Prince Brutus is supposed to be the founder of London, which, if this is correct, was founded around 1000 years before the Romans arrived. Prince Brutus ought to be very much better known than he is today if only as a mythical / legendary character, after all, Rome is allowed to have its Romulus and Remus myth - abandoned twins being raised by a she-wolf, improbable as it seems (incidentally, I don’t know if this is correct but I have read that the Latin for she-wolf also means prostitute, so perhaps it is not so strange).

The Italians are happy to keep their myths no matter how improbale but the British establishment is not, from around the 17th centrury onwards (roughly the Age of Reason) anything even remotely unreasonable or improbale has been dismissed as 'monkish fables' yet we know that highly improbale things do happen. For instance, it is highly unlikely that America could have been colonised by Europeans crossing the Atlantic in wooden ships, yet it happened. Even more improbable is that I am sitting here typing this into a highly advanced computing machine whose main conopnents are made from purified sand and powered by an invisible force-field that is powerful enough to kill a human being (electricity) - not just improbable but barking mad and yet unless I am haluciating and imagining it all it is also completely true.

What I find even more improbable however is the situation the British establishment has got its self into, that there is no British history at all before the Roman invasion (and preciouse little during the Roman occupation). This would be fair enough if there was no evidence of any civilsation in prehistoric Britain and yet Britan abounds in prhistoric monuments

It is important to note that the Brutus myth is not just one of a number of competing histories of the period, it is the only history, part of the official history of Britain right up until the early 17th century, the Age of Reason, when it was rejected as being unreasonable or improbable. This, however, is the equivalent of historians of the future claiming that Europeans could not possibly have colonised America, as they would not have been able to cross the Atlantic in wooden ships.

Brutus’s problem was that he was a Trojan and from the middle ages up to the end of the nineteenth century with Schliemann’s excavations Troy was well-known as a myth but only that, a myth. Now we know that the Trojans existed it is time to re-examine what has come down to us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy

My understanding is that Brutus was supposed to be a Trojan Prince descended from those who had escaped the fall of Troy. He was thrown out of Italy for killing his father in a hunting accident. Italy seems to have been the place where the majority of the Trojans settled after the fall of Troy and it has been suggested that these were the Etruscans who in turn influenced, and then became the Romans. I suspect it is a bit more complicated than this but the Romans certainly recognised that they were descended from the Trojans, at least poetically.

Eventually he meets up with some fellow Trojans who had been kept in slavery since the fall of Troy. It is certainly true that the Greeks had the nasty habit of keeping whole ‘nations’/peoples in slavery. Brutus became their leader and after a series of battles, not only freed the enslaved Trojans but also defeated the Greek king, effectively capturing Greece.

Having conquered Greece, they had the option to stay there but reckoned that eventually the Greeks would rise against them. In return for a fleet of ships, money and supplies they agreed to leave and find a new land to settle. After many battles and picking up more Trojans along the way they finally came to Britain, chosen because the original inhabitants, the Cymry, were closely related to the Trojans. The Trojan fleet is said to have arrived at Totnes. It is not clear how peaceful this invasion was. It may not be coincidence that the ancient inhabitants of Dartmoor suddenly disappear at this time, but a national meeting was held and Brutus was declared ruler of all Britain. He toured the land to find a site for his capital city and London was chosen.

Here is some further material from E O Gordon's 'Prehistoric London its Mounds and Circles'