18 Facts About Wessex

Wessex became a Christian kingdom after Cenwalh was baptised and was expanded under his rule.

Wessex was invaded by the Danes in 871, and Alfred was compelled to pay them to leave.

The Romans, or rather the Romano-British, built another major road that integrated Wessex, running eastwards from Exeter through Dorchester to Winchester and Silchester and on to London.

Wessex spent his exile in East Anglia, and was converted to Christianity there.

Wessex established a second bishopric at Winchester, while the one at Dorchester was abandoned as Mercian power pushed southwards.

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Wessex's reign ended in 688 when he abdicated and went on pilgrimage to Rome where he was baptised by Pope Sergius I and died soon afterwards.

Wessex's successor was Ine, who claimed to be a descendant of Cerdic through Ceawlin, but again through a long-separated line of descent.

Wessex issued the oldest surviving English code of laws apart from those of the kingdom of Kent, and established a second West Saxon bishopric at Sherborne, covering the area west of Selwood Forest, which formed an important boundary between east and west Wessex.

In 802 the fortunes of Wessex were transformed by the accession of Egbert who came from a cadet branch of the ruling dynasty that claimed descent from Ine's brother Ingild.

Wessex thereby became the Bretwalda, or high king of Britain.

Wessex gathered scholars from around England and elsewhere in Europe to his court, and with their help translated a range of Latin texts into English, doing much of the work personally, and orchestrated the composition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

The Kingdom of Wessex had thus been transformed into the Kingdom of England.

Nevertheless, the association with Wessex was only popularised in the 19th century, most notably through the writings of E A Freeman.

Two gold Wessex dragons were later granted as supporters to the arms of Dorset County Council in 1950.

The Territorial Army Wessex Regiment continued to wear the Wessex Brigade badge until the late 1980s when its individual companies too readopted their parent regular regimental cap badges.

When Sophie, Countess of Wessex was granted arms, the sinister supporter assigned was a blue wyvern, described by the College of Arms as "an heraldic beast which has long been associated with Wessex".

Hardy's Wessex excluded Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, but the city of Oxford, which he called "Christminster", was visited as part of Wessex in Jude the Obscure.

Wessex is the setting for Robert Harris's 2019 novel The Second Sleep, set in a quasi-medieval England after the collapse of modern technological society.