Alfred styled himself King of the Angles and the Saxons. They were considered different people. People primarily identified as part of a more specific group – Mercians, Northumbrians, etc. This is reflected in royal titles; rather than these titles being claims to sovereignty over land areas, they were claims to sovereignty over a people (e.g. Offa was “King of the Mercians”, not “King of Mercia”, Alfred was “King of the West Saxons”, etc).

The idea of an English people (gens Anglorum) originated in the Church. St. Bede (writing in the 8th Century) in particular wanted to engender a shared identity among the Anglo-Saxons, and Bede's influence over subsequent writing can hardly be overstated. This was an attractive prospect to Alfred and later rulers because it allowed for the possibility of legitimate rulership over a much larger set of peoples, both because of the endorsement of the concept by the Church, and because of growing acceptance of the idea among the people. The concept was further strengthened by the presence of Vikings in England – a great pagan “other” that the previously disunited peoples could rally against through the development of a shared Christian and ethnic identity.