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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 situated in the south and southwest of England. It existed from the
6th century until the emergence of the English state in the 9th century.
Wessex was, according to the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, founded by Cerdic and Cynric, although the specifics given by the ASC are considered to
be mostly fictitious. The first datable event in Wessex is the baptism of Cynegils around the year 640.
The later expansion of Wessex through the conquest of present-day Devon and Cornwall led to an increase in the power of its kings. The Burghal system under Alfred the Great helped to prevent the conquest of southern England by the
Danish invaders in the 870s.
Important West Saxon settlements included Winchester,
which Alfred made the capital in 871.
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, its northern boundary
was probably the River Thames, and its heartland was the present-day counties of
Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, and Berkshire.
The English author Thomas Hardy used these counties as the setting for
most of his novels, although he also used Devon (specifically Exeter) and Cornwall (the latter as "Off Wessex").
In an unusual move Prince Edward was
made Earl of Wessex and Viscount Severn in honour of his marriage to Sophie Rhys-Jones. The title Earl of Wessex had not been in use for over 900 years. The last earl,
King Harold, was famously killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
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.
See also
List of monarchs of Wessex
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