HEPTARCHY

A government exercised by seven persons, or a nation divided into seven governments. In the year 500, seven different monarchies had been formed in England by the German tribes, namely, that of Kent by the Jutes; those of Sussex, Wessex, and Essex by the Saxons; and those of East Anglla, Bernicla, and Deira by the Angles. To these were added, about the year 586, an eighth, called the “Kingdom of Mercia,” also founded by the Angles, and comprehending nearly the whole of the heart of the kingdom. These states formed what has been designated the “Anglo-Saxon Octarchy,” or more commonly, though not so correctly, the “Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy,” from the custom of speaking of Deira and Bernicla under the single appellation of the “Kingdom of Northumberland.” Wharton.