<P> From the accession of James VI and I in 1603, the Stuart dynasty ruled England in personal union with Scotland and Ireland . Under the Stuarts, the kingdom plunged into civil war, which culminated in the execution of Charles I in 1649 . The monarchy returned in 1660, but the Civil War had established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without the consent of Parliament . This concept became legally established as part of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 . From this time the kingdom of England, as well as its successor state the United Kingdom, functioned in effect as a constitutional monarchy . On 1 May 1707, under the terms of the Acts of Union 1707, the kingdoms of England and Scotland united to form the Kingdom of Great Britain . </P> <P> The Anglo - Saxons referred to themselves as the Engle or the Angelcynn, originally names of the Angles . They called their land Engla land, meaning "land of the English", by Æthelweard Latinized Anglia, from an original Anglia vetus, the purported homeland of the Angles (called Angulus by Bede). The name Engla land became England by haplology during the Middle English period (Engle - land, Engelond). The Latin name was Anglia or Anglorum terra, the Old French and Anglo - Norman one Angleterre . By the 14th century, England was also used in reference to the entire island of Great Britain . </P> <P> The standard title for monarchs from Æthelstan until John was Rex Anglorum ("King of the English"). Canute the Great, a Dane, was the first to call himself "King of England". In the Norman period Rex Anglorum remained standard, with occasional use of Rex Anglie ("King of England"). From John's reign onwards all other titles were eschewed in favour of Rex or Regina Anglie . In 1604 James I, who had inherited the English throne the previous year, adopted the title (now usually rendered in English rather than Latin) King of Great Britain . The English and Scottish parliaments, however, did not recognise this title until the Acts of Union of 1707 . </P> <P> The kingdom of England emerged from the gradual unification of the early medieval Anglo - Saxon kingdoms known as the Heptarchy: East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex . The Viking invasions of the 9th century upset the balance of power between the English kingdoms, and native Anglo - Saxon life in general . The English lands were unified in the 10th century in a reconquest completed by King Æthelstan in 927 CE . </P>

How was the first king of england decided
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