Vortigern

Vortigern appears in medieval British histories as a ruler who gained power after Rome’s withdrawal and invited Saxon mercenaries to Britain. Vortigern held the title of King of the Britons.

The alliance was said to have turned against him, making his name a symbol of failed leadership and the beginning of Anglo-Saxon conquest. The surviving accounts were written long after the fifth century and combine political memory, legend and moral judgement.

Derek Birks’ Britannia makes Vortigern the principal political obstacle facing the newly arrived Ambrosius Aurelianus, treating the exile as a rival who could upset the balance of post-Roman Britain. Land of Fire shows Vortigern building a coalition to destroy Ambrosius as the latter tries to establish a defensible base in the south-west. The bridging novella New Dawn keeps the pressure immediate by placing a price on Ambrosius’s capture as his followers move through hostile territory. Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave approaches the same legendary age through Merlin, setting Vortigern’s fractured Britain against the eventual rise of Ambrosius, Uther and Arthur.