204 AN ENGLISH SHIRE. 



As time went on, however, the isolation of Sussex 

 became less complete. JEthelwealh had got himself into 

 complications with Wessex by accepting the sovereignty 

 of the Isle of Wight and the Meonwaras about South- 

 hampton from the hands of a Mercian conqueror. 

 Perhaps ^Ethelwealh then repaired the old Eoman roads 

 which led from his own ham at Chichester to Portsmouth 

 in Wessex, and broke down the mark, so as to connect 

 his old and his new dominions with one another. At 

 any rate, shortly after, Csedwalla, the West Saxon, an 

 aetheling at large on the look-out for a kingdom, attacked 

 him suddenly with his host of thegns from this unexpected 

 quarter, killed the King himself, and harried the South 

 Saxons from marsh to marsh. Two South Saxons thegns 

 expelled him for a time, and made themselves masters 

 of the country. But afterwards, Caedwalla, becoming 

 King of the West Saxons, recovered Sussex once more, 

 and handed it on to his successor, Ini. Hence the South 

 Saxons had no bishopric of their own during this period, 

 but were included in the see of the West Saxons at 

 Winchester. 



During the hundred years of the Mercian Supremacy, 

 coincident, roughly speaking, with the eighth century, we 

 hear little of Sussex ; but it seems to have shaken off the 

 yoke of Wessex, and to have been in subjection to the great 

 Mercian over-lords alone. It had its own under- kings and 

 its own bishops. Early in the ninth century, however, 

 when Ecgberht the West Saxon succeeding in throwing 

 off the Mercian yoke, the other Saxon States of South 

 Britain willingly joined him against the Anglian 

 oppressors. ' The men of Kent and Surrey, Sussex and 



