BRETWALDA  , a word used in the Anglo-Saxon

Chronicle under the date 827, and also in a charter of sEthelstan, king of the English . It appears in several variant forms (brytenwalda, bretenanwealda, &c.), and means most probably " lord of the Britons " or " lord of Britain "; for although the derivation of the word is uncertain, its earlier syllable seems to be cognate with the words Briton and Britannia . In the Chronicle the title is given to Ecgbert, king of the English, " the eighth king that was Bretwalda," and retrospectively to seven kings who ruled over one or other of the English kingdoms . The seven names are copied from Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, and it is interesting to note that the last king named, Oswiu of Northumbria, lived 150 years before Ecgbert . It has been assumed that these seven kings exercised a certain superiority over a large part of England, but if such superiority existed it is certain that it was extremely vague and was unaccompanied by any unity of organization . Another theory is that Bretwalda refers to a war-leadership, or imperium, over the English south of the Humber, and has nothing to do with Britons or Britannia . In support of this explanation it is urged that the title is given in the Chronicle to Ecgbert in the year in which he " conquered the kingdom of the Mercians and all that was south of the Humber." Less likely is the theory of Palgrave that the Bretwaldas were the successors of the pseudo-emperors, Maximus and Carausius, and claimed to share the imperial dignity of Rome; or that of Kemble, who derives Bretwalda from the British word breotan, to distribute, and translates it " widely ruling." With regard to Ecgbert the word is doubtless given as a title in imitation of its earlier use, and the same remark applies to its use in AEthelstan's charter . See E . A . Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, vol. i . (Oxford, 1877) ; W . Stubbs, Constitutional History, vol. i .

(Oxford, 1897) ; J . R .

Green, The Making of England, vol. ii . (London, 1897) ; F . Palgrave, The Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth (London, 1832) ; J . M . Kemble, The Saxons in England (London, 1876) ; J . Rhys, Celtic Britain (London, 1884) .