followers. In the very same year, Æthelbald of Mercia was killed
fighting at Seckington; and Offa drove out his successor, Beornred. Of
such murders, wars, surprises, and dynastic quarrels, the history of
the eighth century is full. But no modern reader need know more of them
than the fact that they existed, and that they prove the wholly
ungoverned and ungovernable nature of the early English temper.

Until the Danish invasions of the ninth century, the tribal kingdoms
still remained practically separate, and such cohesion as existed was
only secured for the purpose of temporary defence or aggression. Essex
kept its own kings under Æthelberht of Kent; Huiccia retained its royal
house under Æthelred of Mercia; and later on, Mercia itself had its
ealdormen, after the conquest by Ecgberht of Wessex. Each royal line
reigned under the supreme power until it died out naturally, like our
own great feudatories in India at the present day. "When Wessex and
Mercia have worked their way to the rival hegemonies," says Canon
Stubbs, "Sussex and Essex do not cease to be numbered among the
kingdoms, until their royal houses are extinct. When Wessex has
conquered Mercia and brought Northumbria on its knees, there are still
kings in both Northumbria and Mercia. The royal house of Kent dies out,
but the title of King of Kent is bestowed on an ætheling, first of the
Mercian, then of the West Saxon house. Until the Danish conquest, the
dependant royalties seem to have been spared; and even afterwards
organic union can scarcely be said to exist."

The final supremacy of the West Saxons was mainly brought about by the
Danish invasion. But the man who laid the foundation of the West Saxon
power was Ecgberht, the so-called first king of all England. Banished
from Wessex during his youth by one of the constant dynastic quarrels,
through the enmity of Offa, the young ætheling had taken refuge with