The Angles, Saxons Jutes who were already here as federate troops and in groups along the Eastern coast of Roman Britain(having arrived in small numbers of families from the farming communities across the North Sea continuing contacts dating back to the Mesolithic period 10,000 to 15,000 years ago.)
AD 499 At the end of the Roman period, Angles and Saxons were encouraged to come to Britain as federate troops and auxiliaries, establishing themselves, when the legions, left in numerous small kingdoms mainly on the middle and eastern side of Britain. These would, many centuries later, become England. During the later Roman period, Britain was under threat mainly from the Scots (Irish) on the western side of the island, by the 6th. century the Scots had established a foothold in Pictavia (now Scotland). At the same time, the major threat in the East came from the Picts raiding coastal cities from the sea. Following Roman practice, the Romano-Britons turned to the Angles and Saxons to fight the Picts on their behalf. These new arrivals were soon joined by Angles and Saxons who had already been settled in Britain by the Romans as veterans retired from the legions.
AD577 The Battle of Deorham. This was a battle between the West Saxons the Britons (who occupied the Western side of Britain) of Corinium, Glevum and Aquae Sulis (Which today would be Cirencester, Gloucester and Bath)
AD597 St Augustine brought Christianity to Britain for the first time. He was sent by Pope Gregory (the Great) to convert the Angles and Saxons.
AD602 St Augustine was appointed the first ever Archbishop of Canterbury and began the erection of his stone built cathedral.
AD604 The first Bishop of London, St. Mellitus was appointed.
AD630 The Battle of Cefn Dignoll which is translated to The Battle of The Long Mynd. This was a battle fought in Welshpool, Powys between the Northumbrian Army of King Edwin of Deira, and an anti Northumbrian alliance between Cadwallon of Gwynedd and Penda of Mercia.
AD871 King Aethelred I was mortally wounded and his brother, Alfred the Great became King of West Saxons
Early Medieval History
The period after the withdrawal of the Roman administration from Britain in the fifth century is rightly known as the Dark Ages, although gradually more is being revealed by archeology and technology. The Venerable Bede asserts that the lowlands were settled by Angles, Saxons and Jutes, which is broadly true.
The history of the settlement of England proper appears to be have been comparatively uncomplicated. The Angles (“Engle” in Old English) came across the North Sea from their homeland of Angeln (Old England) around Kiel on the German Danish border, rowing up the Humber and the Ouse, as did the Vikings in later times, where they put down roots. From these settlements were descended the Northumbrians and Southumbrians (in the East Midlands). The neighbours of the Angles on the continent, the Frisians were also represented in that settlement, as is evidenced from Dumfriese, ‘the stronghold of the Frisians’.
The foundations of the West are more complicated. The peoples involved were Saxons and Jutes, and probably Franks (Dutch). The Jutes appear to have moved south from Jutland to dwell among the Franks at the mouth of the Scheldt, where they assimilated Frankish culture. The Saxons seem to have made a similar journey to modern Normandy and Brittany, as the Northmen (Normans) did later.
According to Bede, the Jutes were invited into Kent to defend against the Picts who sailed down the east coast. In doing this, they were continuing a policy employed by the Romans in the Classis Britannica under Clausius the Batavian (Dutchman). The Saxons were perhaps invited into the west by the government in Cirencester to deal with the Scots (i.e., Irish).
When the mist of history lifted, Southern Britain (Britannia Prima – capital Cirencester) was in the hands of the Saxons and Jutes, whilst Northern Britain (Britannia Secunda – capital York) was in those of the Angles and Frisians.
A while after the settlement, an off-shoot of the Southumbrian Angles expanded from Staffordshire establishing a Mercian (people of the Marches) kingdom. Very soon these Mercians Angles began an aggressive expansion. They quickly took over the Saxon kingdom of the Hwicce in the south west Midlands down to the Mendips. The Southumbrian Angles in the east Midlands and East Anglia submitted shortly. The Mercians pressed on to take Jutish territory in Kent and Hampshire including the Isle of Wight. They also occupied Saxon Essex and Sussex.
The Saxons clung on in the west, where they continued to expand into the Kingdom of Devon pushing the border of that kingdom to the Tamar (in St Aldhelm’s time, West Wales still intact under King Gereint).
