Æthelwulf of Wessex

“ But the men of Wessex had increased and multiplied as well as their cattle, and Æthelwulf, Alderman of Berkshire, was a man “who raged as a lion in battle.” So Æthelwulf, with what men he could get together, fought with the two earls at Englefield, though he had but a small band of Christians with him. But he cheered his men, saying to them, “though they attack us with the advantage of more men we may despise them, for our commander Christ, is braver than they.” ”

“ By Æthelwulf's will, Æthelred, his fourth, or third surviving, son, should have succeeded to the throne of Wessex on the death of Æthelbald, and Æthelberht should have remained king of Kent. This arrangement was, however, set aside, and on the death of Æthelbald in 860, Æthelberht succeeded to the West-Saxon kingship, and the kingdom of Kent was again united to the rest of southern England [see under Egbert] . In Æthelberht's days the Danes landed in Hampshire, and sacked Winchester, but were defeated by the forces of Hampshire and Wiltshire. ”

“ Eadward’s first difficulty was with his cousin Æthelwulf, the son of Alfred’s elder brother Æthelred. This prince claimed the throne. He landed in England, was driven to Northumbria, where he was chosen king, and then, in company with Eohric, the King of East Anglia, marched up the Thames to Cricklade. He was however defeated, and with his ally killed by a portion of the English army near the Ouse. The consequence was the renewal of the acknowledgment of the supremacy of Wessex by Guthrum II. of East Anglia. ”

“ Thus where the father ought by just right to have reigned, there did his unjust and obstinate son bear rule; for the western part of Wessex is always superior to the eastern.
13. Judith’s Position in Wessex.31—When Æthelwulf, therefore, returned from Rome, the whole nation, as was fitting, so rejoiced32 in the arrival of the ruler that, if he had allowed them, they would have expelled his unruly son Æthelbald, with all his counselors, from the kingdom. But he, as I have said, acting with great clemency and prudent counsel, would not act in this way, lest the kingdom should be exposed to peril. ”

“ Of all the historical memorials, however, none is capable of so profoundly stirring the imagination or arresting the attention as the six beautiful mortuary chests placed above the side screens of the choir. Think what associations the inscriptions on these recall. Early Wessex chieftains, as Kynegils and Kenwalh: kings of Wessex, when Wessex was supreme over all England, as Egbert and Æthelwulf: the union of Saxon and Dane, as personified by Cnut and Queen Emma; the Norman tyrant as represented by Rufus. Not even in Westminster Abbey itself can names such as these be read. ”

“ His successors Ceolwulf and Beornwulf likewise appear to have held Kent, but in 825 we hear of a king Baldred who was expelled by Ecgbert king of Wessex. Under the West Saxon dynasty Kent, together with Essex, Sussex and Surrey, was sometimes given as a dependent kingdom to one of the royal family. During Ecgbert’s reign it was entrusted to his son Aethelwulf, on whose accession to the throne of Wessex, in 839, it was given to Aethelstan, probably his son, who lived at least till 851. From 855 to 860 it was governed by Aethelberht son of Aethelwulf. ”

“ ÆTHELBERHT, king of the West Saxons, succeeded to the sub-kingdom of Kent during the lifetime of his father Æthelwulf, and retained it until the death of his elder brother Æthelbald in 860, when he became sole king of Wessex and Kent, the younger brothers Æthelred and Alfred renouncing their claim. ”

“ In 870 the "Great Army," now under two kings, Guthrum and Bagsaeg, sailed up the Thames and threw itself upon Surrey and Berks, the northern border of Wessex. Aethelred came out in haste against them, and with him marched his younger brother Alfred, the youngest of the four sons of the old Aethelwulf, a youth of eighteen, who now entered on his first campaign. The men of Wessex made a far sterner defence than had the armies of the other English kingdoms. The two warrior-brothers Aethelred and Alfred fought no less than six battles with the "Great Army" in the single year 871. ”

“ These lives cover much the same ground. St. Neot is made the son of Æthelwulf and his wife, granted to their prayers as a reward for their piety [251] . Æthelwulf is represented not incorrectly as king of one of the four English kingdoms, viz. of Wessex with Kent [252] , the other [56] three of course being Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria. Of the relations of these kingdoms a very ideal sketch is given. ”

