16. The Background to Camelot
In the early fifth century, the Roman Empire was invaded by barbarians on multiple fronts. So Roman legions were withdrawn from the far off province of Britain, to defend territories deemed more important. The legions never came back, and Roman Britain was left on its own. The Romano-Britons were beset by their own invaders, most significantly the Picts in Scotland, and Saxons from across the North Sea. The locals reasoned that it takes a thief to catch a thief, and decided to hire Saxon mercenaries and settle them in Britain, to defend them from other Saxons and similar barbarians. It turned out to be a terrible idea.
Once the Saxons settled in and got comfortable, they decided they wanted more. So they accused their hosts of failing to meet their side of the deal, by shortchanging the Saxons on promised supplies. The Romano-Britons sent their leaders to try and negotiate with the Saxons. Unfortunately, the Saxons’ idea of negotiation was to suddenly pull out their daggers mid-talks, and massacre the native leaders. They spared just one Romano-Briton bigwig, a certain Vortigern, and kept him alive as a puppet ruler in exchange for his promise to grant the Saxons more territory. In the war that followed, as the Saxons seized more and more land from the locals, a legend arose of a mythical British leader, King Arthur, who valiantly fought the invaders.
