PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON ROMAN BRITAIN One western province seems to form an exception to the general rule.

In Britain, as it is described by the majority of English writers, we have a province in which Roman and native were as distinct as modern Englishman and Indian, and 'the departure of the Romans' in the fifth century left the Britons almost as Celtic as their coming had found them.

The adoption of this view may be set down, I think, to various reasons which have, in themselves, little to do with the subject.

The older archaeologists, familiar with the early wars narrated by Caesar and Tacitus, pictured the whole history of the island as consisting of such struggles.

Later writers have been influenced by the analogies of English rule in India.