Vortigern
Videos
Vortigern, also spelled Vortiger, Vortigan, Voertigern and Vortigen, was a 5th-century warlord in Britain, known perhaps as a king of the Britons or at least connoted as such in the writings of Bede and Gildas. His existence is contested by scholars and information about him is obscure.
Detail from Lambeth Palace Library MS 6 folio 43v illustrating an episode in Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1136). Pictured above, Vortigern sits at the edge of a pool whence two dragons emerge, [a crimson dragon representing Uther Pendragon defeating the white dragon that represents Vortigern] which do battle in his presence.
The First Meeting of Vortigern and Rowena, painted by William Hamilton
The Pillar of Eliseg
Hengist and Horsa
Videos
Hengist and Horsa are Germanic brothers said to have led the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in their supposed invasion of Britain in the 5th century. Tradition lists Hengist as the first of the Jutish kings of Kent.
The brothers in Edward Parrott's Pageant of British History (1909)
Hengist from John Speed's 1611 "Saxon Heptarchy"
Hengist and Horsa arriving in Britain, as depicted by Richard Rowlands (1605)
Vortigern and Rowena, by William Hamilton (1793)