How exactly did it come about? I’ve heard several stories, from the Romans were defeated, the British revolted against them, to the Romans just packed up and left. How and when did the Roman rule in Britain come to and end?
I can’t imagine where you might have heard that the Romans were defeated by the British; there was essentially no native opposition to the Romans as such by the time they left. There were revolts by the Romano-British trying to set up a local lad as emperor - which Constantine III came reasonably close to achieving - Wiki has it pretty much right. The last garrison left in 407 AD, accompanying Constantine III to Gaul, leaving the locals to their own devices. They pleaded for help from Rome itself against Picts and Scots but were rejected in 410 (hardly surprising as Rome had been under seige from the Visigoths since 408 and in fact fell later in 410) so clearly had no problem with the Romans.
Many Romano-British went to nearby parts of Gaul to escape, giving that area its current name Brittany.
And then, according to Gibbon, the Romano-British called in the Saxons and Angels to help them with the Scots and Picts. Whereafter the Saxons and Angels decided they wanted England for themselves and drove out the Romano-British.
There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
They packed up and left.
Didn’t Geoffrey of Monmouth’s history of Britain contain a fanciful story that the British invaded Italy and sacked Rome?
Crazy question: might a number of British lads have sailed for Italy, did a little looting, as Visigoth auxilleries or something, and come home? Thus, Geoffrey would merely be confused? Just like the soccer hooligans?
In Books IX and X, Arthur declares war on Rome (after Rome demands tribute and that Arthur surrender himself for justice for his crimes of taking over almost all of Western Europe), and his army defeats the Roman army and kills Lucius Tiberius, but before he can march on Rome, he finds that his nephew Modred, who he put in charge, has claimed the throne for himself and married Arthur’s queen. So Arthur goes back to England to put down the rebellion.
Then Arthur and Modred are both killed, and England is racked by civil war as Arthur’s successor Constantine fights Modred’s sons and the Saxons that Modred invited over. He defeats Modred’s sons, and then murders them in the churches to which they fled asking for sanctuary.
Then Constantine is killed by Conan, who takes the throne, and Britain is again wracked by civil war. After him, the next king is Wortiporius, who defeats the Saxons. After his death is King Malgo who was “addicted very much to the detestable vice of sodomy, by which he made himself abominable to God” (addicted to sodomy…that’s just a great phrase)
Then after him is King Careticus, who’s a weak king, and Saxons plot against him, bringing into their plots the King of the Africans (who had taken over Ireland). The King of the Africans then invades England and takes it over, and then gives it to the Saxons, and the Britons retreat into Wales and Cornwall.
That’s all according to Monmouth, at least.
Having gone back and checked the book, when the British actually besieged Rome was during its Republican days, according to Geoffrey, when Brennius marched an army through Italy.
That was actually an army of Gauls who sacked Rome in 390 BC. It’s the event that set the Romans off on their way to becoming a world power because they said “never again”.
I bet that was the Angles (as in Anglo-Saxon), and not a band of heavenly beings.
The Britons were just confused. They didn’t realize they were getting guardian Angles
Basically, they abandoned Britain as part of the general collapse of the Western Empire – the immediate reason was that the Roman commander in Britain took his troops across the Channel in a bid to make himself Emperor, but that was just the specific event that precipitated the inevitable.
under pressure to find troops to defend their core territory the Romans pulled out of what had always been a peripheral part of the Empire and told them to make arrangements to defend themselves as best they could, until the situation improved.
You were beaten to the punch by about 1,500 years
I’ve often wondered – especially since visiting Bath in England – what it was like there after the Romans left. How sudden was it? How did the locals react? Joy and celebration? Dismay? A bit of both?
The people of Britain were thoroughly Romanized. I can imagine them having a slightly positive feeling about it, in the same way you might feel positively about your governor running for president, perhaps.
As I said, within 3 years they were begging for help from Rome against various invaders, so I don’t think there was much joy.
Maybe the British population included its share of headbangers and thrash metal fans who were bored with civilization and rejoiced seeing it dismantled by barbarian invasions. More opportunities for beating people up.
Oh great, now I have Dee Snyder and Ozzy Osbourne sacking Rome and destroying Western Civilization. Again.
What always amazed me is how little of a mark the Romans left on the native languages. The Vikings left a huge impression after their invasion and (partial) conquest, but it would take the Norman French, who came roughly six centuries after Rome pulled out, to give English its most substantial Romantic influence. It kind of gives one the impression that the British Isles were always a distant backwater far removed from the rest of the Western Empire.