The Kingdom of England was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from 927, when all of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were united under the rule of Æthelstan, until 1 May 1707, when it relinquished its sovereignty along with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, which would later become the United Kingdom. The Kingdom of England was among the most powerful states in Europe during the medieval and early modern periods.

The political unification of England was a complex process that took place over many decades. Beginning in the year 886, Alfred the Great took London from the Danes and adopted the title King of the Anglo-Saxons in order to reflect his control over both Wessex and western Mercia. This style would go on to be inherited by his son, Edward the Elder (reigned 899–924), and grandson, Æthelstan, both of whom greatly expanded the authority of the House of Wessex during their respective reigns. In 927, Æthelstan conquered the last remaining Viking kingdom, York, thereby making him the first Anglo-Saxon ruler of the whole of England and the founder of the Kingdom of the English. In 1016, the kingdom became part of the North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway. The Norman Conquest in 1066 led to the transfer of the English capital city and chief royal residence from the Anglo-Saxon one at Winchester to Westminster, and the City of London quickly established itself as England's largest and principal commercial centre.London, 800–1216: The Shaping of a City, "...rivalry between City and government, between a commercial capital in the City and the political capital of quite a different empire in Westminster.", accessed November 2013.

Histories of the Kingdom of England from the Norman Conquest of 1066 conventionally distinguish periods named after successive ruling dynasties: Norman/Angevin 1066–1216, Plantagenet 1216–1485, Tudor 1485–1603 and Stuart 1603–1707 (interrupted by the Interregnum of 1649–1660).

All English monarchs after 1066 ultimately descend from the Normans, and the distinction of the Plantagenets is conventional—beginning with Henry II (reigned 1154–1189) as from that time, the Angevin kings became "more English in nature"; the houses of Lancaster and York are both Plantagenet cadet branches, the Tudor dynasty claimed descent from Edward III via John Beaufort and James VI and I of the House of Stuart claimed descent from Henry VII via Margaret Tudor.

The completion of the conquest of Wales by Edward I in 1284 put Wales under the control of the English crown. Edward III (reigned 1327–1377) transformed the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe; his reign also saw vital developments in legislation and government—in particular the evolution of the English Parliament. From the 1340s, English claims to the French throne were held in pretense, but after the Hundred Years' War and the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses in 1455, the English were no longer in any position to pursue their French claims and lost all their land on the continent, except for Calais. After the turmoils of the Wars of the Roses, the Tudor dynasty ruled during the English Renaissance and again extended English monarchical power beyond England proper, achieving the full union of England and the Principality of Wales under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542. Henry VIII oversaw the English Reformation, and his daughter Elizabeth I (reigned 1558–1603) the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, meanwhile establishing England as a great power.

The accession of James VI and I in 1603 resulted in the Union of the Crowns, with the Stuart dynasty ruling the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. James’s reign saw the first foundations of the British Empire via colonization of the Americas, beginning with Virginia in 1607. Under the Stuarts, England plunged into civil war, which culminated in the execution of Charles I in 1649. The monarchy returned in 1660, but the Civil War had established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without the consent of Parliament. This concept became legally established as part of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. From this time the kingdom of England, as well as its successor state the United Kingdom, functioned in effect as a constitutional monarchy. On 1 May 1707, under the terms of the Acts of Union 1707, the parliaments, and therefore Kingdoms, of both England and Scotland were mutually abolished. Their assets and estates united 'for ever, into the Kingdom by the name of Great Britain', forming the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Parliament of Great Britain."Acts of Union 1707", UK Parliament, accessed 27 January 2011.

Name

The Anglo-Saxons referred to themselves as the or the , originally names of the Angles. They called their land Engla land, meaning "land of the English", by Æthelweard Latinized Anglia, from an original Anglia vetus, the purported homeland of the Angles (called Angulus by Bede). The name Engla land became England by haplology during the Middle English period (Engle-land, Engelond).A. L. Mayhew and Walter W. Skeat, (1888), A Concise Dictionary of Middle English From A.D. 1150 To 1580 The Latin name was Anglia or Anglorum terra, the Old French and Anglo-Norman one Engleterre." Anglia " (par L. Favre, 1883–1887), dans du Cange, et al., Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis , éd. augm., Niort : L. Favre, 1883–1887, t. 1, col. 251c.

The standard title for monarchs from Æthelstan until John was ("King of the English"). Cnut, a Dane, was the first to call himself "King of England". During the Norman period remained standard, with occasional use of ("King of England"). From John's reign onwards all other titles were eschewed in favour of or . In 1604 James I, who had inherited the English throne the previous year, adopted the title (now usually rendered in English rather than Latin) King of Great Britain.

