The Battle of Mount Badon was a battle fought between the Celtic Britons and Anglo-Saxons in present-day Dorset, England in 500 AD. The battle saw King Arthur, the High King of the Romano-British, inflict a decisive defeat upon the Saxons.
History[]
The Germanic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes invaded England during the mid- to late-5th century AD, taking advantage of the end of Roman rule in Britain to migrate from northern Germany and southern Jutland to chaotic sub-Roman Britain. The pagan Saxons established a base for themselves in southern England, landing at Cymenshore (Selsey) in present-day Sussex in 477 and slaughtering the native Christian Britons there. The Brittonic resistance to the Saxons came to be led by the "High King" of the Britons, King Arthur of Dyfneint, a renowned warrior-king.
Battle[]
In 500 AD, the Saxon king Cerdic and his army laid siege to Lord Amalric's Romano-British army atop Mount Badon in Dorset, forcing Arthur to rush to his ally's aid and protect the city of Bath from Saxon attack. Arthur and his army, positioned on a nearby hill, charged against the Saxon units as they forded the river, and the Historia Brittonum claimed that Arthur had slain all 960 of the Saxons who fell that day in the Romano-British charge. Arthur bore the image of the Virgin Mary on both his shield and shoulder, and he carried the Britons to a great victory over the Saxons which ushered in 50 years of relative peace.