The Triumvirate, comprising Casear, Pompey, and Marcus Linius Crassus, had held a conference during the spring of 56 BCE, as Rome was in turmoil and Caesar's political alliance was coming undone.

The meeting had renewed the Triumvirate and extended Caesar's governorship for another five years.

The conquest of the north is soon completed, while a few pockets of resistance remain.

Caesar now has a secure base from which to launch an invasion of Britain.

Caesar crosses into Britain in August 55 with eighty transports and two legions, claiming that the Britons had aided one of his enemies the previous year, possibly the Veneti of Brittany.

His intelligence information is poor, and although he gains a beachhead on the coast between Deal and Walmer, where high tides swamp and damage many of his ships, he cannot advance further, and returns to Gaul for the winter, having accomplished little but gaining great publicity.