else was safe.

Above; A map of England divided into the Seven Kingdoms, showing the Anglo-Saxon invasions in the 5th and 6th centuries. Below; A scene in the Bayeaux Tapestry depicts Edward the Confessor talking to Harold of Wessex. Was Harold Edward's rightful heir? William of Normandy thought not.

Read previous : Life in Roman Britain, or read the next article : King Arthur and Seven Kingdoms

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Life in Roman Britain

History of Britain, Life in Roman Britain. Rome was a city, and wherever her citizens went, they built towns. The Britons had never seen such places before, and they did not feel at home in them or take kindly to the Roman way of life.

For thousands of years, the Britons had been banded together in tribes, each with its own king. The Romans changed the system completely. They introduced one ruler for the whole of England, Scotland and Wales. There was now a central government; and laws that had to be obeyed from one end of the land to the others. These laws were administered by courts of justice, a word that Britons had never heard before. The essence of it was that a man was innocent unless he was proven guilty.

But, above all things, the Romans were builders. They constructed fine roads. They erected magnificent houses complete with plumbing. They also taught new methods of agriculture.

Unfortunately, they also demanded high taxation. For the wealthy man who lived in a villa, life was never better. For the slaves who served him, it could be very hard indeed.

Nevertheless, for the 300 years and more that the Romans ruled Britain, there was mostly peace. Trade prospered; civilization had arrived.

At Lullingstone in Kent, this Roman villa was once the home of a wealthy family. The walls were 2,5 metres high; mosaics on the floor depicted ancient legends; and among its amenities was a bath house. The original inhabitants were pagans. Remains of a Christian chapel suggest a change of bilief - probably in the 4th century AD.

The Romans were more than warriors; they were civil engineers and artists, too. Among their greater accomplishments was the composition of beautiful mosaics to decorate floors and, even, pavements.

Read previous : Romans on the March, or read the next article : The Anglo Saxon Invasions

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Romans on the March

History of Britain, Romans on the March. Caesar's departure in 54 BC might have been the end of Roman military interest in Britain. For the next ninety-seven years, there was peaceful trading between the tribesmen and the merchants from Rome.

By AD 43, homever, the Belgae - under King Cunobelinus whose capital was at Colchester - were carrying out raids on the French coast. Claudius, the Roman Emperor, became angry. Britain would have to be occupied. Claudius ordered his legions to march.

At about this time, Cunobelinus died. His realm was split in two. One of his sons, Togodumnus, ruled half of it; another, Caractus, the rest.

Caesar's invasions had been journeys into the uknown. Since then, homever, merchants had taken their products to settlements on the Humber, the Severn and the Trent. On their return, they were able to make useful reports about the geography army might encounter. One encouraging fact was that the Belgic tribes were disliked by their neighbours on either side, so much that they could expect no help in battle.

The Roman Army handed at Richborough in Kent. Togodumnus was killed early on in the fighting. Caractacus made a brave stand on the banks of the River Medway, but the opposition was too strong. At the day's end, he was fleeing for his life. The Roman march into Britain spread out to the four points of the compass.

West

Caractacus fled to Wales. For the next eight years, he was able to harass the Romans by making sudden attacks on their garrisons and lines of communication. Eventually, he and his family were captured, probably somewhere near Mount Snowdon. He was taken to Rome in chains, but Claudius admired his caurage so much that he spared his life.

On the far side of the Menai Strait, Anglesey was in the hands of the Celtic priests, the Druids. The Romans had heard they carried out human sacrifices. It was not to be tolerated. They crossed the water in boats; the cavalry's horses swarm. The engagement on the other side was brief and extremely bloody. When the fighting stopped, many of the Druids lay dead on their own altars.

South

To the west of the Roman landing place in Kent, the country was occupied by a tribe named the Regnenses. The king of the Regnenses was Cogidubnus; his capital at Noviomagnus (now Chichester).

Cogidubnus did not want trouble. Indeed, he was so helpful the Claudius gave him more land; confirmed him as a king and appointed him one of his representatives in Britain. Cogidubnus did so well out of it, that he was able to build himself a magnificent palace.

East

The king of the Iceni in East Anglia was also co-operative. When he died in AD 60, his will stipulated that Nero (who had become Emperor in AD 54, when Claudius was poisoned by his wife Agrippina) should share his estate with his widow, Boadicea (Boudicca), and their children.

Boadicea dutifully sent Nero his share of the bequest but the Emperor now insisted that he must have all the dead man's property. A Contingent of infantry was mustered at Colchester. Some while later, the men arrived at Boadicea's home near Norwich.