History Anglo-Saxon England

The Kingdom of England emerged from the gradual unification of the early medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdoms known as the Heptarchy: East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex. The Viking invasions of the 9th century upset the balance of power between the English kingdoms, and native Anglo-Saxon life in general. The English lands were unified in the 10th century in a reconquest completed by 927.

During the Heptarchy, the most powerful king among the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms might become acknowledged as Bretwalda, a high king over the other kings. The decline of Mercia allowed Wessex to become more powerful, absorbing the kingdoms of Kent and Sussex in 825. The kings of Wessex increasingly dominated the other kingdoms of England during the 9th century. In 827, Northumbria submitted to Egbert of Wessex at Dore, briefly making Egbert the first king to reign over a united England.Extract from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Translations available at Berkeley Digital Library and Project Gutenberg

In 886, Alfred the Great retook London, which he apparently regarded as a turning point in his reign. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that "all of the English people (all Angelcyn) not subject to the Danes submitted themselves to King Alfred."The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Freely licensed version at Gutenberg Project. Note: This electronic edition is a collation of material from nine diverse extant versions of the Chronicle. It contains primarily the translation of Rev. James Ingram, as published in the Everyman edition. Asser added that "Alfred, king of the Anglo-Saxons, restored the city of London splendidly ... and made it habitable once more."Asser's Life of King Alfred, ch. 83, trans. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred & Other Contemporary Sources (Penguin Classics) (1984), pp. 97–98. Alfred's restoration entailed reoccupying and refurbishing the nearly deserted Roman walled city, building quays along the Thames, and laying a new city street plan.Vince, Alan, Saxon London: An Archaeological Investigation, The Archaeology of London series (1990). pp. 126–127

On 12 July 927 the monarchs of Britain gathered at Eamont Bridge, now in Cumbria, to recognise Æthelstan as king of the English. The title "King of the English" or Rex Anglorum in Latin, was first used to describe Æthelstan in one of his charters in 928. The standard title for monarchs from Æthelstan until John was "King of the English". During the following years Northumbria repeatedly changed hands between the English kings and the Norwegian invaders, but was definitively brought under English control by Eadred in 954, completing the unification of England. In 1018, Lothian, a portion of the northern half of Northumbria Bernicia was ceded to the Kingdom of Scotland.

England has remained in political unity ever since. During the reign of Æthelred the Unready (978–1016), a new wave of Danish invasions was orchestrated by Swein Forkbeard, King of Denmark, culminating after a quarter-century of warfare in the Danish conquest of England in 1013. But Sweyn died on 2 February 1014, and Æthelred was restored to the throne. In 1015, Sweyn's son Cnut (commonly known as Canute) launched a new invasion. The ensuing war ended with an agreement in 1016 between Canute and Æthelred's successor, Edmund Ironside, to divide England between them, but Edmund's death on 30 November of that year left England united under Danish rule. This continued for 26 years until the death of Harthacnut in June 1042. He was the son of Canute and Emma of Normandy (the widow of Æthelred the Unready) and had no heirs of his own; he was succeeded by his half-brother, Æthelred's son, Edward the Confessor.

Norman Conquest

The peace lasted until the death of the childless Edward in January 1066. His brother-in-law was crowned King Harold, but his cousin William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, immediately claimed the throne for himself. William launched an invasion of England and landed in Sussex on 28 September 1066. Harold and his army were in York, following their victory against the Norwegians at the Battle of Stamford Bridge (25 September 1066), when the news reached him. He decided to set out without delay and confront the Norman army in Sussex so marched southwards at once, despite the army not being properly rested following the battle with the Norwegians. The armies of Harold and William faced each other at the Battle of Hastings (14 October 1066), in which the English army, or Fyrd, was defeated, Harold and his two brothers were slain, and William emerged as victor. William was then able to conquer England with little further opposition. He was not, however, planning to absorb the Kingdom into the Duchy of Normandy. As a mere duke, William owed allegiance to Philip I of France, whereas in the independent Kingdom of England he could rule without interference. He was crowned on 25 December 1066 in Westminster Abbey, London.

High Middle Ages

In 1092, William II led an invasion of Strathclyde, a Celtic kingdom in what is now southwest Scotland and Cumbria. In doing so, he annexed what is now the county of Cumbria to England. In 1124, Henry I ceded what is now southeast Scotland (called Lothian) to the Kingdom of Scotland, in return for the King of Scotland's loyalty. This final cession established what would become the traditional borders of England which have remained largely unchanged since then (except for occasional and temporary changes). This area of land had previously been a part of the Anglian Kingdom of Northumbria. Lothian contained what later became the Scottish capital, Edinburgh. This arrangement was later finalized in 1237 by the Treaty of York.