England as a country has a diverse history. The first people to inhabit it were the Welsh, Britons, and Gaels, Celtic people who still inhabit Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and Cornwall. During the Roman Empire, Emperor Hadrian conquered the country and England was under Roman rule for a while, until the fall of the empire.
The Germanic tribes that had felled Rome had put their eyes on their former enemy’s chunks of territory. The Goths took Italy and the Balkans, caught in a battle with the Byzantine Empire, while the Vandals took Spain. The Franks took what was once Gaul and would become France. The Alemanni took Germany, and the Danes took, you guessed it, Denmark.
During the Germanic expansion, tribes called the Angles, Frisians, and Saxons moved up from Belgium and the Netherlands into England, displacing the Celts. These tribes formed seven kingdoms: Northumbria (north of the Humber river), Mercia, East Anglia, Essex (East Saxony) , Kent, Sussex (South Saxony), and Wessex (West Saxony). Mercia came to dominance and took over all the other kingdoms under Offa; after his death, Wessex, East Anglia, and Northumbria regained independence.
In 793 AD, the monastery of Lindisfarne was attacked by Danish Vikings. In 840, Aethelwulf of Wessex was defeated by Viking ships. However, the real invasion came when twenty-three years later, Aella of Northumbria threw the Danish leader Ragnar Lodbrok into a snake pit. Ragnar’s sons Ivar the Boneless, Ubba, and Halfdan led a massive army called the Great Heathen Army into England. They quickly killed Aella and installed a puppet at Eoferwic (York). Then, they killed Borgred of Mercia and also installed a puppet there. In a famous legend, the army killed King Edmund the Martyr of East Anglia by crucifying and shooting him with arrows.
Alfred of Wessex defeated the Danes at Edington and all of Ragnar’s sons were dead. Guthrum, the leader of the second Danish army that joined the first in April 871 was baptised as Aethelstan and became the King of East Anglia. After his and Alfred’s deaths, Alfred’s son Edmund became king of Wessex. In 927, his son Aethelstan united the kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria and became the first king of England, or “Aengla-land”, the land of the Angles. Well, now you know how England formed.
Anay Ganesh 