MARCH 2015
CONTENTS
Features
Every month
Find out who really orchestrated the killing of Julius Caesar, on page 32
24 Welcome to Britannia Bronwen Riley opens a window on Britain in AD 130, when relations between the Romans and natives were far from cordial
32 The death of Caesar History has largely ignored one of the masterminds of the plot to kill the great Roman general, says Barry Strauss
38 Dressed for war Charlotte Hodgman explains why fashion ourished on the home front during the Second World War
44 The English ‘colony’ in deepest France Simon Harris and Guilhem Pépin reveal how the duchy of Aquitaine resisted French e orts to crush it for 300 years
51 A seventh wife for Henry VIII? David Baldwin pro les Katherine Willoughby, the woman who almost led the king up the aisle for a seventh time
56 Sex in high places Randy noblemen and cavorting courtesans star in Susan Law’s dissection of the sex scandals that rocked Georgian Britain
6 ANNIVERSARIES 11 HISTORY NOW 1 1 The latest history news
1 4 News feature: Richard III 1 6 Backgrounder: Charlie Hebdo 1 8 Past notes
20 LETTERS 22 MICHAEL WOOD’S VIEW 54 OUR FIRST WORLD WAR 63 BOOKS Experts review new releases,
plus Richard Davenport-Hines discusses his new book on Keynes
77 TV & RADIO The pick of this month’s history programmes
80 OUT & ABOUT 80 History explorer:
the young Shakespeare 84 Ten things to do in March 86 My favourite place: Plovdiv
93 MISCELLANY 93 Q&A and quiz 95 Sam’s recipe corner 96 Prize crossword
98 MY HISTORY HERO OmidDjalilichoosesSamKinison
42 SUBSCRIBE Save 27% when you subscribe* to the digital edition
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COVER STORY
WELCOME TO BRITANNIA
Bronwen Riley takes the pulse of Roman Britain in AD 130 and nds that, 80 years a er the conquest, tensions are still simmering – especially in the borderland around Hadrian’s Wall
BBC History Magazine
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BBC History Magazine
Britannia lay at the northwesternmost boundaries of an empire so vast that it encompassed “the ocean where the sun god rises to the place where he sinks”. Although an imperial province for more than 80 years, ever since the emperor Claudius, accompanied by elephants, claimed it for Rome, in AD 130 Britannia and her inhabitants remained a byword for a remote land and distant people.
For anyone making the perilous journey across to Britannia’s shores, expectations, as far as we can tell, were low. The natives were considered to be uncultured and generally unpromising, though their plain clothes were of most excellent quality wool and their hunting hounds were deemed to be effective, if unprepossessing in looks. The climate, too, left much to be desired. Here was a place where the rain fell, the sun was seldom seen, and a thick mist was said to rise from the marshes “so that the atmosphere in the country is always gloomy”.
Although the crossing from Gesoriacum (Boulogne) to Rutupiae (Richborough in Kent) was comparatively short (somewhere between six and eight hours), the symbolic distance was immense. For to set foot on a
Hadrian’s Wall dissects the countryside of northern England. By AD 130, the wall’s turf sections were being rebuilt in stone and many adaptations being carried out, a sure sign that trouble was afoot
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51 The woman who almost wed Henry VIII
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38 Why gas masks and rationing weren’t a barrier to looking good in the Second World War
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