It was a dirty business. The palace was looted, the queen's daughters were assaulted, and she was whipped. Nero was no doubt satisfied, but he had lost the Iceni's loyalty for ever.

Gathering support from other tribes, Boadicea declared war on the Romans. But, the matter how brave they might be, her warriors were no match for the well drilfed legions of Rome. After minor successes, they angry queen fought her last battle on the edge of London (somewhere near the site of King's Cross station). At the cost of 400 casualties, the Romans killed 30,000 of her men. Boadicea escaped and hurried back to Norfolk, where she took poison.

North

In Ad 84, a Roman expedition marched into the Highlands of Scotland. On a hill known as Mount Graupius, in the region of Inverness, the legionaries met a force of tall men (most of whom seemed to have red hair) armed with long swords and circular shields. The Romans won, but this was far from the end of the matter.

Hadrian: the Roman emperor with talent
for building walls. This larger-than-life
statue was dredged up from the Thames.

Some years later, the 9th Legion was wiped out while marching to Tayside. Unwilling to lose any more troops, the Romans withdrew to England. In AD 121, Hadrian's Wall, (named after the reigning Emperor) was built. Seventy miles long, it stretched from the North Sea to the Solway Firth.

There were small forts at one-mile intervals, ditches, castles, camps and signal towers. Apart from sending an occasional patrol out into the Lowlands, the Romans kept to the English side of it. Scotland was left alone.

In AD 367, the wall was overwhelmed by the Picts who inhabited Scotland. They came back in 383 - only to find that all the garrisons had been removed. The Romans now had other things to worry about.

While the Picts were harrying them in the north, parties of Scots (from Ireland), Saxons and Gauls from France were making raids on the English coast. But the Roman occupation was nearing its end. In 406, the legions were withdrawn from Britain. Rome itself was now under attack and they were badly needed for its defence. Read previous : The Roman Conquest, or read the next article : Life in Roman Britain

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The Roman Conquest

History of Britain, The Roman Conquest. By 60 BC, the Romans had conguered much of the land around the Mediterranean. One great general named Julius Caesar had overrun nearly all France, but had experienced a lot of trouble from the Belgae. They were, he knew, receiving help from their kinsmen in Britain. There was only one thing for it; Britain would have to be invaded.

On the morning of 25 August, 55 BC, a fleet of eighty transports escorted by war galleys sailed from a point on the French coast near Boulogne. At 10 AM, the ships reached the shores of Kent between Deal and Walmer.

On board the transports, packed shoulder to shoulder, were 10,200 men of the 7th and 10th Legions. Somewhere out at sea, there were eighteen more vessels with 240 cavalrymen and their horses on board, but there was no sign of them. THe captains had made a disastrous mistake. They had misjudged the tides. The horse soldiers never turned up.

Caesar, too, had made a mistake. Despite his battles against the Belgae in Europe, he had under-rated their military strength in Britain. As the Roman soldiers saw them waiting on the beach, led by their king, Cassivelaunus, they hesitated. Nobody seemed anxious to go ashore.

Eventually, the standard bearer of the 10th Legion jumped into the surf and urged the men to follow him. Minutes later, the fight began.

It was not Caesar's day. The opposition was much tougher than he had expected, and heavy casualties were piling up in his ranks. To make matters worse, the weather was getting bad, and a number of ships were wrecked on the shore. Prudently, Caesar decided to withdraw. The conquest of Britain would have to wait.

Next year, he came again with a much larger force. The weather for the crossing was fine. Five legions and two thousand cavalrymen came ashore. Three more legions and more horse soldiers waited off coast in reserve.

Over the Channel, the clouds were massing for what paromised to be another storm. This time, Caesar ignored the threat. Some of the ships were hauled ashore and earthworks hastily dug up around them. They served as forts to protect the beach head.

Cassivelaunus's men were fighting desperately, but there was little they could do against such a well armed and disciplined enemy. The Romans broke through. They marched as far as Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire, where they fought another battle. But Cassivelaunus had had enough. He surrendered, agreed to pay taxes to Rome and to hand over hostages.

His purpose accomplished, Caesar withdrew to the Kent coast. He re-embarked his army, and set sail back to France. For the better part of one hundred years, there were no more visits by Roman soldiers to Britain.

The Roman Soldiers
The backbone of the Roman army was its infantry - the legionaries, as they were called. They were armed with light spears, swords and daggers. The officers wore metal breast-and back-plates; the common soldiers had to be content with leather. Each man had a shield.

