Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
History
The citizens of London are universally held up for admiration and renown for the elegance of their manners and
dress, and the delights of their tables…The only plagues of London are the immoderate drinking of fools and the
frequency of fires.
William Fitzstephen, companion of Thomas Becket
Conflagrations and drunkenness certainly feature strongly in London's
complex two-thousand-year history. What follows is a highly compressed
account featuring riots and revolutions, plagues, fires, slum clearances,
lashings of gin, Boris Johnson and the London people. For more detailed
histories, see our topic recommendations (see p.462).
Roman Londinium
Although there is evidence of scattered Celtic settlements
along the Thames, no firm
proof exists to show that central London was permanently settled before the arrival of
the Romans.
Julius Caesar
led two small cross-Channel incursions in 55 and 54 BC,
but it wasn't until nearly a century later, in
43 AD
, that a full-scale invasion force of
some forty thousand Roman troops landed in Kent. Britain's rumoured mineral wealth
was certainly one motive behind the Roman invasion, but the immediate spur was the
need of Emperor Claudius, who owed his power to the army, for an easy military
triumph. The Romans, under Aulus Plautius, defeated the main Celtic tribe of
southern Britain, the Catuvellauni, on the Medway, southeast of London, crossed the
Thames and then set up camp to await the triumphant arrival of Claudius, his
elephants and the Praetorian Guard.
It's now thought that the site of this first Roman camp was, in fact, in Westminster -
the lowest fordable point on the Thames - and not in what is now the City. However,
around 50 AD, when the Romans decided to establish the permanent military camp of
Londinium
here, they chose a point further downstream, building a bridge some 50yd
east of today's London Bridge. London became the hub of the Roman road system, but
it was not the Romans' principal colonial settlement, which remained at
Camulodunum
(modern Colchester) to the northeast.
In 60 AD, the East Anglian people, known as the Iceni, rose up against the invaders
under their queen
Boudicca
(or Boadicea) and sacked Camulodunum, slaughtering
most of the legion sent from Lindum (Lincoln) and making their way to the
ill-defended town of Londinium. According to archeological evidence, Londinium was
burnt to the ground and, according to the Roman historian Tacitus, whose father-in-
law was in Britain at the time (and later served as its governor), the inhabitants were
“massacred, hanged, burned and crucified”. The Iceni were eventually defeated, and
Boudicca committed suicide (62 AD).
In the aftermath, Londinium
emerged as the new commercial and administrative
(though not military)
capital of Britannia
, and was endowed with a military fort for
around a thousand troops, an imposing basilica and forum, a governor's palace,
122
200
296
312
Emperor Hadrian visits
Londinium
The Romans build a
defensive wall around
the city
Emperor Constantius ends
the civil war in Britain and
northern Gaul
Christianity becomes the
state religion throughout
the Roman Empire
