The Kingdom of Northumbria

(Today part of: northern England, parts of southern Scotland)

Overall, the kingdoms on the Isle were not politically united (until the 10^th century), and a permanent and efficient control over the great part of Britain showed itself to be out of reach for any of them, so it all came down to the dominion of one over the other at any given moment in history. The Kingdom of Northumbria reached its peak in the 7^th century, when it was defeated by Mercia (768) and the Picts (685). As early as the 8^th century, Northumbria had found itself facing raids by the Vikings, the pressure of which will be felt in the next century by all coastal regions, but it will not be until the 60s of the 9^th century, when it was crushed by the so-called Great Danish Army (the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok), who pillaged nearly all of the central and eastern parts of the Isle, whilst Wessex was forced to pay tribute to them.

 The language spoken in Northumbria differed from the language spoken in the Kingdoms of Mercia, Kent, and Wessex, and the overall speech of the eastern and northern areas of the Isle was under a strong influence of the Old Norse language, due to the Viking rule, and their settlements from the beginning of the 9^th century. Nevertheless, because of their similarities, we can put them all in the category of the Old English language, which finds its roots in the cluster of Anglo-Frisian, or the North Sea Germanic dialects spoken by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes during their conquest of the Isle, which brought with itself a suppression of the Romanic-Celtic tribes, who lived in these parts. Northumbria will formally keep its independence until the mid-10^th century, but it will never again reach its former glory. Its northern borders (pushed south to the river Tweed) will serve as a foundation for geo-political relations of that which will much later become England and Scotland.