King of the South Saxons and Bretwalda
Some thirty years after the arrival of Hengist and Horsa in Britain, who were the first
of the Anglo-Saxons to lay claim to the island, came a great chieftain of the Saxon
tribe named Aelle to these shores.
As the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates, in the year of our Lord 477, Aelle came with his
three sons Cymen, Wlencing and Cissa in three ships and landed at Cymenesora where
they killed many Britons and drove them into the wood named Andredsley. Having thus
established his kingdom some eight years later Aella fought with the Britons once more at
Meacredesburna and once five more years were past he and son Cissa besieged the city of
Andred, which the Romans called Anderita and which we now call Pevensey, and took
that city, killing all those who opposed him within.
From these beginnings Aelle made the kingdom of the South Saxons known as Sussex
whose name lives down to the present, and was the first to be called by the great Bede as
Bretwalda; the greatest of and noblest of his time.