The Roman period in Britain is often said to end in the year 410 when the Roman emperor Honorius supposedly told the Britons to look to their own defences because Rome itself was beleaguered by barbarian attacks. Certainly around that time, Roman rule in Britain faltered, leaving a power vacuum that was filled by incomers arriving from northern Germany and southern Scandinavia. Today, we know these immigrants as the Anglo-Saxons, and they ruled England for much of the next 600 years.
They did, however, have to wrestle with the Vikings to retain control of their lands during that period, and were forced to concede power along the way to a number of Danish kings – including, most notably, Canute (aka Cnut), who ruled an empire in England, Denmark and Norway. The Anglo-Saxon era ended with William of Normandy's triumph at the battle of Hastings in 1066, which ushered in a new era of Norman rule.
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