Brutus of Troy is the legendary founder and first king of Britain, the figure with whom the medieval British traced their nation back to the heroes of antiquity. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century History of the Kings of Britain, Brutus was a great-grandson of Aeneas of Troy, exiled after accidentally killing his father, who gathered a band of the scattered Trojans and led them in search of a home. The goddess Diana, consulted at a ruined temple, prophesied that he would find an island in the western ocean, beyond the setting sun, that was destined to be his.
The story
That island was Albion, inhabited only by a race of giants. Local legend says Brutus and his followers made their landing at Totnes in Devon, and the very stone on which he first set foot is still pointed out, set into the pavement of Fore Street and known as the Brutus Stone. His champion Corineus, who took Cornwall for his portion and gave it his name, wrestled the greatest of the giants — Gogmagog — and hurled him from the cliffs to his death, clearing the land for the newcomers.
Brutus renamed the island Britain after himself, and its people the Britons, and founded a capital on the Thames he called Troia Nova, 'New Troy', which in time became London. Though the whole story is a learned invention of the Middle Ages with no root in real history, it was believed for centuries and gave Britain a Trojan origin to rival Rome's — and at Totnes the Brutus Stone keeps the foundation legend literally underfoot.