VORTIGERN
Photo via Pinterest though the subject of many weird legends, may safely be regarded as an historical figure, the ruler of South-eastern Britain at the time of the first English settlement. According to Gildas, the piteous appeal to Ætius in 446 was followed by a British victory over the barbarians of the north; soon, however, it was rumoured that the latter were again about to attack the province, and the Britons were in despair. It was then decided by the ‘haughty tyrant’ and his ‘counsellors’ to invite the aid of the Saxons, who came in three keels and, ‘iubente infausto tyranno,’ settled in the eastern part of the island. The Picts and Scots defeated, the newcomers turned upon the Britons and devastated the whole country. In this account, the earliest extant, of the circumstances which led to the English settlement, the name of the British ‘tyrant’ is withheld (though two of the manuscripts repair the omission), after a fashion not uncommon in Gildas. Nevertheless ...