History of the Kings of Britain 7 - Constantine King and Emperor

The seventh reading from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain deals with the birth of Constantine and how he left Britain after being crowned King to become emperor of Rome. No sooner had he done this than did the Britons once again threw off the yoke of the Romans and make Octavius king. He would go on to give his daughter to Maximianus, who was descended from British royals as well as Roman nobles. However Maximianus then went making war against Gaul and tried to repopulate the areas he conquered with Britons. This left the country completely undefended, with only peasants left. He even sent all the best women to France, only the boats got caught in a bad wind and the women were taken as slaves by barbarians.

This is what led to the pitiful requests from the Britons to the Romans to come and defend them from the Picts, Danes, Norwegians, Scots and all the other tribes who then started ravaging the country. After bailing the lower caste Britons out, the Romans tried to teach them how to make and use weapons of war so they could defend themselves, but it was like teaching a sparrow to behave like a kite. It wasn’t long before the Britons went groaning to Rome once again but this time, the senate refused to come to their rescue.



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