From a Mercenary Mutiny to a Massive Invasion and Conquest
The Saxons soon grew dissatisfied with Vortigern’s concessions. They launched a war of conquest that sought to seize the entire province, displace the locals, and replace them with Germanic settlers. They were joined by Angles, from today’s Schleswig-Holstein, between Germany and Denmark, plus Jutes, from today’s Jutland in Denmark and Lower Saxony in Germany. The onslaught lasted for about thirty years, until the Britons won a crucial victory at the Battle of Mons Badonicus, sometime around 500. That temporarily stopped the invaders, who by then had overrun about half of what had been the Roman province of Britain. It was this period of warfare that gave rise to stories of King Arthur, the heroic monarch who led the Britons against the Saxons.
Although King Arthur is mythological, archaeological evidence supports a Saxon setback around 500. The pattern of Saxon settlement steadily expanding westward and replacing the Britons, suddenly reversed. Briton settlements began to expand eastwards, displace the Saxons, and reclaim previously lost lands. Thus, accounts of a major Briton victory sometime around 500 are probably true. The Britons’ reprieve proved only temporary, however. The Anglo-Saxons recovered, resumed their expansion at the expense of the Britons, and eventually conquered and settled nearly all of what is now England. The indigenous Britons lost their most productive lands, and their last independent remnants were pushed into the peripheral regions of Cornwall and Wales.