England Could Have Been Sexland

Here, have some history!

England was formed by 2 major groups from what is now northern Germany: the Angles, from the Anglia Peninsula; and the Saxons, from Saxony. There were also the Jutes, from what’s now Denmark.

The Saxons settled southern England, founding the Kingdoms of Wessex (West-Saxons), Essex (East-Saxons) and Sussex (South-Saxons). The Angles settled the middle of England, with the Kingdom of Mercia (meaning “border people”) and East Anglia, and in the north of England, founding the Kingdom of Northumbria (north of the river Humber). And the Jutes founded the Kingdom of Kent (from an old Celtic word probably meaning “coastal region”). These seven Kingdoms of ancient England were known as the Heptarchy.

To cut a very long story short, the Heptarchy was finally united into one country by King Alfred of Wessex, to help defend against the Viking invasions. Alfred helped to unify the region by promoting the idea that the Anglo-Saxons were all one people. In our universe, the way he chose to do this was by using the word “Angelcynn” (derived from “Angle”) to describe all the people, in an effort to dissuade the Angles rejecting him as a foreign Saxon ruler. It worked, and the result was the whole area banding together into a single unified nation, which was eventually named England, after the Angles, not the Saxons. 

The Celtic nations however continued to call the English after the Saxons: In Irish, we are the Sasanach, and in Welsh, we’re Saesneg. 

So it seems that the decision of one man, Alfred of Wessex, could have started a chain of events that may have eventually created a world in which “Sexland” was a country!