Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. ENGLISH KINGSHIP BEFORE THE CONQUEST, AND RISE OF FEUDALISM. The name Heptarchy denotes a period, not a system of government. At no time were there seven regular kingdoms in England; the number constantly varied. Nor were these kingdoms united together by any real constitutional tie ; they did not form a confederation, and the only trace of union is to be found in the name Bretwalda, or wide ruler, which was given to the Christian king who happened at the time to be pre-eminent. During the heptarchy a never-ceasing struggle was going on between the kingdoms. At first Kent took the lead. This was natural, for Kent had been settled longest, had no fighting with the Britons, and quickly gained a smattering of civilization from. the continent. Kent, however, never seems to have established a recognized supremacy over its rivals; the first to do this was Northumbria. This great Anglian kingdom, well protected by the Humber and the North Sea, the Forth and the Pennine range, rapidly became powerful; and when it had beaten the Scots at Dagsestan, and the Welsh at Chester, it was far stronger than the others, and in 617, Edwin, its king, subdued all England except Kent. The supremacy of Northumbria lasted till 685, when the crushing defeat ofUNION OF ENGLAND UNDER EGBERT. 11 Nectansmere was suffered at the hands of the northern Celts. A period of disorder followed. Then Mercia, under Offa, its king, came to the front, defeated the men of Kent and Wessex, vigorously encroached upon the Welsh, established an Archbishopric of its own at Lichfield, and kept the foremost place till the death of Offa, in 796. Anarchy ensued, but in 825, Egbert, king of the West Saxons, beat the Mercians at Ellandun, and within two years every ore of the kingdoms of Kent, Sussex, Essex, East...