Heptarchy [fr., Gk. And apxn], a government exercised by seven persons, or a nation divided into seven governments. In the year 560, seven different monarchies had been formed in England by tribes who had crossed over the North Sea from the mainland, namely, that of Kent by the Jutes; those of Sussex, Wessex and Essex by the Saxons; and those of East Anglia, bernicia, and Deira by the Angles. To these were added, about the year 586, an eighth, called the kingdom of Mercia, also founded by the Angles, and comprehending nearly the whole of the heart of the kingdom. These states formed what has been designated the Anglo-Saxon Octarchy, or more commonly, though not so corre-ctly, the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, from the custom of speaking of Deira and Bernicia under the single appellation of the kingdom of Northumberland.
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