not tarry to discuss whether Londinium originally was in _Cantium_
or Kent the place fixed by Ptolemy and some other ancient writers
of good authority, or whether its original place were Middlesex, or
whether situated both north and south of the _Tamesis_ Thames. The
_Trinobantes_ occupied Middlesex and Essex, they joined in opposing
the invasion of Julius Cæsar 54 B.C.; but were among the first of the
British States who submitted to the Romans their new City at that time
being too inconsiderable a place for Cæsar to mention. Having revolted
from the Roman yoke they joined their beautiful Queen Boadicea and were
defeated by Suetonius Paulinus near London A.D. 61. But before reducing
the Trinobantes who had the Thames for their southern boundary, it is
the opinion of some antiquarians that the Romans probably had a station
to secure their conquests on the Surrey side, and the spot fixed upon
for the station is St. George's in the Fields a large plot of ground
situated between Lambeth and Southwark, where many Roman coins, bricks,
chequered pavements and other fragments of antiquity have been found.
Three Roman ways from Kent, Surrey and Middlesex intersected each
other in this place. It is thought that after the Normans reduced the
Trinobantes the place became neglected and that they afterwards settled
on the other side of the Thames and the name was transferred to the
New City. The author of a work entitled "London in Ancient and Modern
times." p.p. 12 and 13 writes.--Let the reader picture to himself the
aspect of the place now occupied by the great Metropolis, as the Romans
saw it on their first visit. He should imagine the Counties of Kent and
Essex, now divided by the Thames, partially overflowed in the vicinity
of the river by an arm of the sea, so that a broad estuary comes up
as far as Greenwich, and the waters spread on both sides washing the
foot of the Kentish uplands to the south, and finding a boundary to the
north in the gently rising ground of Essex. The mouth of the river,
properly speaking was situated three or four miles from where London
Bridge now stands. Instead of being confined between banks as at
present, the river overflowed extensive marshes, which lay both right
and left beyond London. Sailing up the broad stream, the voyager would
find the waters spreading far on either side of him, as he reached the
spots now known as Chelsea and Battersea--a fact of which the record
is preserved in their very names. A tract of land rises on the north
side of the river. It is bounded to the west by a range of country,
subject to inundations, consisting of beds of rushes and osiers and
boggy grounds and impenetrable thickets, intersected by streams. It is
bounded to the north by a large dense forest, rising on the edge of a
waste fen or lake, covering the whole district now called Finsbury and
stretching away for miles beyond. This tract of land, rising in a broad
knoll, formed the site of London.
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