In 406 AD, various tribes (including the Vandals) crossed the Rhine – possibly while it was frozen over – and began creating widespread devastation. There was no response from Rome, and the Roman troops in Britain, fearing that a crossing of the Channel was next, dispensed with Imperial authority and elected Constantine III (a Roman general) as their leader. Constantine led the troops across the Channel and declared himself Western Roman Emperor, but he was defeated by the 'rightful' Emperor, Honorius. In 410 the Romano–Britons, having suffered Saxon attacks in 408 and 409 and no doubt despairing of relief from Constantine, expelled his magistrates. Honorius was fully occupied in keeping the Visigoths at bay in Italy, and was unable to respond, so this effectively ended Roman rule in Britain.
It was also in 410 that Rome was sacked by the Visigoths, and Constantine himself was assassinated in 411.
By the middle of the 6th century, the Roman scholar Procopius of Caesarea recognised that Britain was entirely lost to the Romans.
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