The British History Podcast

A whirlwind tour of the 70,000 years of the history of Britain, taking us through pre-historic Britain and landing us finally at the eve of Julius Caesar’s invasions of Britannia. You will learn about the early beginnings of England, Scotland, and Wales while also getting a sense of what ice age Britain was like. For example, did you know that we had woolly mammoths and giant deer?

56 BCE to 55 BCE. Julius Caesar is coming to Britain, and he’s bringing his friends. He claimed that he wanted to punish the Celtic warriors from Britain for interferring with his Gallic wars, but modern scholars suspect that he was simply trying to bolster his resume. Whatever the case, one of the most famous generals in Roman history is coming to our island at the edge of the world. And the Britons are waiting for him.

55 BCE. Julius Caesar with the 7th and 10th Legions are trying to subjugate the Britons. The key word here is “trying.” The celts of Britain aren’t going down without a fight and it seems that the elements are on their side. This episode you’re going to learn about one of the worst days of Caesar’s Gallic wars. Certainly not the worst day of his life, that awful day on the Senate floor has that dubious honor, but it was still pretty bad. The question is, would he be able to turn thing around?

54 BCE. Julius Caesar is returning to Britain. And Cassivellaunus isn’t excited about it. However, this time Caesar is bringing over 800 ships with him. This isn’t a minor expedition, Caesar is coming in force. This is a clash of titans and we will see if the Celtic warrior culture and it’s focus on heroic combat can effectively compete with the ordered machine of war that Rome was famous for.

We are rocking through about 100 years of history… from about 54 BCE to 42 CE, and we will cover the events that eventually lead to the Roman Occupation of Britannia. The major characters of this episode will be Octavius Augustus, Caligula, Cassius Chaerea, Claudius, Caractacus and Verica. A lot of time has passed since Caesar left these shores and became a human pin cushion. But despite being distracted by internal troubles, Britannia wasn’t fully forgotten in the Roman halls of power. In this episode we are going to learn about Caligula’s ambitions in Britain, and with the rise of Emperor Claudius the stage is set for another clash of titans between the warrior tribes of Britain and the Roman Empire.

This episode covers the invasion of Britannia in 42 CE by emperor Claudius. Emperor Claudius, driven by politics and a need to establish his value, has dispatched the Second, Ninth, Fourteenth, and Twentieth legions to Britannia. The British warriors tribes managed to hold their own against the power of Rome twice before, and against Rome’s most famous General, but will they be able to withstand the sheer destruction that four legions can bring? Only time will tell.

This episode will cover the years 42 to 54 CE The Governance of Aulus Plautius is over and a new Governor is brought to command, and subjugate, the Britons. A brutal man named Publius Ostorius Scapula. But the British resistance was not over. Caractacus might have lost the fight against Plautius, but he wasn’t defeated. The fight for Britain continues.

This episode covers the years 54 CE to 60 CE There is a new Emperor ruling over Rome. What impact will this have upon how Britain, one of the Empire’s newest properties, is administered. Meanwhile, how will the tribes within Britain, such as the Kingdom of the Brigante, cope with the brewing cultural conflict between the Britons and the Romans? This episode will address those questions and will also talk about how Romanization was carried out, and the sheer chaos that would have created among the Britons.

This episode focuses upon the year 60 and the story of the queen of the Iceni. Rome’s chickens are coming home to roost. After nearly 20 years of conflict and domination, things are hitting a fever pitch in the first of two episodes that will cover one of Britain’s most famous warleaders, the woman who would challenge the might of Rome. Boudica.

60 CE Having burned several cities to the ground, Boudica and her army of enraged Britons are a seemingly unstoppable force. However, Governor Suetonius has returned from the West, and has marshalled his forces. It was a conflict is so famous that even Tacitus wrote of it… and only one general would come out on top.

70 CE to 78 CE. This episode we’ll be talking about how awful life under Roman Rule was in the first century, the year of the four emperors, and the events that lead up to Agricola.

