The Roman conquest of Britain was the conquest of the island of Britain by occupying Roman forces. It began in earnest in AD 43 under Emperor Claudius, and was largely completed in the southern half of Britain (most of England and Wales) by 87 when the Stanegate was established. Attempts to conquer Scotland in succeeding centuries met with little sustained success. The Roman army was generally recruited in Italia, Hispania, and Gaul. To control the English Channel they used the newly formed fleet. The Romans under their general Aulus Plautius first forced their way inland in several battles against British tribes, including the Battle of the Medway, the Battle of the Thames, and in later years Caratacus's last battle and the Roman conquest of Anglesey. Following a widespread uprising in AD 60 in which Boudica sacked Camulodunum, Verulamium and Londinium, the Romans suppressed the rebellion in the Defeat of Boudica. They went on eventually to push as far north as central Caledonia in the Battle of Mons Graupius. Even after Hadrian's Wall was established as the border, tribes in Scotland and northern England repeatedly rebelled against Roman rule and forts continued to be maintained across northern Britain to protect against these attacks. Background In common with other regions on the edge of the empire, Britain had enjoyed diplomatic and trading links with the Romans in the century since Julius Caesar's expeditions in 55 and 54 BC, and Roman economic and cultural influence was a significant part of the British late pre-Roman Iron Age, especially in the south. Between 55 BC and the 40s AD, the status quo of tribute, hostages, and client states without direct military occupation, begun by Caesar's invasions of Britain, largely remained intact. Augustus prepared invasions in 34 BC, 27 BC and 25 BC. The first and third were called off due to revolts elsewhere in the empire, the second because the Britons seemed ready to come to terms. According to Augustus's Res Gestae, two British kings, Dubnovellaunus and Tincomarus, fled to Rome as supplicants during his reign, and Strabo's Geographica, written during this period, says Britain paid more in customs and duties than could be raised by taxation if the island were conquered. By the 40s AD, the political situation within Britain was in ferment. The Catuvellauni had displaced the Trinovantes as the most powerful kingdom in south-eastern Britain, taking over the former Trinovantian capital of