Mercia had overstretched itself. Northumbria and North Wales, i.e., Gwynedd (North Wales in those days meant lowland Scotland) rebelled. In 824 AD, at the Battle of Ellandun, the West Saxons under Ecgberht (King Alfred’s grandfather) expelled the Mercians from Surrey, Sussex, Kent and Essex (referred to by some historians as Greater Wessex), and the East Anglians accepted him as their lord. Oxford rose up against Mercian rule and rejoined their Saxon compatriots south of the Thames; Berkshire was recovered; and Devon beyond the Tamar was annexed.
The West Saxon state stayed stable until the Danish invasion. At the Peace of Wedmore, the West Saxon king, King Alfred the Great held on to all of the Saxon territory with the exception of Essex. Subsequently, Essex was restored to the Saxon kingdom. The Saxon Hwicce were reunited with the other Saxons in the 11th century,when Herefordshire was created by King Harold Godwineson and added to his Earldom.
At the time of the Norman Conquest, there were two English earldoms (Mercia and Northumbria) and the one Saxon earldom, to which the English statelet of East Anglia had voluntarily attached itself. The Norman Conquest forced them into a political unity.
Wither Wessex
At school, we were taught how the Wessexer King Alfred the Great had defeated the Vikings, how the Wessexer King Harold II Godwinson had been killed in the battle of Hastings, and how the Kingdom of Wessex was the foundation of the Kingdom of England. It comes as a bolt out of the blue to find that the name of Wessex did not exist before 1868, when it was coined by the Dorset poet William Barnes. When doing so, he clearly had in mind Essex and Sussex, filling the vacancy with “Wessex”.
Wessex is a fiction, and as Professor Barry Cunliffe wrote, it can mean whatever one wants it to mean, but beneath the fiction is a Saxon reality. By the time of King Alfred, all the Saxon lands (with the possible exception of Essex in Danish hands), along with the Kingdom of Devon, including Devon west of the Tamar (Cornwall), and Kent had been united in a single kingdom.
“A Brief History of the English Tongue”
Once the power of the Danelaw (the lands where Danish law prevailed) had been broken, the English who had been subject to Danish rule were added to the Southern kingdom. This appears to have been Alfred the Great’s ambition, since although he spoke of himself as a Saxon, he gave the name Englisc to his language. To justify his claim to the English throne, he he also claimed (probably spurious) descent from the earliest Northumbrian monarchs. His ambition was realised by Athelstan whose body is entombed in Malmsbury Abbey Wiltshire.
One consequence of this chain of events is that the official language of the newly united state was based on West Saxon dialect as used at Winchester. Up to 1066, West Saxon was the language of the administration. Over time it absorbed elements of Anglian dialects. This language is what is referred to as Old English, or Anglo-Saxon (Anglo-Saxon is perhaps the better name, because it arose out of the mixture of Anglo-Frisian and Franco-Saxon. (“Franco” in this case refers to the Germanic Franks and not to the Latin French.)
After 1066, everthing changed. Regional dialects reigned, the official language was Norman french, and every monastery wrote English in its regional dialect. When English again became the language of the king and his court, a new standard was adopted based on the language of London. Originally this had been Saxon in type, influenced by closely related Kentish. For example Kentish “left” for Saxon “lyft”; and the word “bury” with a Saxon spelling but with its Kentish vowel pronounced, “berry”. The language of London change quickly into an East Midland dialect, as folk flooded south to seek their fortunes. With the establishment of the University at Cambridge, the language of the Anglians had triumphed over that of the Saxons, and Chancellory English became the standard for the whole of England, as it is to this day.
The “WEST SAXON” Standard “ENGLISH” Flags.
The battle standard of the West Saxons was the red dragon. This was actually the two-legged wyver ( wyver/wiver from Norman French and meaning adder/viper). This is usually written wyvern, but that implies a plural, i.e., one wyver, but two wyvern (compare with oxen). Four legged dragons did not appear in heraldry until the 14th century, 300 years after Harold’s death.
Whatever form the battle standard took (it was probably a wind sock), it was not what is meant by a flag today. The first flag of England was the St. John Flag (white cross on red). It is also known as the City Flag. This flag was replaced as the flag of England in 1299 by the St. George Flag (red cross on white),which is also known as the Army Flag. A triangular flag with a red cross on a white background can be seen flying from the main mast of William the Conqueror’s flag ship in the Bayeux tapestry. It was the flag of France up to the time of its adoption by England in 1299.
St. George did not become the patron saint of England until the 14th century, usurping St. Edward the Confessor in the south, and St. Edmund in the north. All three flags, St. George Flag (representing England as a whole), St. Edward Banner (representing the Saxon south), and St. Edmund Banner (representing the Anglian north), were flown at Agincourt..