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Roman Britain: geopolitics begins
In 1913 Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, told the Australians and New
Zealanders that Europe was “where the weather came from.” He meant the
geopolitical weather. During our early history, we can be more specific. As we saw
above, the geopolitical weather would come from the Roman Empire, Christian
Ireland, the homes of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in Germany and southern
Denmark, the Denmark of King Cnut, the Norway of King Harold Hardrada, and the
Normandy of Duke William. Just like the actual weather, geopolitics came at us from
many directions.
As we’ll see next session, historians have recently revised their view of the motives
for the Roman invasion. They were a Mediterranean sea-faring people; for them, the
doom-laden seas around Britain held a particular terror. Yet paradoxically, this gave
the offshore islands a special religious significance. This could hold the key to their
true motives for conquering.
