Aylesford, Battle of
455 CE
The Battle of Aylesford or Epsford is a battle between Britons and Anglo-Saxons recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Historia Brittonum.
Both sources concur that it involved the Anglo-Saxon leaders Hengist and Horsa on one side and the family of Vortigern on the other, but neither says who won the battle.
It was fought near Aylesford in Kent.
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The ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mentions the battle of Aylesford in the entry for 455.
According to the text, the Anglo-Saxon leaders Hengist and Horsa fought Vortigern, King of the Britons, in the battle.
Horsa was slain, and Hengist and his son Oisc became the Kings of Kent.
The Historia Brittonum, also written in the ninth century, contains a variant account of the battle.
Chapters 43–45 indicate that Vortigern's son Vortimer, not Vortigern himself, rose against the Saxons and engaged them in four battles.
The third of these battles was fought "at the Ford, in their language called Epsford, though in ours Set thirgabail”.
At this battle Horsa falls, as does Vortimer's brother Catigern.
The Historia does not say who won the battle, saying specifically that during Vortimer's campaign the Saxons "sometimes extended their boundaries by victory, and sometimes were conquered and driven back."
According to the text, the Britons successfully ousted the Saxons at the fourth battle, fought "near the stone on the shore of the Gallic sea".
However, Vortimer's death shortly after ensures the victory is short lived.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle account is similarly grim for the Britons, saying that they were forced to forsake Kent for good in 457 following Hengist and Oisc's bloody victory at Crayford.