Mercia

(from Old English Merce, �People of the Marches [or Boundaries]�), one of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England; it held a position of dominance for much of the period from the mid-7th to the early 9th century. Mercia originally comprised the border areas (modern Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and northern West Midlands and Warwickshire) that lay between the districts