The land we now call England was still the home of a few people who had lived there from before Roman times. But most of the people living in England when the Vikings arrived were Anglo-Saxons. These people had invaded England three hundred years before and now thought of England as their home.
The Anglo-Saxons were mainly divided into three main kingdoms: the Saxons in the south, the Mercians in the Midlands and the Northumbrians in the north.