“ Wessex entered on a career of conquest under Ecgberht, who, in 827, defeated the Mercian king at Ellandun. This victory led to the conquest of Kent, and in 838 Archbishop Ceolnoth, in a council held at Kingston, made a treaty of perpetual alliance between his Church and Ecgberht and his son Æthelwulf, the under-king of Kent. By this alliance the Church pledged itself to support the line of kings under which the English at last became a united nation. ”

“ These connections show the rising importance of England, and the entrance of the country into the general politics of Europe. Something in Æthelwulf’s government, perhaps his lengthened absence abroad, or the step he had taken in getting Alfred anointed, excited discontent. His eldest surviving son, Æthelbald, conspired with other nobles to exclude him from the country, and he was forced to consent to a compromise, accepting as his own kingdom, Kent and the Eastern dependencies of Wessex, while his son ruled over the rest of the kingdom.
Æthelbald. 858-860.
Æthelberht. 860-866. ”

“ That is to say, the West-Saxon king kept the whole of his own kingdom and added to it all south-western Mercia, establishing also an overlordship, however nominal, over the land which was yielded to the Danes. By this arrangement, Ælfred, as compared with his predecessors before the Danish invasions, lost as an overlord, but gained as an immediate sovereign. Ecgberht and Æthelwulf had been kings only of the later Wessex and its eastern dependencies, the land south of the Thames, with such supremacy as they might be able to enforce over the other English kingdoms. ”

“ He identified the name with Ealhstan or Ealchstan, the warlike bishop of Sherborne. It may seem strange that the bishop of Sherborne’s ring should be found in Carnarvonshire; but the Saxon Chronicle suggests a simple and natural explanation. In the year 853 Æthelwulf, king of Wessex, was petitioned by the king and Witan of Mercia to aid them in the subjugation of the Welsh, who were in rebellion. Consequently, Æthelwulf148 marched with an army into Wales, and restored the imperial authority of Mercia. ”

“ Documents, iii. 617–20; for some of these events see more fully under Egbert) . He succeeded to the kingship of Wessex on the death of his father in 839, a date arrived at by adding the length of Ecgberht's reign to the date of his accession, 802, while in a charter of 839 Æthelwulf declares that year to be the first after his father's death (Kemble, Codex Dipl. p. 240, i. 321; the chronology of the Chronicle is incorrect at this period) . ”

“ The scene had no need of the queen's comment: "See, my lord, how the fashion of this world passeth away!" In 726 he sought peace in a pilgrimage to Rome. The anarchy which had driven Ine from the throne broke out in civil strife which left Wessex an easy prey to Æthelbald, the successor of Ceolred in the Mercian realm. Æthelbald took up with better fortune the struggle of his people for supremacy over the south. ”

“ Ælfwald then became king, but Eardwulf was restored in 808 or 809 after appealing to the emperor and the pope. Eanred, son of Eardwulf, probably came to the throne in 809 and reigned until 841. It was during his reign in 827 that Northumbria acknowledged the supremacy of Ecgberht, king of Wessex. Eanred was succeeded by his son Æthelred, who was slain in 850, when Osberht came to the throne and reigned until 863. ”

“ His power was something far greater than that of the Guthrums and Anlafs of an earlier generation, and—in the end of his life at least—he was aiming at political conquest, and not either at mere plunder or at finding new settlements for his followers. But if the strength of the invader was greater than that of his predecessors, Æthelred also was far better equipped for war than his ancestors of the 9th century. He owned, and he sometimes used—but always to little profit—a large fleet, while all England instead of the mere realm of Wessex was at his back. ”

“ Ethelwulph, although placed, in his father's life-time, upon the throne of Kent, had assumed the monastic habit, and a dispensation from the pope had to be obtained before he could be crowned king of Wessex. He appears to have been a man of a mild and indolent disposition, one who would have made a better monk than a monarch, and have been much happier in the dreamy quietude of the cloister, than in the stir and tumult of the camp. Alstan, the bishop of Sherbourne, who had shared the council and favour of Egbert, was the first to arouse Ethelwulph from his natural lethargy ”

