Where did they settle?

While the Romans were present in Britain they were able to keep the Picts in the north and Scots in the West at bay, but when the Romans left Britain in 410 the native Britons faced attacks from both. The Chronicle tells of a ruler of the Britons called Vortigern, a warlord who may have ruled Britain after the Romans departed.

In 449 AD (the dates are an approximation), the Chronicle says, two brothers of the Jutish tribe, Hengist and Horsa, were employed as mercenaries by Vortigern to help defend the lands against attacks from the Picts and Scots. Vortigern gave the bothers the Isle of Thanet, the most easterly point of Kent. At this time it was cut off from the mainland by a strip of water but now it is no longer an island.

Once the attacks of the Picts and Scots had been halted the brothers refused to leave and sent back word to their homeland of the rich and fertile lands in Kent that they now occupied. Many years of war between the Britons and invading Jutes then took place as the Jutes secured lands in Kent. A later account of these events mention the daughter of Hengist called Rowena who married Vortigern and secured Kent for the Saxons through marriage.