About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

List of legendary kings of Britain

Encyclopedia : L : LI : LIS : List of legendary kings of Britain

To meet Wikipedia's and to make a clear distinction between
fact and [Fictionfiction], this article may require [Cleanupcleanup].
Please [http://encycl.opentopia.com/ edit it] according to the [Guide to writing better articles#Check your fictionguidelines] regarding fiction, and discuss this issue on the . is available.

This is a list of the legendary kings of Britain as recorded by medieval authors such as Nennius, Gildas, and predominantly Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Various lists of the kings survive, although none of the originals. The Welsh Chronicles supply another source for early British kings. Regardless of the source, no list of the kings has a high level of historic fact and, while they generally are similar to each other, no two lists are exactly the same. Modern historians consider these lists not as historically reliable sources but as comprehensive conglomerations of various Celtic rulers, Celtic warlords, mythical heroes, and, more obviously, Roman Emperors. 

Though legendary and apocryphal, the kings of Britain contributed much to the Matter of Britain, the medieval and early modern traditions about the history of England. 


The following list is the most recent, being written by Geoffrey of Monmouth in 1136 in his fictional Historia Regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of Britain). It spans a length of nearly two thousand years. The first name on the list is Brutus, after whom Britain took its name, and who was a descendant of Aeneas of Troy (the ancestor of the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus). The descent from Aeneas to Brutus can be found in the Trojan Genealogy. Although Geoffrey gives us the lengths of reign of quite a few of the monarchs that he lists, he only supplies three exact dates in his entire history; two of which are demonstrably wrong. (For these and other reasons John Morris in The Age of Arthur calls Geoffrey's book a deliberate spoof.) It can be calculated, however, that if Brutus ever existed he would have lived around 1100 BC.


In the following list, the names of the kings are given according to the spellings favoured by Lewis Thorpe in his now-standard translation, The History of the Kings of Britain. Earlier variants are given in brackets.


The names of mythical kings of Britain before Brutus are given in The Prose Works of John Milton, within the chapter of the History of Britain I. He writes that they were part of tradition, though it is doubtful many of these kings were real.





Contents





First Kings



Kings of the Britons



House of Troy


Henwinus, duke of Cornwall,  son-in-law to Leir, jointly 855–852 BC


  • Leir (Lear) 852–849 BC (restored)
  • Queen Cordelia (Cordeilla), daughter of Leir, 849–844 BC
  • Marganus I (Margan), son of Maglaurus of Albany, and
    • Cunedagius (Cunedag), son of Henwinus of Cornwall, jointly 844–842 BC
    


    House of Cornwall
    


    

    


    

    House of Cornwall
    


    

    Kings Chosen by Lot
    


    House of Beldgabred
    


    Kings Chosen by Lot
    


    House of Capoir
    


    Anti–Roman Resistance Leader
    


    House of the Severi
    


    Usurping British Rulers
    

    See also: British Emperor#Britannic Empire (late 3rd century)
    

    

    Roman Commander
    


    House of the Votadini
    


    House of the Constantii
    

    ''See also "Constantinian Dynasty" on the List of Roman Emperors
    

    

    House of the Gewissei
    


    House of the Votadini
    


    House of the Gewissei
    


    House of the Votadini
    


    House of the Dumnonii
    


    Usurping British Ruler
    


    House of Brittany
    


    House of the Gewissei
    


    House of Brittany
    


    House of the Dumnonii
    


    House of Brittany
    


    House of Dyfed
    


    House of Gwynedd
    


    House of Wessex
    


    House of Gwynedd
    


    Aftermath
    
After the death of Cadwallader, the kings of Britain were reduced to such a small domain that they ceased to be kings of the whole island.  Two of his relatives, Yvor and Yni, led the exiles back from Brittany, but were unable to re-establish an united kingship. The Anglo-Saxon invaders ruled the island after that point in time under the Bretwaldas and later the Kings of England. The heirs to the Celtic-British throne continued through the Welsh kings of Gwynedd until that line was forced to submit itself to the English in the 13th century.  Princes and lords of Gwynedd ruled until the reign of Dafydd III, who ruled from 1282 to 1283.  His death marked the end of the house of Brutus.  Owen Tudor, grandfather of Henry VII of England, was a maternal descendant of the kings of Gwynedd; Henry's marriage with Elizabeth of York thus signified the merging of the two royal houses (as well as the feuding houses of York and Lancaster).
    


    Bibliography
    


    



    


    


    


    


    


    




     



    

    From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
    All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.
    





    


    


    
Search Titles

    


    


    

    0123456789
    ABCDEFGHIJ
    KLMNOPQRST
    UVWXYZ?
    




    

    

    
E-mail this article to:
    

    
Personal Message: