History UsefulNotes / TheHouseOfWessex

Succeeded his half-bother [=Æthelstan=], above, as king at the tender age of 18, having already fought alongside him at the Battle of Brunanburh two years earlier. He re-established Anglo-Saxon control over northern England, which had fallen back under Scandinavian rule following the death of [=Æthelstan=]. Aged just 25, and whilst celebrating the feast of Augustine, Edmund was stabbed by a robber in his royal hall at Pucklechurch near Bath. His two sons, Eadwig and Edgar, were perhaps considered too young to become kings.

Eighth century England consisted of seven Anglo-Saxon sub-kingdoms which existed in a state of internecine warfare. Occasionally a king of one of the larger three kingdoms, Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria, would emerge from the dynastic turmoil to be accepted as ''Bretwalda'' (Bretanwealda in Old English) or 'overlord' by the others. One such was Egbert, of the House of Wessex, the first monarch to establish a stable and extensive rule over all of Anglo-Saxon England. His ancestor, Cerdic of Wessex (519-534), the [[FounderOfTheKingdom founder]] of the Wessex line, claimed a mythical [[AGodAmI descent from the great Anglo-Saxon pagan god Wōden]] himself. The dynasty he founded was to rule England for over two hundred years and produced such varying characters as Alfred (871-899), the only English monarch ever to be bestowed with the epithet "the Great" who amongst varied achievements, established a peace with the invading Vikings and founded the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

On paper, there was one final Anglo-Saxon King of England. After Harold's death, the Witan promptly elected the grandson of King Edmund Ironside, Edgar [=Ætheling=], to be the new king. Edgar was the last remaining male member of the House of Wessex and thus considered the only plausible option since they were unwilling to accept William's claim. Edgar was never actually crowned and since William didn't care about the Witan's permission, he never actually ruled England. He briefly tried to retake the throne with the aid of his brother-in-law King Malcolm III of Scotland, this being one of several possible attempts at the throne, many of which failed to get going thanks to obscene bad luck; but after this failed, Malcolm convinced him to give up on becoming king. His life after is quite interesting; a failed venture in Italy in 1086, believed to have popped up with a fleet to help out the First Crusade, and stories that he commanded the Byzantine Emperor's Varangian Guard (at this point mostly English exiles). While both of the latter are doubtful, we do know he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1102 and was received by Emperor Alexios I Komnenos in Constantinople, which is probably where the confusion came from. In later life, he was respected as a diplomat and mediator between William's squabbling sons, and helped arrange the marriage of his niece Edith (who took the name Matilda) to Henry I. No one is entirely sure when he died, or where he was buried. The last definitive mention of him being by Anglo-Norman Chronicler Orderic Vitalis in 1125, where he noted that the elderly Edgar was living in the countryside in peace and quiet.

->'''Lived''': c. 1052 -- c. 1125

On paper, there was one final Anglo-Saxon King of England. After Harold's death, the Witan promptly elected the grandson of King Edmund Ironside, Edgar [=Ætheling=], to be the new king. Edgar was the last remaining male member of the House of Wessex and thus considered the only plausible option since they were unwilling to accept William's claim. Edgar was never actually crowned and since William didn't care about the Witan's permission, he never actually ruled England. He briefly tried to retake the throne with the aid of his brother-in-law King Malcolm III of Scotland; but after this failed, Malcolm convinced him to give up on becoming king.

--> ''"In the grim time of Norman overlordship the figure of the great Alfred was a beacon-light, the bright symbol of Saxon achievement, the hero of the race."''
--> Winston Churchill: A history of the English speaking peoples, 1956.

** ''Literature/TheWarlordChronicles'' trilogy (''The Winter King'', ''Enemy of God,'' and ''Excalibur: A Novel of Arthur'') is about Myth/KingArthur attempting to set up a kingdom being threatened by invasion from the Anglo-Saxons.

One of the British Isle's [[HundredPercentAdorationRating most celebrated rulers]], there's a lot to say about him, so like many prominent British monarchs, he also has his own page -- see UsefulNotes/AlfredTheGreat. Speaking of prominent British monarchs, former Queen of the United Kingdom, UsefulNotes/ElizabethII, was his 32nd great-granddaughter.

