THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS

Kent, including the modern county, perhaps sometimes divided into kingdoms of East and West Kent. Before the defeat of Ethelbert at Wibbandune, A.D.. 568, by Ceawlin and the West Saxons, Kent included part of Surrey with an overlordship over the East and Middle Saxons, including London.

The South Saxons, including only the coast districts of the modern county of Sussex, from Chichester harbour to the great inlet of the sea where Romney marsh now is, reaching inland a few miles only. The centre of the county was filled with a nearly uninhabited forest, the Andredes Lea, which extended into southern Surrey and into much of Kent.

The West Saxons, including Hampshire, Berkshire, Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, Surrey (after 568), Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and part of Bedfordshire (after 571), most of Gloucestershire and part of Somersetshire (after 577), some of the valley of the Severn and of the Warwickshire Avon (after 584), and gradually by successive conquests the rest of Somersetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall. Sussex and ultimately Kent became subject to the West Saxon kings, and were ruled sometimes by under-kings appointed by them, either separately or conjointly with each other and with Surrey. The West Saxon lands north of the Thames were conquered by the Mercians, perhaps finally by Penda in 645. In 671 there was an under-king in Surrey dependent upon Mercia, and Mercian rule was for a time extended over Sussex and Kent. The West Saxons, were one of the most important of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England during the 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries, and the early part of the 9th, and that in which the other kingdoms were ultimately merged in the reign of Egbert in 827.

East Saxons, including Essex, Middlesex, and Hertfordshire. They were early under the supremacy of Kent, afterwards of Mercia.

East Angles, divided into the subordinate peoples of the Northfolk and the Southfolk, including Norfolk and Suffolk, with part of Cambridgeshire. They retained kings of their own till the Danish invasions.
The Mercians, including many subordinate peoples, such as the Lindisfaras and Gainas, in Lincolnshire; the Magesaetas,, in Herefordshire and Shropshire; the Hwiccas, in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire; the Pecsaetas, in Northern Derbyshire; the Snotingas, in Nottinghamshire; the Southumbrians, perhaps in part of the West Riding, Nottinghamshire ( Nottinghamshire was ultimately included in Northumbria, in spite of being the home of the Southumbrians, connexion attested by its inclusion in the diocese of York ) and Lincolnshire; the Middle English, perhaps in Leicestershire, Warwickshire, and Northamptonshire Mercian conquests extended south of the Thames, as mentioned above, and into South Lancashire. Under Offa they were supreme over all Southern Britain. The name Mercians men of the March or boundary, must have been applied during the earlier conquests over the Welsh in Central England.

Offa, king of the Mercians, 757 - 796, fixed the boundaries of the Mercians and the North Welsh by Offa's dyke, which started from a point west of the estuary of the Dee, and went to a point on the Wye, some miles above Hereford, and thence the frontier ran to the mouth of the Wye. This boundary did not correspond to the present border-line of the English and Welsh counties, which is a purely artificial boundary fixed in Henry the Eighth's reign.

The Northumbrians of Deira, including generally Yorkshire and Durham, though a Welsh kingdom long existed in the West Riding about Leeds; and by conquest, if not by settlement, Nottinghamshire, Chester, parts of Lancashire and Westmoreland, their western March with the Welsh of Cumberland. Anglesea was conquered for a time by Edwin of Deira, circa 620, and Lincoln from the Merciana in 677 by Ecgfrith.

The Northumbrians of Bernicia, including Northumberland and the south-east of Scotland. By conquest, from 756 for a short tune, Strathclyde or South-west Scotland, but not for long. In the reign of Indulf, king of Scots, 954 - 962, the Scots occupied Edinburgh. In the reign of Eadgar, circa 966, the Scots perhaps received a grant of Lothian, which was certainly separated from Bernicia in or after 1018. It is impossible, however, to fix for certain the boundaries between the Northumbrian kingdoms and the Scots, and the Welsh of Strathelyde and Cumberland.
There were in all these kingdoms at different times kings reigning jointly or in subordination to an over-king.

THE BRETWALDAS

This title, meaning either Wide Ruler or Ruler of Britain, is given by Bede to seven kings; namely, Aella of the South Saxons, Ceawlin of Wessex, Ethelbert of Kent, Redwald of the East Angle; Edwin, Oswald, and Oswy of the Northumbrians. Later writers add Egbert of Wessex. As, however, in the time of the three earlier kings the greater part of South Britain was not yet conquered by the English, and as none of the powerful Mercian kings, of whom Offa was probably more powerful than any of the seven named, are included, the title must be looked upon as more or less a fanciful appellation.

THE WELSH KINGDOMS

The West Welsh, under many kings in Somersetshire, Devonshire and Cornwall.
The West Saxon victory at Deorham, followed by the fall of Cirencester, Gloucester, and Bath in 577, separated them from the Welsh west of the Severn. In 652 the West Saxon victory at Bradford-on-Avon drove them from the strip of land between Frome and Cricklade. In 658 they were driven back to the Parrett. About 700 King Ine of Wessex conquered a far as the borders of Devonshire. In 926 Ethelstan drove the Welsh from Exeter, but in Egbert's time there had been Englishmen in Devonshire. Cornwall had submitted to Egbert and in Edward the Confessor's reign the landowners of Cornwall had English names, but in all the southwestern counties a large Welsh population remained after the English conquests, and are recognised in the West Saxon laws of Ine.

The dedication of parish churches to Celtic saints in Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, and Somersetshire helps to show where the West Welsh held their own, or were conquered but not expelled by the West Saxons.
The North Welsh, under many kings, in the modern Wales and the border counties.
There were four principal districts, Gwynnedd or North Wales, Dynevor or South Wales, Powys or the border-land, and Gwent or Monmouthshire. These were seldom united. Their kings submitted to Offa of Mercia, to Eebert and his successors. They were cut off from the West Welsh by Deorham (see above), from the Welsh of Strathclyde by Ethelfrith of Deira's victory at Chester in 607.

Strathclyde, the most obscure and difficult to define of the early kingdoms, reaching at one time from the Mersey to the Clyde, partly conquered on the south by the Mercians and broken into in the centre by Deira, which included at one time the land between the Ribble and Morecambe Bay. Danes or Norwegians conquered Cumberland, and in 945 Edmund granted it to the King of Scots to be held under him. From about 970 Northern Strathclyde also became subject to the kings of the Scots, under its own princes.The Picts. Those of Galloway were included in the political fortunes of Strathclyde, though Bede describes Whiterne, the seat of their bishopric, as in Bernicia. Probably at the time they were subject to Bernicia.
The Northern Picts, in central Scotland, vindicated their independence of Bernicia by the battle of Nectansmere, 685, when Ecgfrith of Bernicia was defeated and killed.

The Scots The Scots "that inhabit Britain " - that is not the Irish - were defeated by Ethelfrith of Northumbria, in 603, at Daegsastan, near the present English and Scottish border. In 842 they overthrew the Picts finally and established a kingdom north of Bernicia and Strathclyde.