CirencesterCirencester (ˈsaɪrənsɛstər, ˈsɪstər; see below for more variations) is a market town in Gloucestershire, England, west of London. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames. It is the eighth largest settlement in Gloucestershire and the largest town within the Cotswolds. It is the home of the Royal Agricultural University, the oldest agricultural college in the English-speaking world, founded in 1840. The town had a population of 20,229 in 2021.
HeptarchyThe 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.
Penda of MerciaPenda (died 15 November 655) was a 7th-century king of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is today the Midlands. A pagan at a time when Christianity was taking hold in many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Penda took over the Severn Valley in 628 following the Battle of Cirencester before participating in the defeat of the powerful Northumbrian king Edwin at the Battle of Hatfield Chase in 633.
GloucesterGloucester (ˈɡlɒstər ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east of the border with Wales. Including suburban areas, Gloucester has a population of around 132,000. It is a port, linked via the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal to the Severn Estuary. Gloucester was founded by the Romans and became an important city and colony in AD 97 under Emperor Nerva as Colonia Glevum Nervensis.
Celtic BritonsThe Britons (*Pritanī, Britanni), also known as Celtic Britons or Ancient Britons, were the indigenous Celtic people who inhabited Great Britain from at least the British Iron Age until the High Middle Ages, at which point they diverged into the Welsh, Cornish and Bretons (among others). They spoke Common Brittonic, the ancestor of the modern Brittonic languages. The earliest written evidence for the Britons is from Greco-Roman writers and dates to the Iron Age.
MerciaMercia (ˈmɜrʃiə,-ʃə,-siə, Miercna rīċe; Merciorum regnum) was one of the three main Anglic kingdoms founded after Sub-Roman Britain was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlands of England. A Latinisation of an Old English word derived from the Mercian Old English, Merce, meaning "borderland" (whence the Modern English words mark and march), the kingdom was rendered as Mierce or Myrce in the West Saxon dialect.
ÆthelflædÆthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians (870 – 12 June 918) ruled Mercia in the English Midlands from 911 until her death. She was the eldest daughter of Alfred the Great, king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, and his wife Ealhswith. Æthelflæd was born around 870 at the height of the Viking invasions of England. By 878, most of England was under Danish Viking rule – East Anglia and Northumbria having been conquered, and Mercia partitioned between the English and the Vikings – but in that year Alfred won a crucial victory at the Battle of Edington.
Offa of MerciaOffa (died 29 July 796 AD) was King of Mercia, a kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, from 757 until his death. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war following the assassination of Æthelbald. Offa defeated the other claimant, Beornred. In the early years of Offa's reign, it is likely that he consolidated his control of Midland peoples such as the Hwicce and the Magonsæte.
WessexThe Kingdom of Wessex (ˈwɛsɪks; Ƿestseaxna rīċe ˈwestsæɑksnɑ ˈriːtʃe, Kingdom of the West Saxons) was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the south of Great Britain, from 519 until England was unified by Æthelstan in 927. The Anglo-Saxons believed that Wessex was founded by Cerdic and Cynric of the Gewisse, but this may be a legend. The two main sources for the history of Wessex are the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List, which sometimes conflict.
Anglo-SaxonsThe Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group that inhabited much of what is now England in the Early Middle Ages, and spoke Old English. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. Although the details are not clear, their cultural identity developed out of the interaction of incoming groups of Germanic peoples, with the pre-existing Romano-British culture. Over time, most of the people of what is now southern, central, northern and eastern England came to identify as Anglo-Saxon and speak Old English.