A man served in a legion for sixteen years-after which he had to put n another four years as a 'veteran' (veterans did not have to perform duties within the camp, and they were only called to fight in a emergency).

The pay was poor, and many of the men depended an allowances from theirs parents. Meals usually consisted of soup, bread, vegetables and occasionally a little wine. They seldom had any meat.

Discipline was strict. Desertion, mutiny and insubordination were punished by death. Stealing, inefficiency and lying - by flogging. The penalty for lesser offences was loss of rank.

When not campaigning, the legionaries spent their time supervising the building of roads and forts. Until the year AD197, they were not allowed to marry - though many of them did. Read previous : Celtic Britain, British Developments slow, or read the next article : Romans on the March

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Celtic Britain, British Developments slow

Celtic Britain, British Developments slow. Compared to countries bordering the Mediterranean and in Asia Minor, the development of Britain was slow. The first pyramid had been built in Egypt one thousand years before the construction of Stonehenge. By 2500 BC Babylonian merchants could not only write; they actuakky made maps of their estates.

In every way, the people from this sunnier part of the world were more advanced. When one ancient Briton was quarrelling (and doubtless fighting) with another about the right to s patch of land, the Egyptians were conducting organized wars.

We don't know whether the Beaker Folk fought amongst themselves. We can be certain, however, that the Celts - who arrived 1500 year later - were very warlike. They came from France and the low countries - at first in small numbers, later in hordes. They were tall men; strong and muscular with fair complexions. They were high spirited, excitable, and when they were not fighting, they enjoyed feasting

This ornament for the neck of an elegant Iron Age citizen was made from an alloy of gold and silver - about the 1st century BC.

With the Celts came a new language. You can still hear traces of it in Cornwall, Ireland, and Wales, and in the north-west of scotland.

The celtic priests (call Druids) taught new ideas about immortality and the Universe. Their craftsmen introduced a new metal to the islands iron.

Iron was more useful than bronze. It was harder, and you did not have to search for two ingredients (copper and tin) in the mountains. The first deposit of iron ore were probably discovered in the Forest of Dean and in the Kent and Sussex Weald.

The most warlike of the Celtic tribes was the Belgac who came from the Low countries (of which Belgium is a part). They had their own king, and they were nearly always in the spearhead of the Celtic advance as it spread across Britain. Gradually they penetrated into Scotland, to Wales and into Cornwall.

If the inhabitants of Britain meekly gave them what they wanted, there was no trouble. Some of them married local girls and settled down. But if anyone attemped to resist, fighting broke out.

Warfare cannot have come as a complete surprise to the British. There were already hill forts scattered over the country. But these defences were not enough to keep away the Celts. Many of the tribesmen had already experienced fighting in Europe. They were led by warrior chiefs; armed with iron swords and daggers.

A Celtic chief had s chariot, though it seems doubtful whether he used it in battle. It may have been just for display; it was certainly buried with him when he died.

The simple natives of Britain stood little chance against such tough and well armed invaders. Wherever the Celts went, they conguered. To make sure they held on to the captured land, they, too, built forts, sturdy earthworks reinforced with timber.

But not all their land had to be taken from the British. Parts of the country had never been settled. The forests, in particular, were left alone, for people were afraid of them and communities preferred the high ground.

The fearless Belgae, however, decided to occupy the south-east of England, which was thick with trees. They cut down the timber and cleared the soil. It was well worth the trouble. The crops turned out to be far better than those grown on the bleak upland fields. Read previous : A place of Worship Britain, or Read the next article : The Roman Conquest

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A place of Worship Britain

History of Britain, A place of Worship Britain. The dead as well as the living had homes. The earliest burial places were on the edges of settlements. The corpses were placed in an inner chamber with a stone roof and walls. When it was full, the entrance was sealed up by a large slab.

But the Beaker believed that the dead should be buried individually-each in a crouching position. and clasping his or her drinking pot (presumably to take light refreshments on the other side of life).

Circles of standing stones in lonely places mask their graves. If you come across them unexpectedly out of the mist, they produces a feeling of awe-as though they are touched by magic. No doubt they were also used for worship, but the nature of the worship remains a mystery.

Eight-two of the larger stones used in the construction of Stonehenge are knon to have come from the Precelly Mountains in south-west Wales. The mystery is how, 3000 years ago, these massive slabs were transported all the way to Wiltshire. By sledges and rafts? Possibly. It was certainly a vast undertaking for a primitive civilisation.

