Then there was Embres Erryll. Gibbon explains that he, Ambrose Aurelian, was descended from a noble family. His valour, till his last fatal action of A.D. 491, was crowned with splendid success.
However, adds Gibbon, "every British name is effaced by the illustrious name of Arthur…, the elected king or general of the nation…. He defeated, in twelve successive battles, the Angles of the north [in Northumbria] and the Saxons of the west [in Wessex]….
"After a war of an hundred years [A.D. 432-532], the independent Britons still occupied the whole extent of the western coast, from the wall of Antoninus [in Central Scotland] to the extreme promontary of Cornwall; and the principal cities of the inland country still opposed the arms of the 'barbarians'" on the eastern seacoast.
