Kent was unlike the other kingdoms of Britain. Its modern name is little changed from the tribal folk-name Cantium by which Julius Caesar knew it.19 It maintained close links with the Continent and the courts of the Frankish kings. Its land-holding structures were different from elsewhere in English-held territories—East Kent was divided into units

Oswald Iding ruled Northumbria for eight years, from ad 634 to 642. In that time he was recognised as overlord of almost all the other kingdoms of Britain: of Wessex, Mercia, Lindsey and East Anglia, of the Britons of Rheged, Strathclyde, Powys and Gwynedd, the Scots of Dál Riata and the Picts of the far North. A famed warrior, the ‘Whiteblade’ or

From around 4000 BC, thousands of small communities slowly evolved towards the strong tribal kingdoms that were eventually to confront the invading Roman army.