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The Kingdom of England emerged from the gradual unification of the early medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdoms known as the Heptarchy: East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex. The Viking invasions of the 9th century upset the balance of power between the English kingdoms, and native Anglo-Saxon life in general. The English ...
The map annotates the names of the peoples of Essex and Sussex taken into the Kingdom of Wessex, which later took in the Kingdom of Kent and became the senior dynasty, and the outlier kingdoms. From Bartholomew's A literary & historical atlas of Europe (1914)
Kingdoms, centres of learning, archives, and churches all fell before the onslaught from the invading Danes. Only the Kingdom of Wessex was able to survive. [70] In March 878, the Anglo-Saxon King of Wessex, Alfred, with a few men, built a fortress at Athelney, hidden deep in the marshes of Somerset. [72]
Historian Simon Keynes states, for example, that "Offa was driven by a lust for power, not a vision of English unity; and what he left was a reputation, not a legacy." [2] This refers to a period in the late 8th century when Offa achieved a dominance over many of the kingdoms of southern England, but this did not survive his death in 796.
English: This map shows kingdoms in the island of Great Britain at about the year 800. The colors indicate ethnic groups: WESSEX: Anglo-Saxons (red) GWYNEDD: Celts (grey)
Eventually, Wessex was established as the most powerful kingdom and promoted the growth of an English identity. Despite repeated crises of succession and a Danish seizure of power at the start of the 11th century, it can also be argued that by the 1060s England was a powerful, centralised state with a strong military and successful economy.
Date: 23 June 2012: Source: Own work using: File:English kingdoms 600.gif, itself based on Redrawn from a map in James Campbell, The Anglo-Saxons, Penguin Books, 1991.; coastline based on Hill, 'An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England' ISBN 9780802023872
The kingdoms were eventually united into the Kingdom of England in a process beginning with Egbert of Wessex in 829 and completed by King Edred in 954. The Norse kingdom of Jorvik , also known as Scandinavian Yorkshire was not annexed into England until 1066 and the Royal Harrying of the North.