POLITICAL HISTORY 1 undoubted facts about the early history of Surrey are few. Certain negative propositions are indisputable, and have their value as throwing light upon the origin of the county as a separate district. It had for instance no special political and no ecclesiastical connexion with Sussex, from which it was separated by a forest, which as late as 1086 was very sparsely inhabited. It was clearly distinguished from Kent. It was not always in the West Saxon kingdom. On the positive side we can say that its name is compounded with the word ' south.' It is possible that the Sutbrige were a tribe, 1 but it does not follow that they inhabited the whole of the modern county. Barren and slightly inhabited tracts, in the south and west, might be included subsequently in the territory bearing their name. There is reason for sus- pecting that the post-Conquest writers in Latin connected the name with regio. But in any case the southern district is regarded as distinguished from something north of it. Only Ethelwerd's chronicle, under the year 823, places in it the Medii Anglior Medii Saxones. Wulfhere King of the Mercians was overlord of Surrey when Chertsey Abbey was founded in 666. 2 It had then an underking named Frithwald, who lived near Chertsey. Ceawlin of Wessex and Ethelbert of Kent had probably fought in it a hundred years earlier, 568, for the West Saxon and Kentish kingdoms could hardly then come into collision anywhere else. So perhaps a political conquest by the West Saxons preceded a political conquest by the Mercians. There is no record of its being included in any other diocese than that of Winchester, which also points to West Saxon supremacy. Moreover, in 823, after Egbert of Wessex had defeated the Mercians, he received the submission of the men of Kent, the men of Surrey, the South Saxons and the East Saxons, ' who had formerly been unjustly forced from his kin.' 3 The expression implies only a political supremacy in Wessex, then finally re-established, for Surrey is classed with three other kingdoms which were certainly not West Saxon by race. 1 See article in Home Counties Magazine, July, 1901, 'The Derivation of Surrey,' by T. Le Mer- chant Douse, where a strong argument is made in favour of Surrey preserving the name of a tribe. That the tribe were the Rugii seems to me doubtful. No one since Camden has derived Surrey from words meaning ' south of the river.'
- That is if the preamble and signatures of the alleged foundation charter of Chertsey are genuine.
The abbey was said to be founded in 666, Wulfhere died in 675. But apart from this evidence it is certain that the great Mercian kings were overlords of London and the south-east. 8 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 823. 329
