• General Notes

  There is some question the historical vs. lengendary quality of Hengest.
  
  The traditional story is that with the fall of Roman imperial rule, the heartland of ritain came under threat from three sources: the Irish, the Picts and the Saxons. he time came when one of the high kings, VORTIGERN, decided to pit at least one against the other and he invited Hengest and his warriors to aid in the fight against the Picts. The date usually attributed to this is 449 but it has been suggested to be as early as 428, or as late as the 470s, the later date being the more likely. Hengest and is brother Horsa (both names mean horse, Hengest being more strictly stallion) ageed to help provided they could bring over more warriors. Traditionally they laded at Ebbsfleet, by the Isle of Thanet, but this may not have been the site of their first landing. Older chronicles refer only to their landing in the east and, since le battle was against the Picts, it is probable that Vortigern arranged for them to meet him much further north, perhaps as far as the territory of the Gododdin (see ;UNEDDA). The mercenaries did their job well. It is suggested that Hengest emained at his base and despatched his son oisc in charge of a contingent to fight the Picts, whilst his cousin (or nephew), Ebissa, took the fleet to battle the Irish. In return for this Hengest bargained for land, and Vortigern gave them the island of Thanet, in east Kent.
  
  It is tempting to connect this Hengest with the Hengest the Half-Dane referred to the epic poem Beowulf. Here we see Hengest as an exiled Frisian prince who rebels against the Danish hegemony and becomes the leader of a band of mercenary warriors. It is not a large step to presume that Hengest and his band fled Frisia and made their way to Britain, perhaps Kent, where trade had long existed with the continent.
  
  Another legend states that Vortigern became infatuated with Hengest's daughter, Hrothwine (or Ronwen), and Hengest was prepared to give her in marriage to Vortigern in exchange for land. Vortigern thereupon handed Hengest the land of the Cantii, then ruled by a Briton called GWYRANGON. This was unlikely to be the whole of Kent as we know it today, hut the land around Canterbury and the marshland towards Thanet. This area certainly has the oldest archeological evidence of Germanic settlement in Britain, suggesting that tradesmen and craftsmen from the northern coast of Saxony had been settling there throughout the fifth century.
  
  After six years, during which time Hengest consolidated his new kingdom, and established his forces, the lutes struck out for more land. There were a series of battles, at one of which Horsa was killed (traditionally at Aylesford, near Maidstone), where the British were driven out of Kent and into London, and Hengest thereafter claimed the whole of Kent. They possibly conquered land further west into Sussex and as far as the Isle of Wight, since the people of Wight claimed a common stock with those of Kent.
  
  The ASC refers to a few further battles over the years as Hengest establishes his control over southeastern Britain, by which time his own success encouraged others to chance their arm in Britain so that by the end of the fifth century the conquests of AELLE and Cerdic are being recorded. Hengest's death is recorded in 488 which must have placed him into his late sixties at least. Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose history is always suspect but tempting, states that Hengest was killed and buried at Knaresborough.
  
  Whilst there is no great reason to doubt Hengest's existence, it is also dangerous to read too much into the written record. The balance of evidence would suggest he was a real warrior who, by subterfuge, laid claim to Kent in the mid-late fifth century and opened the way to other Germanic conquerors.

Details of Hengest's family