Let Herr Dernburg study the history of the Cinque Ports, or of any of the seafaring towns of South Devon and Cornwall, and he will find that sporadic raids and bombardments were frequent enough in mediæval, Tudor, and even later times; but for any invasion that did not meet in some degree with the approval of the country he will search in vain after he has passed the landmark of 1066. Even the Norman conquest was achieved through the lack of that real national cohesion which could not come to pass within such a brief period as the interval between the last Danish invasion and the death of Edward the Confessor. Great Britain and Ireland in 1915 show a united front to the invader, and the inevitable fate of any force that has the temerity to set hostile feet on British soil will be the same as that of General Tate and his 1,400 men in the year 1797. There is such a widespread lack of exact knowledge on the subject of the invasions of England that this new edition, at a popular price, of a volume concerned with the whole of them, from Cæsar to Napoleon, may help to clear a good many minds of misconceptions. E. F. G. H. PREFACE Since the year 1794, when England seethed with excitement through fear of a French Republican invasion, no book has been produced dealing with the invasions of England. The historical and archæological work of the century that has passed has shed so much light on dark and shadowy periods of English history that the materials available for a new work on the subject have become increasingly extensive, and the authors have endeavoured to take full advantage of all this new material. They have, either together or separately, visited all the important, and many of the minor, battle sites and campaign areas mentioned in the text, and, as a result of close study, they have in certain instances arrived at conclusions at variance with those generally accepted. By careful topographical work, aided by every shred of historical evidence available, the authors venture to hope that they may have thrown a little new light upon the great campaign in which the Roman general Paulinus crushed the British struggle for independence under Boudicca. They have also devoted much time and thought to the elucidation of the problem of the identity of the heroes of the Romano-British contests with the oncoming Teutons, and to the areas of their chief military operations. After much consideration and study of the available authorities, they have arrived at the conclusion, which they have not hesitated to express, that Arthur, or Artorius, is a well-established historical figure. One of the authors has, through his family’s territorial connection with the Eastern Border, had exceptional opportunities for becoming familiar with the topography of the wild and intricate region in which both are inclined to place the fields of at least four, and perhaps six, of Arthur’s twelve famous victories.