He also mentions a Roman leader of the British called Ambrosius Aurelianus. Gildas, a sixth-century British monk and historian, says it was one of the last major victories of the British against the Saxons. There was an historical battle between the Britons and the Anglo-Saxons around the end of the fifth century, the Battle of Badon Hill. The Romano-British and British Celts were slowly driven more and more towards the west – Wales and Cornwall – by the invasions from the east. The area is under constant attack from the continent, particularly from Saxon invaders. Southern Britain is no longer under Roman rule, and the political situation is chaotic, with lots of warring tribes and small kingdoms. This is the basic setting for the stories of King Arthur. We can safely assume they stopped paying taxes or following Roman laws after that, but there were of course many people from all over the Roman Empire, from Gaul to North Africa to the Middle East, living in Britain still. In 410, the Romano-British supposedly wrote to the Roman Emperor Honorius asking for help against invasions from Saxons, Angles, Jutes and others from the continent, but Honorius wrote back and told them to look after themselves. The Romans occupied various bits of southern Scotland at various times but most of Scotland was not conquered and they never tried to take Ireland.
To give a bit of context, the southern part of Britannia had been part of the Roman Empire from 43 CE when it was invaded under the Emperor Claudius (Julius Caesar invaded twice but didn’t bother staying) until 410 CE. Arthur is the King of the Britons, the descendants of indigenous Celtic people of the British Isles and of the Romans who had occupied the area for 400 years. Brittonic Celts are the ancestors of the modern Welsh, Cornish, and Breton peoples, who are more distantly related to other Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles like the Scots, Picts, and Irish Celts, as well as the Gauls in France. Arthur, if he existed, would have been some combination of Roman and Brittonic, also known as Brythonic. Arthur is not an English king – in fact, he is known for fighting the invasions of the Anglo-Saxons, the people who would later become known as the English. Stories about King Arthur usually take place in what is now England and Wales, some time during the fifth century CE. The Setting: Post-Roman Rule Political Chaos
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