Coronavirus watch: was this Britain's first major epidemic?

Over the centuries after Stonehenge was built, the descendants of the people who created it largely disappeared from Britain. They were farmers of Mediterranean appearance with dark hair and olive skin. 

The great stone circle was finished about 2500 BC, but examination of 150 ancient skeletons from all over the country suggests that over the next 500 years, our Mediterranean-type ancestors had dwindled to about 10 per cent of the population.

They were replaced by the 'Beaker people' who seem to have originated in Central Europe. In the absence of any evidence of a major conflict, some archaeologists suggest that they brought with them a disease or diseases to which the native people had no resistance. Some have even suggested it might have been bubonic plague, which returned with such devastating effect during the 300 years or so from 1348.  (See my posts of  3 and 25 April.)

If the theory is right, it would mirror what happened to the Aztecs, the Incas and the Maya, who were conquered not so much by Spanish conquistadors as by the smallpox and other diseases they brought with them.

Britain's 20 Worst Military Disasters 4 - the Anglo-Saxon Conquest

Germanic raiders who became known collectively as ‘Saxons’ had been attacking England since the 3^rd century, but after the Romans left at the beginning of the 5^th century, one of the Britons’ leaders, named Vortigern, had the bright idea of hiring Saxons as mercenaries to fight the Picts and Scots who had been raiding northern England.

So in 449, the brothers Hengest and Horsa arrived in Kent.   They were very successful against the Picts and Scots, but when the Britons tried to defy their increasing demands for land, the Saxons fought and heavily defeated their employers, perhaps at Aylesford in Kent in 455.

Two years later, the Britons suffered an even more decisive defeat, perhaps at Crayford.   They are said to have lost 4,000 killed, while the survivors ‘fled to London in great terror’.  

In the late fifth or early sixth century, the Britons had a series of successes, perhaps under King Arthur, but the year 577 saw another crushing defeat at Dyrham, near Bath, where three British kings were killed, and by 600 most of what had been Roman Britain was in Saxon hands.

*This is an interview with me on British Forces Broadcasting about my new book – Britain’s 20 Worst Military Disasters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIpb64ZpBno

British Military Disasters 1- the Battle of the Medway AD43

Over the next few weeks, I am going to be blogging about the military disasters featured in my new book – Britain’s 20 Worst Military Disasters (The History Press).

According to some estimates, 40,000 Roman legionaries and auxiliaries were confronted by 80,000 Ancient Britons as they tried to cross the Medway in AD43.    If those figures are right, this would be the second biggest battle ever fought in Britain.

The Britons were taken by surprise when a detachment of auxiliaries managed to swim across the river and start attacking their horses.    Taking advantage of the chaos this caused, a force of legionaries under the future emperor Vespasian crossed on the opposite flank.

Even so, the British resisted doggedly and the battle went into a second day, something highly unusual for those times, and perhaps testimony to the large number of men involved.   On day two, the Romans used boats and a pontoon bridge to reinforce their bridgehead, but in a determined counter-attack the British captured a number of officers and for a time looked as though they might win.

Eventually, though, the Romans’ superior organisation won the day, and soon after the Roman emperor Claudius came over to take the surrender of 11 British kings, laying the foundations for nearly 400 years of Roman rule.