Hengist and Horsa, the brother chieftains who led the first
Saxon bands which settled in England. They were apparently
called in by the British king Vortigern (q.v.)to defend him against
the Picts. The place of their landing is said to have been
Ebbsfleet in Kent. Its date is not certainly known, 450-455
being given by the English authorities, 428 by the Welsh (see
KENT). The settlers of Kent are described by Bede as Jutes
(q.v.), and there are traces in Kentish custom of differences
from the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Hengest and Horsa
were at first given the island of Thanet as a home, but soon
quarrelled with their British allies, and gradually possessed
themselves of what became the kingdom of Kent. In 455 the
Saxon Chronicle records a battle between Hengest and Horsa
and Vortigern at a place called Aegaels threp, in which Horsa
was slain. Thence forward Hengest reigned in Kent together
with his son Aesc (Oisc). Both the Saxon Chronicle
and the Historia Brittonum
record three subsequent battles, though
the two authorities disagree as to their issue. There is no doubt,
however, that the net result was the expulsion of the Britons
from Kent. According to the Chronicle, which probably
derived it's information from
a lost list of Kentish kings, Hengest
died in 488, while his son Aesc continued to reign until 512.
Bede, Hist. Eccl. (Plummer, 1896), i. 15, ii. 5; Saxon Chronicle
(Earle and Plummer, 1899), s.a. 449, 455 , 457, 465, 473; Nennius,
Historia Brittonum (San Marte, 1844), §§ 31, 37, 38, 43-46, 58.
