The First Kingdom

Gregory was later to write to Æðelberht, ‘this end of the world is approaching, many things are at hand which previously have not been; to wit, changes of the air, terrors from heaven, and seasons contrary to the accustomed order of times, wars, famine, pestilences, earthquakes in various places’. Letters of Gregory the Great Book XI, Letter 66.

But two other explanations come to mind. The first is that, somehow, Kent’s traditional status as the first of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, its dynasts’ claim to descent from Hengest, gave it some sort of mythic primacy among the English. The second is that, by virtue of a long relationship with Gaul and then with Frankish kings,f it had inherited som

Welsh Llan- names, indicative of an enclosure around a church;

Æðelfrið’s successor, Edwin. During his long exile the Deiran pretender had seen more of Britain’s geography than most of his contemporaries. He must have gawped at Chester’s walls and amphitheatre, travelled many miles of Rome’s highways, camped in its armies’ ruined forts. His second wife, Æðelburh, was a Christian raised in Canterbury where a Ro

Bernician kings of the mid-seventh century were wont to install their sons as equivalent subreguli in Deira, partly as a policy of devolved dynastic government, partly as training and partly so that they could keep an eye on potential rivals coming up on the rails.

Pictish symbol stonesv have been found here, including the Crawstane – depicting a salmon riding on the back of a fantastical water beast

Procopius, in his Gothic Wars (VIII.20), says that a Frankish king sent an embassy to Byzantium, accompanied by ‘some of the Angli, seeking to establish his claim that this island was ruled by him’. The Pactus Legis Salicae, the so-called Salic law first attributed to Clovis, contains a reference (Section XXXIX) to slaves recovered trans mare, ‘fro

Kentish kings exercised their lordship in at least three locations – at Canterbury itself, where the old Roman theatre provided a suitably grand assembly place; at Lyminge, where recent excavations indicate a likely royal presence, and at Rochester, seat of one of the earliest bishoprics. Æðelberht is likely to have enjoyed royal residences in all

Mag Fortrenn was the cultural coreland of the northern Picts, whose widespread and abundant sculptures were adorned with exuberant, if enigmatic, symbols of rank, nobility, fantasy and warrior prowess.