the inhabitants of one of the subkingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England that coincided with the medieval diocese of Worcester, a territory that then encompassed present Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, and southwest Warwickshire. The southern part had been wrested from the Britons by the West Saxons sometime after 577, and the northern part was probably settled by Anglian peoples from the east. The whole area, united under Mercia in the early 7th century, was ruled by subkings until the dissolution of the Mercian kingdom between 877 and 883.