ABSTRACT
England was, and is, the preponderant element in the United Kingdom. Historical understanding of the United Kingdom must involve consideration of when, how, and why England itself became united. Inquiry into this can begin by addressing sharp contrasts: between England and the Continent, between the seventh century and the eleventh. In the seventh century, England (or, to be precise, what was to become England) was occupied by many small ‘kingdoms’. The old historiographical topos that this was the period of seven kingdoms, the ‘heptarchy’, is misleading. Reality was more complicated. But there is useful crude sense in the antique term as a formula for extreme division of authority. There were other parts of north-western Europe where authority was comparably divided: Ireland, the areas in British hands in western parts of our island, and probably the future Norway. But Ireland and Norway had not been part of the Roman Empire; most of Britain had been. Its post-imperial state contrasts with that of the remainder of the former Western Empire. There was no ‘heptarchic element’ in Spain, Italy and Gaul; rather did the Visigothic, Lombard and Frankish kings rule over substantial realms.
