Britain was once a place of little kingdoms. By the end of the fifth century, the two Roman dioceses, Britannia Inferior and Britannia Superior, had given way to a mosaic of petty princedoms. Some were the size of a county. Some were smaller: the land around a cluster of villages, perhaps demarcated by some natural features such as forest and river. Many of these tiny kingdoms have left not the slightest trace on the historical record: they disappeared with the deaths of the kings who claimed to rule them. And the reason that so many were forgotten was that the life of a king was short and ended in blood.

For the kings, the men sitting at the apex of the social pyramid, had made a deal with devils in their ascent: having reached the top of the mountain there was no way back down. They were caught as tight as a hare in a wire. It did not matter if their subjects were Britons, Angles, Saxons or any of the other peoples who lived on the land. The farmers were constrained by the rhythms of farming: ploughing, sowing, harvesting, preparing. But the kings were trapped. They were trapped more firmly than any of their subjects.

The kings were caught in the snare of war.