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Isle of Wight
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The Isle of Wight, known to the ancient Romans as Vectis, is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 3 to 5 mi (5 to 8 km) off the coast of Hampshire, separated from Great Britain (referred to by its residents as "the Mainland") by a strait called the Solent. It has the distinction of being England's smallest county during high tide, while Rutland is the smallest when Wight is at low tide. The island has several resorts which have been holiday destinations since Victorian times.
Its history includes a brief status as an independent kingdom in the 15th century. Until 1995, like Jersey and Guernsey, the island had a Governor.
Home to the poets Swinburne and Tennyson and to Queen Victoria, who built her much-loved summer residence and final home Osborne House at East Cowes, the island has a maritime and industrial tradition such as boat building, sail making, the manufacture of flying boats, the world's first hovercraft and the testing and development of Britain's space rockets. The Isle hosts annual festivals including the Isle of Wight International Jazz Festival, Bestival and the recently revived Isle of Wight Festival, which, in 1970, was the largest rock music event ever held. The island has well-conserved wildlife and some of the richest cliffs and quarries for dinosaur fossils in Europe.
The Isle of Wight was part of Hampshire until 1890 when it became an independent administrative county. Until 1974 it continued to share the Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire when it was reconstituted as a non-metropolitan ceremonial county which gives its own Lord Lieutenant and recognised as a postal county.
Regular car and foot ferry services shuttle across the Solent to the Island.
After the Romans departed, the island was ruled by the Jute brothers, Stuf and Wihtgar, nephews of King Cerdic of Wessex. Wihtgar was killed in a battle in AD 661, and Stuf became sole king, naming the island after his dead brother, buried at Wihtgaræsbyrg (Carisbrook).
Interestingly, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles state concerning the months just preceding the death - "Her sunne aÞiestrode .xiiii. dagum ær kalendas Martii from ærmergenne oÞ undern. (This year the sun darkened on February 16th from dawn until nine in the morning - presumably an eclipse). And then again - "aHer sunne aÞiestrode on .xii. kalendas Iulius, 7 steorran hie oδiewdon fulneah healfe tid ofer undern" (The sun darkened on June 20th, and the stars showed fully nearly half an hour past nine in the morning).
Days later, Ida the Flamebearer from Northumberland became the first king to rule the whole of England - until Danelaw was established.
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