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As the fifth Christian century dawned, so the end of an era was abut to materialise. Beset by threats to his empire, Emperor Honorius was forced to abandon his British colony. Britain was only a distant outpost ruled over by Rome, yet it had long swallowed up manpower and money. Then, sometime around AD 446, the 'Groans of the Britons' were said to have been heard in Rome as the 'natives' made one last, desperate attempt to gain Roman help in defending their shores from foreign attack. Help was not forthcoming, though, and so the vacuum was filled by Vortigern.
Vortigern was a mighty, mysterious figure who is thought to have established control of southern England. His true story, however, will probably never be known. According to legend, he was a usurping overlord. The cleric Gildas, who wrote in the sixth century, referred to him as the 'proud tyant' and mentioned that he called for Saxon aid to defend his kingdom from the onslaughts of the Picts in the north. Thus assistance arrived in the form of three longships containing bands of fighting men. The Saxons were offered land in exchange for their battlefield endeavours. Gildas noted that eventually they sided with the Picts and both then wreaked devastation on the Britons. This sorry state of affairs continued until, at last, an heroic leader emerged in the form of Ambrosius Aurelianus. Later, in another version of events, the author known as Nennius mentioned Vortigern by name.
A patchwork affair, Nennius's History of the Britons details the exploits of a great British king who brought to the south-east the mercenary armies of Hengist and Horsa. They fought as allies and Kent was their stronghold. It is claimed this stronghold was won as part of the deal that saw Vortigern marry Hengist's daughter. Another eighth-century writer, the monk Bede, told a similar tale concluding that some time between AD 449 and AD 456, Hengist and Horsa fell out with Vortigern. Then, at the turn of the thirteenth century, another cleric-writer, Layamon, gave his version of events. He stated that around the year AD449 Vortigern called on the Jutes to support him in his struggle against the Picts. He also mentions Vortigern's marriage to Rowena, daughter of the Jute leader, Hengist.
So, who was Vortigern and when and where did he reign? He was possibly born into a noble family in north-west England in the latter years of the fourth century and he flourished in the years AD425-50. Vortigern was at the height of his power when two French bishops arrived in England. Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus of Troyes had been sent by their superior in Gaul to counter the heresies of a man named Pelagius. The nature and outcome of this theological conflict faded away, quite unlike Vortigern's military conflicts. Vortigern's name came to be inextricably linked with the initially successful, ultimately costly, ploy that was to see the Saxon mercenaries turn on the British in the middle years of the fifth century.
The great Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, begun 400 years later, asserts that successive battlefield defeats in AD 455, 457, 465 and 473 forced Britons to flee, some into exile across the English Channel. Geoffrey of Monmouth's thirteenth-century catalogue of British kings states, however, that Vortigern ousted Constans from his rightful place as leading power in the land. Geoffrey also records how later the biter was bit: Vortigern was cast aside by his own son, Vortimer, but Vortigern's time in exile lasted only as long as it took for his wife to poison her stepson, Vortimer. Even then the 'proud tyrant' was not safe and so events turned full circle with Aurelius Ambrosius, the son of King Constans, deposing his father's usurper.