>>6303931>>6304890>hired adventurers turning against their employer / mission-giverIn my Bernard Cornwell Arthurian Chronicles / Mount And Blade Brytenwalda, Viking Conquest etc mod gameplay frenzy and fervour lol I read the entirety of Gildas account De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (On The Ruin And Conquest Of Britain).
Here is Gildas in his original words on the folly of the warlord and chieftain Vortigern (his name may be familiar from Arthurian legends), who originally attempts to hire Saxon mercenaries to aid the Britons in their battles against the Picts and Irish Cruithne, after the Roman legions depart Britain.
Of course, they betray him:
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Then all the councillors, together with that proud tyrant Gurthrigern (Vortigern), the British king, were so blinded, that, as a protection to their country, they sealed its doom by inviting in among them like wolves into the sheep-fold, the fierce and impious Saxons, a race hateful both to God and men, to repel the invasions of the northern nations.
Nothing was ever so pernicious to our country, nothing was ever so unfortunate.
What palpable darkness must have enveloped their minds - darkness desperate and cruel!
Those very people whom, when absent, they dreaded more than death itself, were invited to reside, as one may say, under the selfsame roof. Foolish are the princes, as it is said... A multitude of whelps came forth from the lair of this barbaric lioness, in three cyuls, (N.B. "keels") as they call them, that is, in their ships of war, with their sails wafted by the wind and with omens and prophecies favourable, for it was foretold by a certain soothsayer among them, that they should occupy the country to which they were sailing three hundred years, and half of that time, a hundred and fifty years, should plunder and despoil the same.
They first landed on the eastern side of the island, by the invitation of the unlucky king, and there fixed their sharp talons, apparently to fight in favour of the island, but alas! more truly against it...
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1949/pg1949-images.html 