The Kingdom of England traces its origins to Athelstan, who in 927 became the first king to rule the whole of what is now England after defeating the Danes at Brunanburh. Wessex, his family's kingdom, had previously been the strongest of the Anglo-Saxon states. England remained a separate kingdom for nearly 800 years and acquired a Welsh principality in 1284 under Edward I.
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In 1603 the Crowns of England and Scotland were united under James VI and I, but the two kingdoms kept separate parliaments and laws until the Act of Union in 1707 created the Kingdom of Great Britain. Earlier dynasties — the Wessex line, the Normans, the Plantagenets, the Tudors and the Stuarts — between them gave England most of the kings and queens whose names appear in the test.
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