If you have ever wondered about the names
of the English counties Essex and Sussex, not to mention the region of Wessex
as beloved by the novelist Thomas Hardy, you might be interested to know that
they are not as “sexy” as might be imagined. They were all ruled by their own
kings many centuries ago, and the names are relics of those times.
The seven kingdoms were established by the
Germanic tribes that moved into what is now England as the Roman Empire faded
away and left a power vacuum. In 410 AD the last Roman troops departed and left
the “Romano-British” to fend for themselves.
One account states that in about 450 a
chieftain named Vortigern invited two brothers named Hengist and Horsa to bring
an army to Britain to defend the British against the Picts who were invading
from the far north. However, once this threat had been seen off the invited
mercenaries decided not to go home but to settle in what became the Kingdom of
Kent in the south-east corner of Britain.
Not long after, settlers from Saxony (modern
Germany) arrived on the south coast and spread across a wide area, eventually
creating the kingdoms of the East Saxons (Essex) South Saxons (Sussex) and West
Saxons (Wessex).
Other settlers, who are generally referred
to as Angles, arrived in what is now Norfolk and Suffolk, leading to the
founding of the Kingdom of East Anglia. Despite their relative unimportance in
the overall history of the country, it was the Angles who would eventually give
their name to the whole country south of Scotland and east of Wales, namely
England.
The last kingdoms to be established were
those of Mercia (the Midlands) and Northumbria (north of the River Humber).
The seven kingdoms that emerged in the 5th
to 7th centuries are generally known as the Heptarchy. They would
remain in place for about 200 years until Danish invaders put an end to the
eastern kingdoms and were only kept from taking over the whole of England by
the obduracy of Wessex.
During the period of the Heptarchy the
kings spent much of their time warring against each other. Their aim was not so
much to absorb each others’ territory as to establish themselves as ‘senior
king’. The king who achieved temporary domination was known as the Bretwalda
which translated as ‘ruler of Britain’ but it did not signify anything other
than that the holder was more powerful than the other kings and could make
demands on them. The title was not hereditary, and any other king might become
Bretwalda when the holder died or was defeated in battle.
During the period of the Heptarchy only
Essex failed to produce a Bretwalda at some time or another. The only Bretwalda
of the 8th century who came close to being ruler of all England in
any meaningful sense was Offa of Mercia (757-96), who used the title ‘King of
the English’ but was never completely dominant.
The last Bretwalda was Egbert of Wessex
(802-39), who can be titled the first true ‘King of the English’, in that he
united Wessex and Kent (Sussex, Essex and East Anglia had already been absorbed
by their neighbours) and then conquered Mercia and received the formal
submission of Northumbria. However, he could not hold on to his gains for long
and Mercia again became independent.
The end of the Heptarchy came with the
Danish invasions of the 9th century that left Wessex, led by Egbert’s
grandson Alfred, as the sole bastion of the English in resisting the onslaught.
© John Welford
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