Bede has enumerated seven kings - two Saxons, a Jute, and four Angles - who successively acquired in the heptarchy an indefinite supremacy of power and renown. But their reign was the effect, not of law, but of conquest; and he observes, in similar terms, that one of them subdued the Isles of Man and Anglesey; and that another imposed a tribute on the Scots and Picts (Hist. Eccles. 1. ii. c. 5, p. 83).