Trinovantes

This is a spiritual place, a really meaningful place in the landscape.

And it is believed that the Iron Age tribes, one of them in particular, the Trinovantes?

Trinovantes,

that's

right.

Yeah, and what did they do here? Well, this is where they supposedly elected their leader, which is just wild to think about, right? They're all standing here, choosing who's going to be king.

Now, obviously, with the Trinovantes, they occupied parts of Essex and Suffolk.

And we know that they also joined forces with Boudicca in 61 AD, which is kind of cool, isn't it? Yeah.

Then he becomes very prosaic.

Or rather, to be entirely prosaic, on the wet afternoon of the nons of May in the year, as it was computed later, of our Lord, 273, In the city of Colchester, Helena, red-haired, youngest daughter of Cole, as in old King Cole, paramount chief of the Trinovantes, gazed into the rain while her tutor read the Iliad of Homer in a Latin paraphrase.

he he says in his own preface to the book look we don't know where Helena was born so we might as well say it's it's England and and there has been this tradition that she was born in it rather Britain I should say that she was British um so that's his starting point and so Helena goes on this journey from Colchester across the whole of Christendom to the Holy Land and all of the story flows from there there's one other part which I'm sure you'll appreciate here Father Toby one of Evelyn Wall's great jokes where he's just setting the scene and he says the mood at once resentful, abstracted and yet very remotely tinged with the awe of British youth in contact with the classics I thought that was absolutely

wonderful that's absolutely wonderful

That is the moment this stops being a story about debt and becomes an actual war.

Boudicca raises the Esseni, neighboring tribes join her, especially the Trinovantes, who have been watching Roman veterans take their land around Colchester for years.

The timing is perfect because the Roman governor, Suetonius Paulinus, is on the far side of Britain with most of the army, attacking the island of Anglesey.

Now, the first target is Colchester.

Around the year 49, Rome turned it into a colony for legionary veterans.

Their pension was land.

British land taken from the local tribe, the Trinovantes.

And according to Tacitus, the veterans didn't stop at the land grants.

This outrage aroused the Iceni to revenge, and every man took a solemn oath to avenge this brutal wrong inflicted upon their queen and family.

The Trinobantes next raised the war cry, and in every part of the island where the injuries of the Queen of the Iceni became known, the indignant Britons crowded around the standard of revolt, eager for the blood of the Roman barbarians.

Carnelodunum, or London, was the only town that remained loyal, but even there the Romans were not safe.

Throughout the whole island an indiscriminate massacre of men, women, and children took place, and in one instance a legion of the Roman army, attempting to stay the dreadful retribution of the Iceni, were all slaughtered to a man.

Twenty.

Meanwhile the Trinovantes, about the strongest tribe in that part of the country, sent envoys to Caesar, promising to surrender and obey his commands.

Mandobrasius, a young chief of this tribe, whose father had been their king and had been put to death by Cassivellaunus, but who saved his own life by flight, had gone to the continent to join Caesar, and thrown himself upon his protection.

The Trinovantes begged Caesar to protect Mandobrasius from harm at the hands of Cassivellaunus, and to send him to rule over his own people with full powers.

Caesar sent Mandobrasius, but ordered them to furnish forty hostages and grain for his army.

They promptly obeyed his commands, sending hostages to the number required and also the grain.

Twenty-one.

As the Trinovantes had been granted protection and immunity from all injury on the part of the soldiers, the Cenomani, Segontiaci, Encolites, Bibrosi, and Cassi sent embassies to Caesar and surrendered.

That is the site that needs to be captured.

So it's the Trinovantes tribe around Colchester, they're identified as the enemy.

They're the ones that are stamped on.

They're the ones that s- are subjected, whereas the Catuvellauni, just to, um, the, the west of those around St Albans, they're treated as friends and as allies.

I mean, one of the, the...

They, they, they decide they need overwhelming force.

So one of the things that they do is, uh, this, the 20th Legion at that stage is still over in Essex at Colchester, uh, over the Trinovantes.

Uh, they bring them forward.

In the southeast of the country, a great army is on the move.

Mostly, they're a blend of two indigenous Celtic tribes, the Trinovantes and the Iceni.

But their Roman overlords will call them rebels.

The Romans have occupied the island since 43 CE.

Perhaps you remember from the beginning of our story that the veterans were known for their brutality towards the Britons.

They'd also built a temple in honor of the Roman emperor, paid for through taxation of the local population.

The city had been the capital of the Trinovantes tribe, who joined the Iceni in the rebellion.

The two tribes were neighbors and shared many of the same grievances against the Romans.