David Hilliam - Kings, Queens, Bones and Bastards: Whos Who in the English Monarchy From Egbert to Elizabeth II

The history of Britain immediately after the Romans departed is rather shadowy and confusing. When the last Roman ship left these shores about AD 410 there was an awkward power-vacuum. Total chaos prevailed, and various petty chieftains squabbled among themselves for tiny kingdoms. About forty years later one of these rulers, Vortigern, was so desperate to beat off some northern tribesmen who were troubling him that he imported allies from the continent to help. This was the beginning, for not only did they come but they stayed boatload after boatload of eager immigrants: Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Franks. The Anglo-Saxon invasion had begun.

The native Britons, or Celts, were pushed further and further into the fringes of the British Isles into Cornwall, Wales, Scotland. Meanwhile there was a frantic free-for-all as the marauding Saxons seized whatever bits of land they could. Naturally, there was opposition from the Celts, and the almost legendary King Arthur was one of those who led them in trying to beat off the advancing Saxons. However, nothing could stop them arriving and settling.

After a century or so, in about AD 550, there were probably as many as a thousand little Saxon kingdoms, some only a few square miles in area. Theres very little to see nowadays as a reminder of those years, but we do have some clues about the local chieftains of that time in the place-names which still survive.

Look on a map of England and see what a large number of towns and villages have names ending in ING, or INGHAM, or INGTON. The word ingas meant family or followers, so a chiefs name (say, Tota, Wocca, Haefer, or Padda) would be perpetuated in the name of the spot where his boat landed or where he carved out his little kingdom, and this would be followed by ING to show that Totas family or Woccas followers had settled there with him. Tooting, Woking, Havering and Paddington are typical examples.

A ham meant home or homestead, and a tun was enclosure and later came to mean village or town. So a village with a name such as Washington would suggest that it was the town where Wassas people live. Old Wassa would have been amazed if he had known how world famous his name would become many centuries later!

Gradually, these tiny settlements grouped into larger units and eventually, in the sixth century, seven major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms emerged. And then, in the year 825, these seven kingdoms at last became united under the dominant King Egbert of Wessex, who is therefore regarded as the very first king of a more or less united England. But first, lets look at those seven Saxon kingdoms.

THE SEVEN SAXON KINGDOMS

The seven Saxon kingdoms each lasted for about three hundred years, until finally King Egbert of Wessex was hailed as Bretwalda or sole ruler of Britain round about the year AD 825. For this reason, Egbert is generally recognised as the first English king, and it is possible to trace a line of descent from him right down to our present Queen Elizabeth II. The seven Saxon kingdoms were: Kent, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex, Mercia, Northumberland and Wessex. The sex part of these names is simply a shortened form of Saxon, so that Essex means East Saxons, Sussex means South Saxons, and Wessex, of course, means West Saxons.