Wessex is perhaps the most famous kingdom that constituted part of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy.  The Kingdom was initially established during the 6th Century ; at it’s height extending from Cornwall to Kent, and up to Gloucestershire.

The name Wessex is derived from the shortening of West Saxony.  Although the Saxons were the dominant ethnic grouping from the 6th Century onwards, Wessex was also inhabited by Celts and Jutes.  The Jutes occupied the Isle of Wight, and colonised adjacent lands along the Hampshire coast.

I believe it to be a popular misconception that Anglo-Saxon colonisation  was a particulalry violent episode, resulting from the aftermath of Roman withdrawal, despite sporadic battles as seen at Badbury Hill in 520AD.

Ah, Badbury Hill!  It has been popular ‘folklore’ that King Arthur led the Britons against the Saxons at that particular battle.  However. Roman forces under future Emperor Constantine, left in either 406 or 407AD.  That would have been a full 113 years before Badbury Hill.  So, it seems highly unlikely that the Celtic commander at Badbury Hill could have been Arthur himself.  However, such is the stuff of legends!

Professor Kathleen Burk’s paper on the Roman, Viking, and Norman conquests states that the early Angles, Saxons, and Jutes came as “… traders and small tribal groups.  There appears to be no archeological evidence for slaughter and destruction, nor for the fleeing of thousands to Wales … but the answer will probably be that rural Britain evolved into, rather than was driven into, a changing set of Anglo-Saxon statelets.”