Heptarchy

The Heptarchy were the seven petty kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England that flourished from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century until they were consolidated in the 8th century into the four kingdoms of East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, and Wessex.

The term 'Heptarchy' (from the Greek ἑπταρχία, 'heptarchia'; from ἑπτά, 'hepta': "seven"; ἀρχή, 'arche': "reign, rule" and the suffix -ία, '-ia') is used because of the traditional belief that there had been seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, usually described as East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex, and Wessex.

The first known written reference to the historiographical traditional belief that there were these 'seven kingdoms' was in Henry of Huntingdon's 12th century work, Historia Anglorum; the term Heptarchy is not known to have been used to describe them until the 16th century.