History of Roman London

 Index To Other Articles On The History Of London

Seven years after the Roman Empire invaded England in AD 43 the Romans designated the London area as a civilian town and gave it the name Londinium. At this time the power house or capital of Roman occupied Britain was Colchester -formerly ruled by the Trinovantes. Roman rule of tribal England was not total and uprisings to the Roman occupation were common-place.

In AD61 a coalition of the Trinovantes and the Iceni Tribe led by Queen Boadicea, whilst the Roman army campaigned elsewhere, attacked first Colchester and then London. Both cities and subsequently St Albans were burnt to the ground. Several months later after the Roman army defeated Queen Boadicea (see ode below) in the battle of Watling Street in the Midlands, and returned to London and rebuilt it over several decades as a Roman town.

By the middle of the 2nd Century AD Londinium had with a wealth of new facilities and a population of well over 50,000 replaced Colchester as the Capital of Roman England.

Around the 200AD The city which had been built on north side of of the Thames had grown to a size equivalent to modern day Hyde Park. To protect the city from attack from north and east the Romans decide to fortify its perimeters – with the London Wall. The original London Wall built in stone – was nearly two miles long, over 7ft thick and 19ft high had six gates – Aldgate, Aldersgate Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Ludgate and Newgate.

Towards the end of the 3rd Century AD a similar size wall was added to the south-side of the city following several attacks from Saxons arriving via the River Thames. The London Wall clearly defined the City of London well into the 19th century and was one of the few relics of London’s early history to survive the Great Fire of London in 1666.

In 410 AD the Romans left London and England as the sun set on the Roman Empire.

Boadicea: An Ode

WHEN the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country’s gods,

Sage beneath a spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief;
Ev’ry burning word he spoke
Full of rage, and full of grief.

Princess! if our aged eyes
Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,
‘Tis because resentment ties
All the terrors of our tongues.

“Rome shall perish—write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish, hopeless and abhorr’d,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.

Rome, for empire far renown’d,
Tramples on a thousand states;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground—
Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!

Other Romans shall arise,
Heedless of a soldier’s name;
Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize — Harmony the path to fame.

Then the progeny that springs
From the forests of our land,
Arm’d with thunder, clad with wings,
Shall a wider world command.

Regions Caesar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway,
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they.

Such the bard’s prophetic words,
Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending, as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre.

She, with all a monarch’s pride,
Felt them in her bosom glow;
Rush’d to battle, fought, and died;
Dying, hurl’d them at the foe.

Ruffians, pitiless as proud,
Heav’n awards the vengeance due;
Empire is on us bestow’d,
Shame and ruin wait for you

Wiliam Cowper 1782