View source for Treason of the Long Knives

{{Short description|Apocryphal massacre in England}}
{{Distinguish|Night of the Long Knives}}
{{EngvarB|date=October 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}}
{{More citations needed|date=February 2010}}

{{Campaignbox Anglo-Saxon invasions}}

'''The Treason of the Long Knives'''<ref name="TWAEoW">{{cite book|title=The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales|publisher=University of Wales Press|year=2008|isbn=9780708319536|editor-last1=Davies|editor-first1=John|location=Cardiff|page=882|editor-last2=Baines|editor-first2=Menna|editor-last3=Jenkins|editor-first3=Nigel|editor-last4=Lynch|editor-first4=Peredur I.}}</ref> ({{langx|cy|Brad y Cyllyll Hirion}}) is an account of a massacre of [[Britons (Celtic people)|British Celtic]] chieftains by [[Anglo-Saxon]] soldiers at a peace conference on [[Salisbury Plain]] in the 5th century. The story is thought to be pseudohistorical as the only surviving records mentioning it are centuries later in the semi-mythological histories of the ''[[Historia Brittonum]]'' and the ''[[Historia Regum Britanniae]]''. Though a popular cautionary tale in [[medieval Europe]], there is no other historical evidence for The Treason of the Long Knives. Most historians interpret the story as a purely literary construction.<ref>[[John Morris (historian)|John Morris]], ''Nennius: British History and the Welsh Annals'' (Phillimore, London & Chichester 1980), pp. 3–5.</ref>

==Legendary context==
According to the tradition, [[Vortigern]], who had become a high king of the Britons in the wake of the [[end of Roman rule in Britain]], called for Anglo-Saxons under [[Hengist and Horsa]] to settle on the [[Isle of Thanet]] in exchange for their service as mercenaries in battles against the [[Picts]] and [[Gaels]] in Scotland. The settlers, however, exploit a drunken Vortigern's lust for Hengist's daughter into allowing them to increase their numbers and granting them more land, eventually including all of the [[Kingdom of Kent]].

==''Historia Brittonum''==
There is no account of this event in the 6th-century writings of [[Gildas]]. The story first appears in the much later ''[[Historia Brittonum]]'', attributed to the Welsh historian [[Nennius]], which was a compilation in Latin of various materials (some of which were historical and others mythic, literary or legendary) put together during the early 9th century, and surviving in 9th-century manuscripts – i.e., some 400 years after the supposed events. According to [[John Morris (historian)|John Morris]]'s textual analysis of the ''Historia'', this tale derived from a north Welsh narrative which was mainly about Emrys ([[Ambrosius Aurelianus]]), which the compiler of the ''Historia'' incorporated into a framework drawn from a [[Kingdom of Kent|Kent]]ish chronicle, together with details from a ''Life of [[Germanus of Auxerre|Saint Germanus]]''.<ref>J. Morris, ''Nennius: British History and the Welsh Annals'' (Phillimore, London & Chichester 1980), pp. 3–5.</ref>

This is a literal translation of the Latin from Edmond Faral's (Paris 1929) edition of the text (sections in square brackets [thus] supplied from [[Theodor Mommsen|T. Mommsen]]'s 1892 edition):<ref>From Latin as given by Morris 1980, cf. Introductory note & pp. 72–73.</ref>
<blockquote>
It happened however after the death of [[Vortimer]], son of King Vortigern, and after the return of [[Hengist]] with his forces, they called for a false Council, so that they might work sorrow to Vortigern with his army. For they sent legates to ask for peace, that there might be perpetual friendship between them. So Vortigern himself with the elders by birth of his people [considered the matter and carefully thought over what they might do. And the same] opinion was with them all, that they should make peace, and their legates went back and afterwards called together the conference, so that on either side the Britons and Saxons (''Brittones et Saxones'') should come together as one without arms, so that friendship should be sealed.<br /><br />
And Hengistus ordered the whole of his household that each one should hide his knife (''artavum'') under his foot in the middle of his shoe. 'And when I shall call out to you and say "''Eu nimet saxas''" (Hey, draw your swords!), then draw your knives (''cultellos'') from the soles of your shoes, and fall upon them, and stand strongly against them. And do not kill their king, but seize him for the sake of my daughter whom I gave to him in matrimony, because it is better for us that he should be ransomed from our hands.' And they brought together the conference, and the Saxons, speaking in a friendly way, meanwhile were thinking in a wolvish way, and sociably they sat down man beside man (i.e. Saxon beside Briton). Hengistus, as he had said, spoke out, and all the three hundred elders of King Vortigern were slaughtered, and only he was imprisoned, and was chained, and he gave to them many regions for the ransom of his soul (i.e. life), that is Est Saxum, Sut saxum [, Middelseaxan, with other districts under his control which they named.]
</blockquote>