Without a doubt, the most magnificent of these srange, haunted, places is Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain. There are many signs to show that Beaker Folk were buried round the edge of it. But the large stones in the centre had some other purpose.

They are arranged in such a way that they can indicate the summer solstice and even predict the eclipse of the moon. Perhaps they were a kind of enormous calender that mapped the progress of the year. Perhaps, too, they gave priests the power to make prophecies.

Stonehenge was built in three phases between 1800 and 1400 BC. The Beaker people certainly had a hand in it, for carvings in bronze - showing axe heads and d dagger - have been discovered. Beyond this, however, we can only guess. The mystery of Stonehenge is as unyielding as the huge stones from which it was built. Read previous : Early village life history, or read the next article : Celtic Britain, British Developments slow

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Early village life history

History of Britain, Early village life history. Until the arrival of the Celts, there were no permanent homes. As the seasons changed, a man and his family moved on with their livestock in search of better grazing land. The valleys were thick with trees. Wolves, bears and lynxes still roamed in these dark places.

 It was better to keep to the higher ground : to the moors and the download, where there was grass for the animals, and where a crop of barley could be grown from the thin soil. To still this soil, they used a kind of plough.

The earliest examples of this instruments were hand-held spikes that bit into the earth. A man would work over his land twice-on the second occasion, moving at right angles to the first.

During the stone Age-from about 3000 BC man learned hiw to build a more permanent home. The roof was thatched; the floor was sunk beneath the ground. A fire provided warmth, but here was no chimney. The smoke escaped hrough the entrance, and gaps in the walls.

The appearances of these early houses varied from one part of Britain to another. In the North of Scotland, for example, there were plenty of stones, and these were used to build them. They were similar to larger constructios (some of them oves six metres high) known as 'brochs', which were used as shelters against sudden attack. Since there were fewer stones in Southern Scotland. the inhabitants made round huts from mud.

The early inhabitants of Ireland made them-selves huts that looked rather like giant bechives. The walls were made of stone; the roofs put together from reeds. During winter nights, families huddled over peat fires that smouldered in the centres of the earthen floors.

As time went by and the Celts arrived, the newcomers laid out large rectangular fields. They marked the boundaries either by ditches or else (as, for instance, in Cornwall) by drystone walls. They also improved the method of ploughing.

They produced wooden blades with iron tips, and used oxen to haul them. Having gome to so much trouble, they saw no point in moving on as the seasons changed. The farms and villages they built became permanent.

Gradually a system of tracks spread across the country. Each linked one community with another; they usually followed the edges of the high ground. Where they had to cross marshland, causeways of split logs and brushwood were built.

Many ot the settlers now lived in houses that had one circular wall within another. The family inhabited the smaller; the sheep and cattle were given shelter within the outer.

The men of the village looked after the animals and ploughed the fields. The women wove cloth from which they made garments; manufactured cooking pots from clay; and ground the corn.

Every village had a smith, who smelted the iron ore and wrought it into tools and weapons. Sometimes, a wandering trader called-offering beads from Egypt, amber from the Baltic, or golden ornaments from Ireland. From these visitors, the simple farming community received its only news of the great world beyond.

People died. From the middle of the Bronze Age, the dead were cremated. The ceremony normally took place on the edge of hill. After-wards, the burnt bones (still hot) were placed inside an urn, which was covered by a circular mound. Read previous : The Early Settlers, or read the next article : A place of Worship Britain

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The Early Settlers

History of Britain, The Early Settlers. About 2000 years before Christ, a race of people came to Britain from the estuaries of Northern Europe. They were known as the Beaker Folk, after the clay mugs (beakers) they used to make. But their most important archievenment was the art of manufacturing tools and ornaments from bronze.

Bronze is made from a mixture of copper and tin. The tin came from Cornwall; copper from the mountains of Ireland. To bring the two together mean a lot of travelling.

In the Wicklow Hills of Ireland, they had found gold. The men who mined it were artists. They transformed it into ear-rings, bracelets and necklets. On their journeys to obtain copper, the Beaker Folk used to bring these trinkets back to England with them.

People were now travelling considerable distances. They exchanged ideas and traded with one another; bartering this for that - pleased that others wanted their own goods, and excited about new discoveries. They had learned how to build and sail ships.

Visitors from the continent crossed the English Channel to the small natural harbours on the south and east coasts. Larger vessels came from the Mediterranean. There were voyages along the edge of the Atlantic, where the great waves gather themselves up and hurl themselves ad the shores.

The remains of Bronze and Iron Age settlements in the Shetland Islands. They may have been simple, but they were refugs against the fierce weather and enemy attack.

