[image: The main Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms circa A.D. 600]

The Heptarchy (AD 600-800) is the name traditionally applied to the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England in the period prior to the Danish conquests of the 9th cent. The term was probably first used by 16th-century writers who believed that in those early years England was divided into seven kingdoms—Northumbria, East Anglia, Mercia, Essex, Sussex, Wessex, and Kent. Actually the political and geographical divisions were neither so orderly nor permanent. At one time (c.600) there appear to have been as many as 12 independent states, but the number of kingdoms, their boundaries, and their political status shifted constantly throughout this period.

see 802 map of Briton

Wessex was one of the seven major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (the Heptarchy) that preceded the Kingdom of England. It was named after the West Saxons and was situated in the south and southwest of England. It existed as a kingdom from the 6th century until the emergence of the English state in the 9th century, and as an earldom between 1016 and 1066. The earldom was recently revived for His Royal Highness The Prince Edward. "Wessex" has not had any official existence since that time, but it has remained a familiar term since Thomas Hardy revived it for his West Country novels and poetry. Today some wish to see it restored as a region of England.

Wessex may have been settled as early as 495 by Saxons under Cerdic, who is reputed to have landed in Hampshire. Cerdic’s grandson, Ceawlin (560–93), annexed scattered Saxon settlements in the Chiltern Hills and drove the Celts from the region between the upper Thames valley and the lower Severn. But Ceawlin himself was finally expelled from Wessex, and until the end of the 8th cent. the country was overshadowed successively by Kent, Northumbria, and Mercia. King Cædwalla (reigned 685–88) conducted several successful campaigns; and his successor Ine consolidated the western expansion through Somerset and exacted tribute from Kent. After Ine’s death, however, the kingdom relapsed into anarchy. Egbert (802–39) became overlord of all England, but his successors were forced to relinquish many of his gains and to concentrate on defending their lands against the invading Danes. With the reign of Alfred (871–99) and the halting of the Danes, the history of Wessex becomes that of England. In the 10th cent., Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edmund, and Edred gradually acquired firm control over all England, including the Danelaw. This unity ended, however, after the quiet reign of Edgar (959–75), for Æthelred (978–1016) could offer no effective resistance to the invading Vikings. Canute established Danish rule in 1016. The end of his line caused the recall of Edward the Confessor (1042–66), last of the Wessex line of Alfred. In the novels of Thomas Hardy, Wessex is used to mean the SW counties of England, mainly Dorsetshire.

History

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ASC), Wessex was founded by Cerdic and Cynric, chieftains of a clan known as "Gewisse", although the specific events given by the ASC are considered to be suspect. Archæological evidence points to an origin in the upper Thames and Cotswolds area, and the ASC origin myth may have been political propaganda designed to justify a later invasion of the Jutish province in southern Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. The first certain event in Wessex is the baptism of Cynegils around the year 640. [ see Kingsline ]

Wessex expanded its boundaries and clashed with its neighbors, notably British Dumnonia (essentially modern day Devon and Cornwall), which it eventually came to dominate, and with Mercia. After Egbert defeated Mercia in 825 and the Northumbrians accepted his overlordship in 829, Egbert became the Bretwalda, or lord of Britain. He was never referred to as King of England.

The integrated system of fortified towns (the "burhs") established under Alfred the Great, described in both Asser and the ASC, and documented in a unique hidage, helped to prevent the conquest of southern England by the Danish invaders in the 870s. The hidage identifies thirty-three forts, which ensured that no one in Wessex was more than a long day's ride from a place of safety.

Important West Saxon settlements included old Roman settlements such as Dorchester and Winchester, which Alfred made the capital in 871, and newly-founded burhs such as Wallingford.

There is some evidence that kingship in Wessex was not rigidly hereditary. The strongest candidate from the pool of the senior families was elected or forced his control on the lesser kings. The internal feuding produced by this may have delayed the rise of Wessex as a full kingdom, but this is conjecture.

After the Mercian conquest of its original territories in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, the northern boundary of Wessex was probably the River Thames; Southwark, facing London from the south bank of the Thames, was included among the burhs, but London fell beyond West Saxon territory. Its heartland was the present-day counties of Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, and Berkshire.

Revival

The English author Thomas Hardy used a fictionalised south-west as a setting for many of his novels, reviving the term Wessex for southwest England. His Wessex included all the counties mentioned in the previous paragraph apart from Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, along with Devon. He gave the counties the following fictionalised names: Berkshire = North Wessex; Devon = Lower Wessex; Dorset = South Wessex; Hampshire = Upper Wessex; Somerset = Outer Wessex; Wiltshire = Mid-Wessex. Neighboring Cornwall was described as Off-Wessex or Lyonesse. See Thomas Hardy's Wessex.

There is a movement in modern day south-central England to create a regional cultural and political identity in Wessex. This consists of three distinct but interlinked organisations. The Wessex Regionalist Party is a registered political party which contests elections. The Wessex Constitutional Convention is an all-party pressure group in which those sympathetic to Wessex devolution who are not members of the Wessex Regionalist Party can also be represented. The Wessex Society is a cultural society which promotes a cultural identity for Wessex while remaining neutral on questions of political devolution.

The boundaries of Wessex were unclear and subject to dispute. The Wessex Constitutional Convention and Wessex Society add Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire to Hardy's list; and the Wessex Regionalists, who currently use Hardy's definition of Wessex, are likely to follow suit in the near future.

This definition of Wessex has been criticised from a number of quarters. A number of people within Devon, southern Somerset and parts of Dorset see those areas as sharing a Dumnonian Celtic identity with Cornwall, whereas some regard Hardy's definition as correct on the grounds that the counties north of the Thames, along with Berkshire and north-east Somerset, were part of Mercia for most of the Anglo-Saxon period. There are also a few in Hampshire who argue that southern Hampshire and the Isle of Wight were once a Jutish province in their own right and deserve to be treated differently to the rest of Wessex.

The Wessex regionalist movements justify their eight-shire definition of Wessex in terms both of history and of modern regional geography and point to the impossibility of pleasing everyone as an argument against change at the present time, though they do not rule out the possibility of change in the future if the popular will demands it.

The present South West England region

The government office region of South West England covers a different area, consisting of Hardy's Wessex, less Berkshire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, but including Cornwall and Gloucestershire. Wessex groups are currently campaigning for boundary revisions to the regions in order to more closely match their definitions of Wessex.

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