Even when summoned explicitly by kings, the witenagemots did not represent the political will of all England: before the unification of England in the 10th century, separate witenagemots were convened by the Kings of Essex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex and Wessex. Indeed, even after Wessex became the dominant power in England, supplanting the other kingdoms, local witan continued to meet until as late as 1067. In his work on Alfred the Great, historian David Sturdy argues that the witan did not embody modern notions of a 'national institution' or a 'democratic' body:Victorian notions of a national 'witan' are crazy dreams without foundation, myths of a 'democratic parliament' that never was.