Hengest Wihtgilsson, 1st Jute King of Kent (414 – 488)

Post author By Steven Wood Collins
Post date December 7, 2021
212 Comments on Hengest Wihtgilsson, 1st Jute King of Kent (414 – 488)

Hengist from John Speed‘s 1611 “Saxon Heptarchy”

Treaty of Hengist and Horsa with Vortigern. Hengist and Horsa are legendary brothers said to have led the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in their invasion of Britain in the 5th century.

Vortigern and Rowena, by William Hamilton (1793)

Jute twins Hengest and Horsa came to Britain from Sachsen, Germany during the 5th century at the invitation of Gwrtheyrn Vertieren (370 – 460), King of Britons. He engaged them and their army as mercenaries to fight in his war against marauding Picts and Scots. After achieving success, Gwrtheyrn ceased paying them for their military service after asking them to return to their homeland. In response, the brothers instead obviously decided to stay, even demanding more land from Vortigern. During a feast marking the occasion of a proposed settlement between them, the twins and their captains massacred Vortigern’s unarmed contingent and one of his sons in what history has named The Treason of the Long Knives. Their advent as such marks the nascent demise of the Brutus of Troy (1150 – 1091 BC) 1st King of Britons rulership hegemony, claimed for a brief time before by the Romans, and the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon regime that supplanted it, effectively ever since then.

Hengest and his Jute army subsequently conquered the region of South East England known today as the county of Kent. Hengest’s daughter Rowena wedded Gwrtheyrn Vortigern, so he may have considered Kent as a fair exchange for her hand in marriage. Be that as it may, he’s considered the founder of the Kingdom of Kent.

St Aethelberht I (552 – 615) King of Kent, 1st English Christian King, Hengest’s agnatic descendant, was the first English king to convert to Christianity.

Æthelberht’s sister Riccula married King Sledd of Essex, who was an agnatic descendant of Arminius “The Great” (17 BC – 21 AD) Prince of Teutons. Their son Sæberht of Essex (585 – 614) was the first East Saxon king to convert to Christianity. He founded the first Christian church in Essex on the present-day site of Westminster Abbey. They were all agnatic descendants of Sigge “Odin” Fridulfsson of Asgard (50 BC – 30 AD) 1st King of Scandinavia.

Frisian King Finn (fl. ca. 450) is mentioned in both Beowulf and Widsith. The forebear of Redbad “The Pagan”, 9th King of Friesland (670 – 719), was killed on his land in Frisia by Hengest Wihtgilsson von Sachsen, 1st Jute King of Kent (414 – 488), later the 1st Jute King of Kent, and his men while attempting to maintain a truce between warring factions of Danes and Jutes. Entitled Finn and Hengest, J.R.R Tolkien‘s lecture notes of his study describing the incident were published as a book after his death.

Hengest and Horsa were agnatic descendants of Sigge “Odin” Fridulfsson of Asgard (50 BC – 30 AD) 1st King of Scandinavia.

By Steven Wood Collins

I spent most of my life unaware of my ancestral heritage. Sure, I knew of the personal history of my more immediate relatives; but beyond that, I never had any inkling as to my ancestral heritage. Then one day many years ago my sister said to me, “I sometimes wonder about our family background.” And so my quest to discover our genealogical roots commenced.

I started building my family tree with the very basic relationships, going back in time from my grandparents, one ancestor at a time. That initial effort proved to be the hardest part of the pursuit, mainly due to my lack of expertise as a novice genealogical researcher. As I gained familiarity with the databases and how to efficiently mine them, my progress gained ever-increasing momentum. Today, The Patricians! tree (Ancestry.com) contains nearly 120,000 individuals, stretching over 135 generations, 5,800 of which are my direct ancestors in a genealogical sense.

During this trek back in time, I encountered fascinating figures in both history and obscurity. This blog contains many stories about their genealogical relationship to me (and many of you). By far and away, as a student of history, the historically obscure individuals are of particular interest to me. I cite Baron “Blue Beard” Montmorency-Laval de Rais (1405 – 1440) as an example of a historically maligned personage whose real contribution to history, as both a playwright and hero of France, has yet to be properly recognized. Another example is Earl Edward de Vere (1550 – 1604), who’s yet to gain widespread recognition as the actual author of the body of literary work wrongly ascribed to William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616).

My life-long interest in international economics and finance continues unabated. I primarily demonstrate this professional involvement as a contributor to the Long Room, the members-only international finance professionals' forum hosted by the Financial Times of London.

I'm an avid recreational scuba diver who enjoys traveling to exotic dive sites. My love of the sea and marine life gives me an unbounded appreciation and support of “green” issues, especially those devoted to the conservation of endangered species and coral reefs.

He continually posts results of his personal genealogical research to his Goodreads Authors Blog. Entitled The Patricians - The Ancestral Heritage of Steven Wood Collins, the work represents thousand of hours of his research efforts and related commentary.

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