Published by William Collins
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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2000
Copyright © Tim Newark 2000
Tim Newark has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
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Source ISBN: 9780004722849
Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780008131579
Version: 2015-01-06
CONTENTS
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Britons love freedom and the one theme that unites all the periods of warfare in this book is their pursuit of independence. At first, it is a battle between different peoples - Celts, Saxons, Vikings - to survive within the British Isles. Then, as England takes shape as a sovereign realm, it is a struggle for political freedom between barons and kings, royalists and roundheads. Finally, with Britain as a united nation, it is the defence of its very way of life that has united its people against threats from abroad. It has been a hard and bitterly fought quest with enormous personal sacrifice by soldiers and civilians. If our island’s military history has anything to tell us, it is that the freedom we have inherited must not be lightly given away.
Tim Newark
Recreated Roman legionary of the 1st century AD stands next to a recreated late Roman soldier of the 4th century AD, showing the transformation in arms and armour. Germanic influences predominated and mail took over from segmented plate armour. They stand before a Roman wall at Richborough Castle in Kent. [Dan Shadrake/English Heritage]
From Maiden Castle in Dorset to Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, the Celts and Romans have left their mark on Britain. Bitter battles for control of the island were followed by a long period of peace in which the two warrior peoples learned to live together.
Warfare has moulded the political and social history of Britain, and has shaped the very landscape itself, creating lines of defence, establishing historic towns astride communications routes, excavating vast amounts of earth to create hillforts and castles, leaving emblems of dominance that can be seen from the air. Some of the most enduring of these military marks on the landscape are also the most ancient.
The earliest recorded invaders of this country were the Celts, who arrived from France during the 7th century BC. Armed with iron weapons, some mounted on horseback, others using horses to pull light chariots, by the 1st century BC, Celtic invaders had secured their dominance over most of the land. Julius Caesar records one of the very first written accounts of life in Britain, describing a complex jigsaw of Celtic tribes in southern England, frequently fighting amongst themselves. One of the greatest untold stories is how the Celts dealt with the native Bronze Age people in Britain, and how they defeated them in battle. The clues to this very first battle for Britain are in the landscape.
Across southern England some of the most potent signs of Celtic dominion can still be seen today. In the Vale of the White Horse in Berkshire, there is a giant white horse carved out of the chalk hillside beneath Uffington Castle, one of several such images credited to the Iron Age Celts. What did