This had been one of the most thickly-populated Roman regions, containing the important stations of Camalodunum, London, and Verulam.

But we know nothing, even by report, of its conquest.

Beyond it, and separated by the fenland of the Lea, lay the outlying little principality of Middlesex.

The upper reaches of the Thames were still in the hands of the Welsh natives, for the great merchant city of London blocked the way for the pirates to the head-waters of the river.
On the south side of the estuary lay the Jutish principalities of East and West Kent, including the strong Roman posts of Rhutupiae, Dover, Rochester, and Canterbury.

The great forest of the Weald and the Romney Marshes separated them from Sussex; and the insular positions of Thanet and Sheppey had always special attractions for the northern pirates.
Beyond the marshes, again, the strip of southern shore, between the downs and the sea, as far as Hayling Island, fell into the hands of the South Saxons, whose boundary to the east was formed by Romney Marsh, and to the west by the flats near Chichester, where the forest runs down to the tidal swamp by the sea.