We’re going to talk about the governorship of Agricola, the Scots, the Irish, and I’m going to say “isthmus” an unreasonable number of times! Here’s a map of Agricola’s advance. HOWEVER the dates listed are the later of the two dates I mention in the podcast. Many historians think that these dates should be one year earlier. (That will make more sense to you after you listen to the podcast).

Ok, I’ll be the first to admit this one is a little confusing. After all, the whole mystery is more than a little confusing. So here is a list of the bits of evidence we’re talking about.

Have you ever wanted to know about Hadrian’s Wall? Have you ever wondered what life was like there, how it was constructed, or even just the basic question of “what exactly is Hadrian’s Wall?” Then this is the podcast for you!

So it’s my birthday this weekend, and so I’m not doing one of my gigantic episodes. However, I thought I’d give you all a present (especially since we now have 500 members on the facebook page) and give you a sneak peak at the members-only content I’m putting together. So here’s the first part of the Early Origins – Celts. I hope you enjoy it!

Rome is going to start expanding her borders. Why? Because why not? Well, it’s actually a little more complicated than that, and we’re going to get into it in this episode. Consequently, Emperor Antoninus will build his own wall in Britain far beyond Emperor Hadrian’s Wall. These Romans were nothing if not competitive. We will have to see what the people of Britain think of this.

Today we’ve got Antoninus, Marcus Aurelias, Russell Crowe… we’ve got it all!

Ok, this one is pretty heavy on Roman intrigue. But it’s necessary to get us to the all the fun stuff in the next one. And besides, while much of what occurs in this episode is on the continent, it is still heavily influenced by the legions in Britannia. So it still counts as British History, right?

The family of Severus brings their own particular brand of family bonding to the shores of our island.

Alright, we are entering the third century. And as we enter it, we cannot help but have the feeling that a profound change has come to the Roman Empire. We will see run away inflation, military insurrection, nearly constant regicide, tyranny, and simultaneous war on both the east and west. Rome is deeply in trouble.

So the Gallic Empire has been defeated and now Britannia was back within the folds of Rome. That was probably more than a little disheartening for the Romano-British. Once again, its rulers were on the other side of the world rather than just on the other side of the channel. The Romano-British were probably getting used to having the attention of Emperor Postumus. After all, Britannia was almost certainly the little jewel in his empire considering how stable and prosperous it was. And now he was dead and the empire was gone…. and they were going to get neglected once again.

Lets talk about Diocletian really quick. Diocletian had claimed that he was divinely appointed by Jupiter and that he was essentially the hand of Jupiter on earth. Members know that this might not have been shocking to the Ancient Celts, since many of their chiefs and monarchs likely had also claimed divine appointment. But this divinity thing was certainly shocking for Rome. So why do it?

Next week we will return to the tale of Carausius and his British Empire, but today is our 25th episode and so I’ll be answering questions submitted by listeners! (I can’t believe it’s already been 25 episodes).

I’m back and so is Carausius! Here we go!

Constantius, throwing caution to the wind, follows in the footsteps of Severus. The featured image here is a bust of Constantius… And I thought I had a big nose.

Oh yeah, we’ve got a real love affair going on here.

Our luck could only hold out so long. And now Britannia is getting a taste of what the rest of the Empire had already come to know.

Things in Britannia just keep getting worse!

There’s some serious name envy going on in this episode.

With special guest Valentinian II.

This one was a beast, but we’re finally done with the Roman occupation of Britannia! But Rome isn’t going to let us go without a serious amount of chaos and general nuttiness.

We’re nearly done with the Romans!

We’re catching up with what was going on beyond the Wall during all of this drama. And to start with, lets talk about how Scotland got its shape and talk a little about the early inhabitants who lived there.

We’re still in Pre-history… there’s a lot of it!

Bronze Age Scotland!

We’re closing out the BC period. Which means we’ve got iron, Celtic culture, and Brochs. Good times!

We’re getting ever closer to uniting the two shows! Today we’re going to cover several hundred years (and about six months of podcasts) in a single show.

Here we have the sixth and final episode of the Scotcast. This will bring us up to 410, where we are in the main podcast, and we will be able to continue forward into the dark ages!