The Collaborative International Dictionary
Heptarchy \Hep"tarch*y\, n. [Hepta- + -archy: cf. F. heptarchie.] A government by seven persons; also, a country under seven rulers.
Note: The word is most commonly applied to England, when it was divided into seven kingdoms; as, the Saxon heptachy, which consisted of Kent, the South Saxons (Sussex), West Saxons (Wessex), East Saxons (Essex), the East Angles, Mercia, and Northumberland.
Wiktionary
n. 1 government by seven people 2 A state governed by seven people, or an association of seven states (as in Anglo-Saxon Britain)
Wikipedia
The Heptarchy (from the Greek ἑπτά hepta, "seven" and ἄρχω arkho, "to rule") is a collective name applied to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of south, east and central England during late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, conventionally identified as seven: East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex and Wessex. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms eventually unified into the Kingdom of England.
The term has been in use since the 16th century, but the initial idea that there were seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms is attributed to the English historian Henry of Huntingdon in the 12th century and was first used in his Historia Anglorum.
Usage examples of "heptarchy".
He was twice discomfited in battle by Ceaulin, king of Wessex, and obliged to yield the superiority in the Heptarchy to that ambitious monarch, who preserved no moderation in his victory, and by reducing the kingdom of Sussex to subjection, excited jealousy in all the other princes.
Egbert, king of Wessex, who dissolved the Saxon Heptarchy, and united the several kingdoms under his dominion.
The history of this kingdom, the smallest in the Heptarchy, is still more imperfect than that of Essex.
But the priests in the Heptarchy, after the first missionaries, were wholly Saxons, and almost as ignorant and Barbarous as the laity.
The similarity of these institutions to the customs of the ancient Germans, to the practice of the other northern conquerors, and to the Saxon laws during the Heptarchy, prevents us from regarding Alfred as the sole author of this plan of government, and leads us rather to think, that, like a wise-man, he contented himself with reforming, extending, and executing the institutions which he found previously established.
It is probable, also, that the constitution might be somewhat different hi the different kingdoms of the Heptarchy, and that it changed considerably during the course of six centuries, which elapsed from the first invasion of the Saxons till the Norman conquest.
The perpetual wars in the Heptarchy, and the depredations of the Danes, seem to have been the cause of this great alteration with the Anglo-Saxons.
Without this clue to the character of the revolution, the remark of Milton that the wars of the Saxon heptarchy were as unintelligible as those of kites in a neighbouring wood, would apply to the proceedings of the Parisians.
Beyond the Severn the Britons still asserted their national freedom, which survived the heptarchy, and even the monarchy, of the Saxons.
Lord Arthur Sibthorpe, son of the Duke of Tavistock, with a pedigree from the Heptarchy.