“ He who was destined to become the greatest sovereign that ever sat upon the English throne, was at this period one of the most daring followers of the chase, for, although he was from childhood a martyr to a painful disease, yet where the antlered monarch of the forest led the way, there was Alfred to be seen foremost amongst the hunters. Young as he was, he had already married a Mercian lady, called Ealswitha, and some portion of Wessex was allotted to him, probably such as had been held by his father Ethelwulph, when the subjects rebelled on account of his step-mother Judith. ”

“ From every point of view it was a suitable union, seeing that Athelwold would inherit power and great possessions from his father, Earldoman of East Anglia, and before long the marriage took place, and by and by Athelwold took his wife to Wessex, to the castle he had built for himself on his estate of Wherwell, on the Test. There they lived together, and as they had married for love they were happy. ”

“ After Athelstan’s death in 940 there was scarcely any serious thought of reestablishing Mercia or Northumbria as a separate kingdom from Wessex. Hard and cruel were the blows stricken by the hammer of Thor, but they had the effect of welding Angles, Saxons and Jutes into one people.
The upward career of Egbert of Wessex (802–839) must now be briefly described. As has been said, he returned from exile on the death of his foe, Beorhtric, and apparently without a contest was raised to the West Saxon throne. ”

“ The marriage with Judith, which was probably considered as likely to lead to a change in the succession to the injury of Æthelbald and the other West-Saxon æthelings, was the primary cause of the conspiracy, though the king is said to have given other causes of offence. Æthelwulf was joyfully received in Kent, and the Kentishmen urged him to let them do battle with his son. He shrank from such a war, and at a meeting of the witan gave up the kingdom of the West-Saxons to Æthelbald, and kept only the under-kingdom of Kent for himself. ”

“ In 750 he had to meet with an enemy among his own subjects, and fought with Æthelhun, ‘the proud ealdorman,’ and defeated him. Determined to shake off the supremacy of the Mercian king, he made war on Æthelbald in 752 and put him to flight at Burford in Oxfordshire, a victory largely due to the valour of the former rebel Æthelhun, who bore in the battle the royal standard, the golden dragon of Wessex. ”

“ But the warm love of his people, who gathered round him, delighted at his return, prevented this project from being carried into effect, and the old man, desiring only peace in his family, divided the kingdom between his two eldest sons; but on the death of Ethelbald, soon after, Ethelbert joined the two divisions together, including Kent, Surrey, and Sussex in the same kingdom with Wessex. ”

“ By the year 956 Ælfgifu had become the king’s wife, but in 958 Archbishop Odo of Canterbury secured their separation on the ground of their being too closely akin. Edwy, to judge from the disproportionately large numbers of charters issued during his reign, seems to have been weakly lavish in the granting of privileges, and soon the chief men of Mercia and Northumbria were disgusted by his partiality for Wessex. ”

“ The south of England, between Sussex and “West Wales” (eventually reduced to Cornwall) , was occupied by Wessex, which originally also possessed some territory to the north of the Thames. Lastly, even the Isle of Wight appears to have had a dynasty of its own. But it must not be supposed that all these kingdoms were always, or even normally, independent. When history begins, Æthelberht, king of Kent, was supreme over all the kings south of the Humber. He was followed by the East Anglian king Raedwald, and the latter again by a series of Northumbrian kings with an even wider supremacy. ”

“ Wessex has grown into England, England into Great Britain, Great Britain into the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom into the British Empire. Every prince who has ruled England before and since the eleventh century [the interval of the Danish kings, Harold, son of Godwine, and William the Conqueror, who were not of the West Saxon house] has had the blood of Cerdic the West Saxon in his veins. At the close of the sixth century Wessex had risen to high importance among the English Kingdoms, though the days of its permanent supremacy were still far distant. ”

“ Unpopular among the Wessex nobles and in his own monastery, Dunstan was driven abroad, and took refuge in Ghent. But his party was still strong in England. Indignant probably at a violent resumption of grants from the Folkland, the nobles of England, with the exception of Wessex, set up Edwy’s younger brother Eadgar as a rival king, and were sufficiently powerful to oblige Edwy to divide the kingdom and content himself with the territories of Wessex south of the Thames. ”