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After the Roman empire began to collapse and its political and military
presence was withdrawn from the island of Britain around 410 AD, the resulting vacuum was
filled by tribes of Jutes, Saxons and Angles from Denmark, Germany and the coastal areas
of what is now Holland, competing for land and power. Seven main kingdoms emerged from the
chaos, and became known as the Heptarchy. The seven were Essex, Sussex, Kent, Mercia,
Northumbria, Wessex, East Anglia. In, roughly, the middle of this period of Anglo-Saxon
domination of Britain, the kingdom of Wessex established supremacy over the other leading
kingdoms, and their line of rulers became the first to have claim to the title of King of
All England.
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