History of England 1-6

Nor have we yet. The legacy of prehistory is all around us. The clearances of prehistoric farmers helped to create the English landscape, and there are still places where the division of the land follows its prehistoric boundaries. In southern England the field systems of the Bronze Age and Iron Age inform and maintain the layout of modern farming. Modern roads follow the line of ancient paths and trackways. The boundaries of many parishes follow ancient patterns of settlement, and their irregular outlines enclose land sufficient to maintain a small farming community; ancient burials are often to be found on the boundaries of such a parish, and even the orientation of the church may obey old laws. Churches and monastic communities were placed close beside the sites of megalithic monuments, as well as sacred springs and early Bronze Age ritual spaces. The churchyard of the parish church of Rudston, in East Yorkshire, harbours the tallest Neolithic standing stone in England. The pilgrim routes of medieval Kent trace the same pattern as the prehistoric tracks to holy wells and shrines. We still live deep in the past.

Many villages, and towns, are built upon the sites of prehistoric originals. Leicester and Lincoln, Cambridge and Colchester, Rochester and Canterbury – to name only a few examples – were settled in the Iron Age or earlier. Village communities endure through recorded and unrecorded history. They may begin as simple family units, surrounded by ancestral spirits, before the natural process of extension. But we cannot dig down to the prehistoric origins of most English villages precisely because they are still in thriving occupation. Many Iron Age settlements became the market towns of the twenty-first century, where surplus produce has always been traded.

Certain customs, and festivals, belong to the prehistoric past. The celebrations of the Iron Age were incorporated into the Christian calendar, with the festival of the dead or ‘Samain’ becoming All Souls’ Day, and the midwinter solstice commemorated as Christmas. The Bronze Age practice of scattering white quartz stones upon freshly dug graves was still being observed in early twentiethcentury Wales. In nineteenth-century Scotland many inhabitants still lived in stone ‘beehive’ houses from the Neolithic period. The famous public house beside Hampstead Heath, Jack Straw’s Castle, stands on the site of an ancient earthwork. The historic and the prehistoric exist simultaneously. Catterick in North Yorkshire remains a military base, just as it was when the mead-drunk warriors of the Gododdin assailed it at the end of the sixth century AD. There is scarcely one spot in England that does not contain memorials of an ancient past.

2

The Roman way

Julius Caesar’s ‘invasion’ of 55 BC was more in the nature of a preliminary patrol; he said that he wanted to acquaint himself with ‘the lie of the land’. The Romans did not like the sea, but the pull of the island was irresistible. Britain was already a trading partner, and was rumoured to be rich in metal and wealthy with wheat. Some of its tribes had allied themselves with the northern Gauls whom Caesar was fighting. So there was every reason for a visit.

Several of the tribal leaders, informed in advance of his preparations, sent emissaries to treat with him; he in turn despatched an envoy who urged them to collaborate with their putative conqueror. Then Caesar set sail with two legions, each of approximately five thousand men, transported in eighty ships; when they eventually landed near Deal, the English were watching them. A skirmish took place on the beach, in which the Romans were victorious, and once more the tribal leaders sued for peace. Yet it was of short duration. A storm blew up, compounded by the force of a high tide at a time of full moon. The Romans were not aware of the phenomenon. All the ships were damaged.

The English tribes now broke the vow of peace, and a number of skirmishes took place in the immediate vicinity of Deal where Caesar was hard-pressed. His one thought now was of retreat across the water. He managed to repair the ships, and sought material aid from Gaul. Then, taking many hostages from the English, he sailed back vowing to return.