This page covers the history (and archaeology) of Britain, before the Norman Conquest of 1066 AD.
Julius Caesar landed in Britain (he failed to conquer it, having to return to Gaul to quell a revolt) |
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55 BC, 54 BC |
Emperor at the time of the Roman conquest of Britain (43 AD) – came to Britain to accept the surrender in
person |
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Claudius |
Roman senator who led the Claudian invasion of 43 AD, and became the first Roman governor of Britain |
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Aulus Plautius |
Roman general who served in Britain periodically from AD 58, was made governor in AD 77, and was responsible
for much of the Roman conquest of Britain (completed with the defeat of the Caledonians at the Battle of Mons Graupius in AD 83 or 84); his daughter
Julia married the historian Tacitus |
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Gnaeus Julius Agricola |
Second largest town in Roman Britain (after London) – now a market town in Gloucestershire |
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Cirencester |
The Romans finally left Britain around |
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410 AD |
Built in 122–128 AD, from the Roman fort at Segedunum (now Wallsend, Tyne & Wear) to
Bowness–on–Solway |
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Hadrian's Wall |
Hadrian's Wall: length |
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73 miles |
Roman wall from the Forth to the Clyde – built in 142–154 AD |
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Antonine |
Roman road from London to the Humber and York (via Lincoln) |
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Ermine Street |
Roman road from Lincoln to Exeter, via Leicester, Cirencester and Bath |
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Fosse Way |
Ancient track following high ground from The Wash to Berkshire |
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Icknield Way |
Roman road from Dover to Wroxeter (Shropshire), via London; Edgware Road is built on a section of it |
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Watling Street |
Wife of King Prasutagus; rebelled against the Romans c. 60 AD; said to have invoked Andraste, the British goddess
of victory, by releasing a hare from her skirts before fighting the Romans; captured Colchester, St. Albans and London; slaughtered 70,000;
eventually defeated somewhere in the Midlands. Buried, according to an urban myth dating at least to a 1937 biography, under King's
Cross Station; but this is based on a misunderstanding and possibly a hoax – her actual burial place is unknown |
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Boudicca (Boadicea) |
Leader of the British tribes against the Roman invasion |
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Cara(c)tacus (Caradoc) |
Father of Cara(c)tacus |
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Cymbeline (Cunobelinus) |
Caratacus's capital, captured by the Romans following the 43 AD invasion |
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Colchester (Camulodunum) |
Second–biggest town in Roman Britain (after London) – now in Gloucestershire |
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Cirencester (Corinium) |
The oldest known name for Britain, derived from the Celtic word for "earth" or "world" |
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Albion |
Collection of annals created in the reign of Alfred the Great |
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Anglo–Saxon Chronicle |
Welsh king who used the leek as his badge when fighting the Saxons, c. 640 AD |
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Cadwallader |
Son of Sweyn (Forkbeard), King of Norway; became King of England by defeating Edmund Ironside (son of
Ethelred the Unready) at the Battle of Assandun in 1016 |
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Canute |
Stone circle near Keswick, Cumbria: described as "one of the most visually impressive prehistoric
monuments in Britain"; named after the fell (hill) on which it stands |
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Castlerigg |
Gaelic kingdom that covered parts of western Scotland and (Northern) Ireland, at its height around 600 AD |
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Dalriada |
9th Century tax raised as protection money to pay off the Vikings, or to fund forces to oppose them |
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Danegeld |
Land ceded by King Alfred to King Guthrum of Denmark in 878 (consisting of eastern England from the
Thames to the Wear, and modern Lancashire and Cumbria) |
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Danelaw |
Priestly and learned classes of the Celts |
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Druids |
Major seaport of Suffolk, engulfed by the sea as a result of storms and coastal erosion in the 13th
to 16th centuries |
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Dunwich |
Wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia (born c. 1040 – the famous legend probably has no basis in fact) |
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Lady Godiva |
Neolithic flint mining site near Brandon, Suffolk (near the Norfolk border) |
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Grimes Graves |
The seven Anglo–Saxon kingdoms, prior to 900 AD |
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The Heptarchy |
Popular name locally for the long barrow near Uley, Gloucestershire |
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Hetty Pegler's Tump |
Anglo–Saxon nobleman who led a revolt against the Norman conquest in 1070, from his base on
the Isle of Ely; reputedly the last Saxon leader to hold out against the Normans |
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Hereward the Wake |
Boudicca's tribe |
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Iceni |
Earl of Mercia and lord of Coventry (968–1057) – husband of Lady Godiva |
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Leofric III |
Famous Bronze Age relic near Penrith, Cumbria (the largest stone monument in Northern England): a
12–foot–high red sandstone monolith overlooks a nearby stone circle, 100m wide on its long axis |
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Long Meg and her Daughters |
Anglo–Saxon kingdom that eventually covered the English Midlands, extending between the estuaries
of the Wyre, Humber, Severn and (almost) the Thames; Offa and Penda were Kings of |
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Mercia |
Bronze Age stone circle on Stanton Moor (Peak District) |
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The Nine Ladies |
8th–century earthwork through the English–Welsh borders, from the Dee at Prestatyn to the
Severn Estuary at Chepstow – named after the King of Mercia (757–796) |
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Offa's Dyke |
Reputedly the father of St. Helena and hence grandfather of Constantine the Great |
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Old King Cole |
Neolithic Orkney village, buried under a sand dune until 1850 |
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Skara Brae |
Mediaeval tax based on one–tenth of a person's possessions |
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Tithe |
Name used in Yorkshire and other northern counties for a sub–division of the county –
similar to the southern Hundred – originating from the Danish occupation |
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Wapentake |
King Alfred's first kingdom |
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Wessex |