Although they could not write, the Beaker Folk had a religion. Today, there are traces of it in circles of stones at places as far apart as the Orkneys, the Midlands, and on the moors of Devonshire. The greatest of them all was Stonehenge in Wiltshire. Read previous : The First People, or read the next article : Early village life history

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The First People

History of Britain. Half a million years ago, there were man-like creatures roaming the erth. They were probably able to make and use stone implements; they almost certainly knew how to build fires. According to one estimate, there were about two hundred of them in Britain.

Thwo hundred and fifty thousand years later, these ancestors of present day man had become more recognizably members of our onw species. We know this from pieces of a human skull that were discovered in a quarry at Swanscombe in Kent one day in 1936. Some fragments of flint were also found. They had probably been used as axes.

How didi these people from the early morning of history live? They moved from one forest clearing to the next; from one cave to another. Life was a never ending search for food. They hunted the woolly rhino, the mastodon (a hairy elepahnt) and wild horses.

Left : Between the Ice Ages, the climate of Britain was quite mild. Giant elephants and wild horses roamed the Thames valley. In modern times, the remains of a man have been discovered at Swanscombe in Kent. Experts say they are 200.000 years old.

For the rest of their diet, they lived off roots, berriers and insect. By trial and error, they discovered what was poisonous, and what was not. When there was no other meat, they probably became cannibals.

They manufactured their weapons by chipping bits off large lumps of stone. Somehow they communicated with one another by signs and grunts. They could not speak, for they had no language.

Our ancient ancestors were hunters, but soon they were fighting. They discovered that weapons, such as these battle axes (1800-1400 BC), were very useful.

Britain, still joined to Europe, was visited by parties of hunters from elsewhere. They too, explored the heathlands and the forests, searching for food. In about 20.000 BC the last of the Ice Ages began to melt away. In the wake of the cold, enormous pine forests grew up. No sun shone in these places; there was very little game to be found.

The Beaker Folk were buried on the edges of settlements: each in his own grave - with his beaker for drinks after death and an arrow head in case he might need it.

At last-by about 12.000 BC- the ice finally receded. People were now learning how to make tools and weapons from bones as well as flints; to cover their nakedness with skins. They even carved female figures frome stone, which had, or so they bilieved, the power of magic. What was more important, people had now learned how to speak.

Roughly 5000 years ago the land link with Europe was broken. The Straits of Dover were created, and the pines began to yield to deciduous trees such as oaks. It had taken a long, long time; but so many things now became possible.

Man copped down trees, cleared space in the forests and learned how to grow crops. They dug mines from which to quarry flint. And they built homes.

The home was a hut, nearly always circular. The floor was sunk beneath ground level; a pole in the middle supported the roof. When two or three or four of these crude coottages were built in one area, the result was a village.

Many villages had small forts, build from earth, as deferences. Work on the largest, Maiden Castle in Dorset, was begun in the year 3000 BC. Read previous : Britain is Born, or read the next article : The Early Settlers

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Britain is Born

History of Britain. From the time Man first appeared in Britain over a quarter of a million years ago, wave upon wave of invaders from overseas raided and then settled the land. But with the Norman Conguest in 1066 all this was to change. Britain was never again succesfully invaded by any other nation.

Britain is Born

Six thousand million years ago our solar system was born. The planets were created, and there was earth. For millions of years, the surface of the earth underwent changes. Europe was joined to North America; Britain  to Europe. The present North Sea was once a scorching desert. Later, it became a vast forest. There were volcanoes to the north-east of Scotland.

The first part of Britain to emerge from the sea was a chain of small island. Today, they are the peaks of mountains in the Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland. As the pattern became clearer, volcanoes tore the land apart and reshaped it.

The earth folded it self in to creases. Eventually, they became hills and valleys. The granite of Cornwall was created by the red hot flow of lava. Elsewhere, there were huge forests and sweltering swamps.

At intervals there were four long periods of cold. They were called the Ice Ages. We shall never know anything like them. The glaciers came from the north until they reached the edge of what is now London. But, in between each Ice Age, the climate was quite warm.

Just as the shape of the land changed, so did the creatures the inhabited it. At one time, there were monsters such as dinosaurs (massive lizards with tiny heads) and pterodactyls (flying reptiles).

Sabre-toothed tigers roamed in what is now the Thames valley. Later, during the Ice Ages, there were elephants and rhinocheroses. But, because it was so cold, they had long and shaggy fur coats. Read the next article : The First People

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