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Editor says, what if the Saxons had won the Battle of Mons Badonicus? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the February 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 495, on this day the rule of the old Roman Families was ended by a decisive Saxon victory at the Battle of Mons Badonicus.
Battle of Mons BadonicusEastern warriors gathered from the Humber to the Solent annihilated the remaining knights of the last Romano-British High King Artōrius. But instead of a new regime arising, the outcome of the battle would inevitably lead to a fragmented country torn apart by bloody civil war.
The principal architects of Mons Badonicus were Ælle and Octa, respectively the Saxon Kings of Sussex and Kent. Both had dreamt of an Anglo-Saxon imperium, but they quarrelled over who should be crowned bretwalda (Britain-ruler).
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Generals Source: Wikipedia Labels: Battle of Mons Badonicus, Anglo-Saxon, King Arthur, Octa, Ælle. Editor says, in reality historical records vary and the details are sketchy.
~ At most, we probably don't get the Matter of England (the Arthurian mythos).
~ As I have pointed out at great and probably painful length anything to do with Arthur is no more than (mostly wishful) conjecture. However, Badon has a slightly better pedigree. Still whether it actually happened as a battle per se does not take away from the key value of the location. Assuming that Badon took place near Bath, which seems linguisitically likely (although there are arguments to the contrary most sound historians I have read argue for a location in the Bath region) then it is critical. It has long been said that the key to control of the island of Great Britain is to control the Severn Estuary and the Dee Estuary. In terms of Roman Britain this would mean sezing the region of Gloucester and Bath and further north the area of Chester. The English achieved this by the early 7th century following the battle of Chester in about 605AD or so. Although there was certainly no concerted central effort by the English to achieve this they did so by expanding and winning battles as they went. By taking over these areas the English inadvertently destroyed any chance of a British fightback as they fragmented the three main British regions: Cornwall, Wales and Cumbria/Strathclyde. These could have united and mutually supported one another but the severing of the connections due to the English control over the Severn and Dee made it very hard for them to make a comeback. Also these victories drove the Britons out of further fertile and valuable territory and tended to confine them to the western uplands and moorland. Badon, even if it was real seems only to have delayed this process so I think it is largely irrelevant since, even if Badon was say in 415AD the English had taken this region within a few years regardless. This only accelerates the losses of the Britons and possibly leads to the English taking further territory and expanding more quickly.
~ Which would have some kind of trickle-down effect, but would it be predictable? Maybe the Welsh are conquered all the earlier, giving no need to have a "Prince of Wales" title.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