== Geoffrey of Monmouth ==
The Treason of the Long Knives is also described in Book 6 of the ''[[Historia Regum Britanniae]]'' by [[Geoffrey of Monmouth]], who wrote during the early 12th century and presumably used Nennius as his main source. According to him, the incident took place at a banquet in modern-day [[Wiltshire]], ostensibly arranged to seal a [[peace treaty]], which may have been the cession of [[Essex]] and [[Sussex]] in exchange for intermarriage between [[Rowena, Queen of Britain|Rowena]], the daughter of Saxon chieftain [[Hengest]], and Vortigern. The story claims that the "Saxons" — which probably includes Angles and Jutes – arrived at the banquet armed with their long knives (''[[seax]]es'') hidden on their persons. During the feast, on a given word of command, they pulled their knives and killed the unarmed Britons sitting next to them. Vortigern himself was spared, but all his men were butchered, except [[Eldol, Consul of Gloucester|Eldol, Earl of Gloucester]], who escaped.

==Name and legacy==
The term the ''treason of the long knives'' was first used in English by [[Meredith Hanmer]], who died in 1604, in his ''Chronicle of Ireland''.<ref>{{Cite OED|long knife}}</ref> The corresponding Welsh term ''twyll y cyllyll hirion'' was first used in or before 1587.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Weiner |first1=Edmund |title=Release notes: the Long Knife |url=https://public.oed.com/blog/june-2016-update-release-notes-the-long-knife/ |website=Oxford English Dictionary |date=22 June 2016 |access-date=27 September 2021}}</ref>

In 19th-century [[Wales]], the term {{Lang|cy|Brad y Llyfrau Gleision}} ('The Treason of the Blue Books') was coined to refer to the "[[Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the state of education in Wales]]", published in parliamentary blue covers in 1847.<ref>Prys Morgan, 'From Long Knives to Blue Books' in ''Welsh Society and Nationhood'' (ed. R. R. Davies ''et al.'', Cardiff, 1981)</ref>

The [[Night of the Long Knives]] was a [[Purge]] carried out by the Nazi Party in Germany over several days in 1934. References to 'Long Knives' may have been initially understood in a pejorative sense in accusations of treachery, but came to be adopted by the Nazis to express justifiable treachery for the good of Germanic peoples.

It was also used flippantly when British prime minister [[Harold Macmillan]] dismissed seven members of his cabinet in a [[Night of the Long Knives (1962)|"night of the long knives"]]. It has also been used to refer to the assassination of [[Alexander Burnes]] in November 1841 in Kabul, Afghanistan.{{citation needed|date=July 2017}}

In Canada the term was used by [[Quebec]] premiere [[René Lévesque]] in reference to the repatriation of the [[Canadian Constitution]] in 1981. (Before that time, the final constitutional authority for Canada resided in the United Kingdom). Initially eight of the 10 provincial premieres were opposed to repatriating the constitution. A compromise was hammered out in Lévesque's absence, and 9 of the 10 (only Quebec dissenting) agreed to it.


==See also==
*[[King Arthur]]
*[[Betrayal of Clannabuidhe]]
*[[Barns of Ayr]]

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
*Geoffrey of Monmouth, ''Historia regum Britanniae'', ed. Acton Griscom and J.R. Ellis, ''The Historia regum Britanniæ of Geoffrey of Monmouth with contributions to the study of its place in early British history''. London, 1929; tr. Lewis Thorpe, ''Geoffrey of Monmouth. The History of the Kings of Britain''. London, 1966.

{{Geoffrey of Monmouth}}

[[Category:460]]
[[Category:5th-century conflicts]]
[[Category:Arthurian legend]]
[[Category:Conflict in Anglo-Saxon England]]
[[Category:Geoffrey of Monmouth]]
[[Category:Battles involving the Britons]]
[[Category:History of Wiltshire]]
[[Category:5th century in England]]
[[Category:Myths]]
[[Category:Pseudohistory]]