A History of Roman Lancashire

Nothing is known of the territorial or political organisation until just before the Roman Conquest. Then, most of the region north of the Mersey and the Yorkshire Don was controlled by the Brigantes Celtic people whose name appears to mean 'the hill dwellers'.
In origin probably just one of many groups living in northern England, the Brigantes eventually achieved dominance by conquest and political strategy and ruled a confederation of semi-autonomous smaller tribes. Some of these other peoples are known by name, they included the Setantii, whose territory perhaps lay on the Lancashire plain and adjacent foothills but Brigantia's tribal centre was in the Aldborough area north of York, and it is doubtful whether close central control was exercised over its more remote western fringes.

The Romans invaded southern England in A.D. 43, but it was another quarter of a century before they engaged in serious military activity in the north west. Initially they entered into an alliance with the Brigantian queen, Cartimandua, which gave them a reasonably secure northern frontier and allowed the subjugation of most of Wales to proceed unhindered. The discovery in Lancashire of small numbers of coins dating from the 50s and 60s imply a limited Roman presence here, perhaps associated with brief interventions on behalf of Cartimandua during Brigantian political struggles. However, in the late 60s a more serious, though intermittent, civil war broke out between the queen and her anti-Roman former husband, Venutius. This posed a major security threat to the Romans and in 69 they invaded Brigantia, following this in 71-84 by concerted military action to conquer all of northern England. Brigantia was destroyed as a separate entity and Lancashire, with the lands further north and east, formally became part of the empire.

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