The kings of the West Saxons ruled in Wiltshire, Berkhire, and Dorsetshire; in which there is one bishop, whose see is now at Sarum or Salisbury; formerly it was at Ramsbury, or at Sherborne: in Sussex, which for some little time possessed a king of its own[1] the episcopal see of this county was anciently in the island of Selsey, as Bede relates, where St. Wilfrid built a monastery; the bishop now dwells at Chichester: in the counties of Southampton and Surrey; which have a bishop, whose see is at Winchester: in the county of Somerset, which formerly had a bishop at Wells, but now at Bath: and in Domnonia, now called Devonshire, and Cornubia, now Cornwall; at that time there were two bishoprics, one at Crediton, the other at St. German's; now there is but one, and the see is at Exeter.
The kings of the Mercians governed the counties of Gloucester, Worcester, and Warwick; in these is one bishop whose residence is at Worcester: in Cheshire, Derbyshire, and Staffordshire; these have one bishop, who has part of Warwickshire and Shropshire; his residence is at the city of Legions, that is Chester or Coventry; formerly it was at Lichfield: in Herefordshire; and there is a bishop having half Shropshire and part of Warwickshire, and Gloucestershire; whose residence is at Hereford: in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, half of Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire; which counties are under the jurisdiction of a bishop now resident at Lincoln, but formerly at Dorchester in the county of Oxford: in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, which belong to the diocese of York; formerly they had their own bishop, whose seat was at Leicester.
The kings of the East Angles had dominion over the county of Cambridge; there is a bishop, whose seat is at Ely: and in Norfolk and Suffolk: whose see is at Norwich; formerly at Elmham or Thetford.
The kings of the East Saxons ruled in Essex, in Middle-
- ↑ The kingdom of Sussex was founded by Ælla, who arrived in Britain with three vessels, and accompanied by his three sons, a.d. 477. He seems to have attained a very high degree of power, and was succeeded by his son Cissa.—The affairs of this kingdom are extremely obscure; it appears to have been sometimes dependent on Kent and sometimes on Wessex until finally united to the latter by Egbert, a.d. 823.
