Kingdom of East Anglia

The Kingdom of East Anglia was an early medieval kingdom of the Angles, occupying the area that now forms the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and perhaps the eastern Fens. It took shape in the first or second quarter of the sixth century, in the wake of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, and was one of the kingdoms of the Heptarchy. Its early rulers came from the Wuffingas dynasty, named after the semi-legendary Wuffa. The kingdom's greatest king, Rædwald, was probably the person commemorated by the ship burial at Sutton Hoo and exercised wide influence over neighbouring kingdoms in the early seventh century. After Rædwald's death, East Anglia was increasingly dominated by Mercia. It lost its independence for a period after 794, regained it briefly in 796, and was finally conquered by the Danes in 869, when King Edmund was killed and later venerated as a martyr. East Anglia then became part of the Danelaw. In 917 Edward the Elder recovered the region, and in 918 it was incorporated into the Kingdom of England. The kingdom's archaeology, especially the Sutton Hoo treasures, provides some of the richest evidence for early Anglo-Saxon kingship, trade and artistic achievement.