Vortigern then began to compass the destruction of the King, for his own purposes; he took the treasury into his own custody; he raised a bodyguard for the King of 100 Picts, whom he lavishly paid and maintained; he filled them with suspicions that if he were gone they would lose their pay. One evening, therefore, they rose—this bodyguard of Picts,—seized the King and beheaded him. This was in London. Vortigern, pretending great grief, called together the citizens of London and told them what had been done. As no one of the royal House was at hand, he elected himself and crowned himself King.
In 447 the country was overrun by Picts and Scots; there was also a famine followed by a pestilence. In 448 Germanus, a holy priest, led the Britons out to fight, and gave them a splendid victory over the enemy. But when Germanus went away the Picts and Scots came back again.
Vortigern invited the Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes to come over and settle. They came; Hengist led them: they defeated the Picts and Scots: they invited more of their own people. Vortigern, who already had a wife and children, fell in love with Rowena, daughter of Hengist, and married her, to the disgust of the people.
KING AND COURTIERS
Cædman’sMetrical Paraphrase, Bodleian Library.
Vortigern was deserted by the nobles, who made his son Vortimer King; but he was poisoned in the year 460 and died in London, where he was buried.
In 461 occurred the great slaughter of Britons by Hengist at Amesbury.
In 462, the Saxons imprisoned Vortigern until he gave up all his cities in ransom. They seized on London, York, Winchester, and Lincoln, destroying churches and murdering priests.
Then the Britons sent ambassadors to Brittany, entreating Aurelius and Uther Pendragon to come over.
The Prophecy of Merlin, which is attached to the year 465, is clearly a late production: it foretells, for instance—being wise after the event,—that the dignity of London shall be transferred to Canterbury; it also speaks of the gates of London, which are to be kept by a brazen man mounted on a brazen horse.