Kingdom of Sussex

The Kingdom of Sussex, or the Kingdom of the South Saxons, was one of the seven traditional kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England. It occupied the coastal plain and the Weald of what is now Sussex, a territory inherited from the Roman civitas of the Regni, and was bounded on the west by the kingdom of Wessex and on the north by the dense forest of the Weald. Tradition, recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, holds that Aelle and his three sons arrived in three ships in 477 and conquered the coast; Aelle is said to have become overlord of the southern English kingdoms. Historians doubt whether Aelle existed, but archaeology shows a substantial Saxon presence in the fifth and sixth centuries. Sussex is the least documented of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: no king-list survives, several local rulers probably shared power, and central authority was weaker than elsewhere. In the seventh century King Aethelwealh allied with Mercia, took baptism and, with the help of Wilfrid, made Sussex the last major Anglo-Saxon kingdom to become Christian. Afterwards the kingdom was repeatedly attacked by Wessex, and for a time it fell under Mercian overlordship before Offa's power waned. After the battle of Ellendun in 827 Sussex was annexed by Wessex, and by 860 it was ruled directly by the West Saxon kings.