Brutus Greenshield

In the genealogical sequence preserved by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Brutus called Greenshield (Latin: Viridescutum) is the eldest of the twenty sons of King Ebraucus who remained in Britain at his father's death; he then succeeded and reigned for twelve years before being succeeded by his son Leil. This appearance is part of Geoffrey's constructed, chronologically arranged royal history rather than a historical record.

Primary medieval sources (Geoffrey of Monmouth) supply no physical description of Brutus Greenshield. The epithet denotes a green shield (Latin: Viridescutum), and later Elizabethan literary accounts employ the green shield as a poetic emblem (for example Spenser's image of the shield turned red with blood in battle) rather than as a literal, contemporaneous portrait.

Geoffrey's account records no supernatural powers or notable deeds beyond dynastic succession. Later Elizabethan writers (Polydore Vergil, Michael Drayton, Edmund Spenser and theatrical treatments) recast Greenshield as a warrior and expeditionary leader who fought in Hainaut; this martial profile is a literary reception and augmentation rather than an attribute found in the primary medieval chronicle. Polydore Vergil, by contrast, judged him 'greatly renowned neither at home nor in warfare,' showing variance in reception.