My son,
We own this land. Before us, there were no men here. We are Britain and Britain is us. Listen to me, for I will tell you the story of our coming to this land, and our struggles against the invaders ever since.
Ages ago, the Trojan civilization flourished. During those days lived Albion, a giant son of Neptune, a contemporary of Hercules. Albion ruled over an island far to the west, to which he gave his name. Presuming to oppose the progress of Hercules in his western march, he was slain by him and the deed is recorded thus.
For the love of a woman the Trojans and Greeks fought a war, and through trickery the Greeks brought low the Trojans. The survivors fled or were enslaved by the victorious Greeks. Prince Aeneas of Troy fled to Italy. His great-grandson, Brutus, was prophesied to be the doom of his parents, which came true; his mother died in childbirth and his father in a hunting accident by Brutus’ arrow. For the crime of patricide he was exiled, and with followers he sailed to this land. On the island known as Leogetia, the goddess Diana spoke to him:
“Brutus! Far to the west, in the ocean wide,
Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies,
Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old;
Now, void, it fits thy people: thither bend
Thy course; there shalt thou find a lasting seat;
There to thy sons another Troy shall rise,
And kings be born of thee, whose dreaded might
Shall awe the world, and conquer nations bold.”
They reached an island that was uninhabited save for giants and faerie folk. Brutus and Corineus made war upon the giants, wiping most of them out and taking the island for the Trojans. After many years, the island was named after Brutus, known today as Britain; and with his followers as Britons he built a great city, Troia Nova, from which the Trinovantes tribe took their name, though that city is now called London. Brutus ruled wisely and well, and after he died, his sons split the kingdom between them: Locrinus got Logres, Albanus gained Alba, which is now known as Caledonia, and Camber’s portion was Cambria. The lord Corineus had already been rewarded with the peninsula that we now know as Cornwall.
We Britons ruled supreme for many centuries. Our Kings Belinus and Brennus sacked Rome, an event that the Romans remembered with dread for centuries. But in our success, we became proud and fell upon one another. When the Romans came to our shores, they found numerous tribes fighting one another. Still, our great king Cassivellaunus beat back two of Julius Caesar’s invasions. But he was betrayed by one of his own, allowing the Romans to win the third invasion, and yet so costly was that victory that Julius Caesar left with his armies, never to return. It was almost a century later, during the reign of Guiderius, son of Kymbelinus, before the Romans invaded again on the orders of Emperor Claudius. Our King Arviragus defeated the invasion, and made peace with the Romans, taking Claudius’ daughter as his wife. He welcomed Roman traders and merchants to our land, encouraging them to build new cities.
However, some Romans were greedy and abusive, not understanding our ways. Roman debt collectors whipped Queen Boudica of the Iceni and raped her daughters, confiscating her lands as repayment for her late husband’s debts. Blaming King Arviragus for allowing Romans into Britain, Boudica raised a rebellion that swept across Logres, killing a hundred thousand Romans and loyal Britons and razing the three cities that the Romans had built. King Arviragus was left with no choice but to fight Boudica, and the future Emperor Vespasian arrived to help King Arviragus with a Roman army. When her army, eighty thousand strong, was massacred by the Romans and loyal Britons, she took poison rather than be enslaved by the victorious Romans. Thanks to the Romans’ help and in reparations for their killed countrymen, King Arviragus ceded to them the eastern-most portion of Logres that is now known as Saxon Shore. But the Romans had learned their lesson and ruled in partnership with the Britons, rather than treating us as slaves. By the end of the first century, we were living in peace with the Romans and we had adopted all their ways that were worth adopting.
King Lucius brought Christianity to our island, and his rule was a blessing to us all. Alas, he died childless, and the Romans claimed the whole of the island for themselves. They soon fell to fighting each other, and we helped Constantine the Great, grandson of King Coel, to become the Emperor. He made the whole Empire Christian. However, when he died, rather than be ruled from Rome, we elected Octavius to be our new King. He married his daughter to the general Macsen Wledig, who conquered the Empire again with our help, and established Brittany. Alas, he was slain by his enemies, who usurped the emperorship, with Macsen’s sons fleeing to Brittany. Although our ancestors gave their blood for the true emperors of Rome, we were abandoned by Rome and ravaged by barbarian raids. Our leaders came together to elect a High King to rule over all of Britain. The choice fell to King Aldronius of Brittany, the son of Macsen Wledig. He deferred to his younger brother, Constantin, who crossed over from Brittany with two thousand men and appointed the best of our men as knights to fight the barbarians. High King Constantin brought us peace and security.