chapter 3._

ENGLAND: A. D. 617. Edwin becomes king of Northumbria.

ENGLAND: A. D. 634. Oswald becomes king of Northumbria.

ENGLAND: A. D. 655. Oswi becomes king of Northumbria.

{785}

ENGLAND: A. D. 670. Egfrith becomes king of Northumbria.

ENGLAND: A. D. 688. Ini becomes king of the West Saxons.

ENGLAND: A. D. 716. Ethelbald becomes king of Mercia.

ENGLAND: A. D. 758. Offa becomes king of Mercia.

ENGLAND: A. D. 794. Cenwulf becomes king of Mercia.

ENGLAND: A. D. 800. Accession of the West Saxon king Ecgberht.

ENGLAND: A. D. 800-836. The supremacy of Wessex. The first king of all the English.

"And now I have come to the reign of Ecgberht, the great Bretwalda. He was an Ætheling of the blood of Cerdic, and he is said to have been the son of Ealhmund, and Ealhmund is said to have been an Under-king of Kent. For the old line of the Kings of Kent had come to an end and Kent was now sometimes under Wessex and sometimes under Mercia. ... When Beorhtric died in 800, he [Ecgberht] was chosen King of the West-Saxons. He reigned until 836, and in that time he brought all the English Kingdoms, and the greater part of Britain, more or less under his power. The southern part of the island, all Kent, Sussex, and Essex, he joined on to his own Kingdom, and set his sons or other Æthelings to reign over them as his Under-kings. But Northumberland, Mercia, and East-Anglia were not brought so completely under his power as this. Their Kings submitted to Ecgberht and acknowledged him as their over-lord, but they went on reigning in their own Kingdoms, and assembling their own Wise Men, just as they did before. They became what in after times was called his 'vassals,' what in English was called being his 'men.' ... Besides the English Kings, Ecgberht brought the Welsh, both in Wales and in Cornwall, more completely under his power. ... So King Ecgberht was Lord from the Irish Sea to the German Ocean, and from the English Channel to the Firth of Forth. So it is not wonderful if, in his charters, he not only called himself King of the West-Saxons or King of the West-Saxons and Kentishmen, but sometimes 'Rex Anglorum,' or 'King of the English.' But amidst all this glory there were signs of great evils at hand. The Danes came several times."

_E. A. Freeman, Old English History for Children,