Higham’s Early Britain.

The subject of how Roman Britain became English is perennially interesting; while I’m not interested enough to read actual books about it, I gobble up review essays like Pablo Scheffer’s “Frightened Chicks” (LRB, 8 October 2026; archived), a review of How England Began: From Roman Britain to the Anglo-Saxons by Nicholas J. Higham. As usual, I’ll excerpt some passages and send you to the link for the rest: English history​ began in 449 – according to Bede, at least. In that year, he writes in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People (c.731), three warships of the Anglorum siue Saxonum gens (tribe of Angles or Saxons) sailed to Celtic Britain at the invitation of the local king, Vortigern, to help protect the island from Germanic invaders. Under the command of the brothers Hengist and Horsa (both names mean ‘horse’), these mercenaries soon amassed an inuincibilem exercitum (invincible army), rebelled against their employers and conquered the island themselves. Though Bede still…

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