Since his immediate successor both was not of royal blood and was killed and overthrown within less than a year of taking the throne, Edward the Confessor is often considered the "true" last Anglo-Saxon King of England. On the other hand, he was also arguably the first ''Norman'' King of England, since not only was his mother Norman but he was largely raised in Normandy (having been exiled during the reign of Cnut and his sons) and during his reign was controversial among the Anglo-Saxon nobility for his pro-Norman sympathies. After his death, this was largely forgotten, with his religious piety (he and Edward the Martyr are the only Kings of England to be officially recognized saints by the Catholic Church) being the basis for his posthumous reputation. Indeed, so popular was Edward's cult that [[UsefulNotes/HenryTheThird Henry III]] cannily named his son and heir "[[UsefulNotes/EdwardI Edward]]" to drum up support among the public. As a result, "Edward" is the only pre-Conquest Anglo-Saxon name still in use among the British royals.

Since his immediate successor both was not of royal blood and was killed and overthrown within less than a year of taking the throne, Edward the Confessor is often considered the "true" last Anglo-Saxon King of England. On the other hand, he was also arguably the first ''Norman'' King of England, since not only was his mother Norman but he was largely raised in Normandy (having been exiled during the reign of Cnut and his sons) and during his reign was controversial among the Anglo-Saxon nobility for his pro-Norman sympathies. After his death, this was largely forgotten, with his religious piety (he and Edward the Martyr are the only Kings of England to be officially recognized saints by the Catholic Church) being the basis for his posthumous reputation.

The Anglo-Saxon line, as noted below, was interrupted for two decades by Danish Viking conquerors, but was re-established by Edward the Confessor. The Confessor is said to have willed his throne to his brother-in-law, King Harold II Godwinson, who was killed at the Battle at Hastings, when the native Saxon House of Wessex was displaced by Edward the Confessor’s first cousin once-removed, [[UsefulNotes/{{TheHouseOfNormandy}} William, Duke of Normandy]], (i.e., er, a Danish Viking, but a Frenchified one) later William I of England and thereafter known as the Conqueror.

One of the British Isle's [[HundredPercentAdorationRating most celebrated rulers]], there's a lot to say about him, so like many prominent British monarchs, he also has his own page -- see UsefulNotes/AlfredTheGreat. Speaking of prominent British monarchs, [[UsefulNotes/{{HMTheQueen}} Elizabeth II]] was his 32nd great-granddaughter.

England came under the control of Sweyn Forkbeard, a Danish king of the House of Knýtlinga after an invasion in 1013, during which [=Æthelred=] abandoned the throne and went into exile in Normandy.

His influence was so profound that later genealogies of the English monarchy would claim that all the sovereigns of Britain, save for Cnut, Harthacnut, the Harolds and William the Conqueror, were descended from him[[note]]all of William I's descendants could claim lineage to Cerdic via his wife, Matilda of Flanders, whose great-great-great-great grandfather on her father’s side had married Elftrude, the daughter of Alfred the Great[[/note]]. Precisely why he was so influential is debated, in that the ancient sources conflict in their accounts of his life, who he was, and what he accomplished -- so much so, in fact, that his origin, ethnicity, and even his very existence have been extensively disputed.

His influence was so profound that later genealogies of the English monarchy would claim that all the sovereigns of Britain, save for Cnut, Harthacnut, the Harolds, and William the Conqueror, were descended from him. Precisely why he was so influential is debated, in that the ancient sources conflict in their accounts of his life, who he was, and what he accomplished -- so much so, in fact, that his origin, ethnicity, and even his very existence have been extensively disputed.

One of the British Isle's [[HundredPercentAdorationRating most celebrated rulers]], there's a lot to say about him, so like many prominent British monarchs, he also has his own page -- see UsefulNotes/AlfredTheGreat. Speaking of prominent British monarchs, [[UsefulNotes/{{HMTheQueen}} Elizabeth II]] is his 32nd great-granddaughter.

* Cerdic of Wessex and his Saxon army are the villains in the 2004 film ''Film/KingArthur''

* The invading Saxons are the antagonists of the middle novels of Creator/RosemarySutcliff's Literature/TheEagleOfTheNinth series – ''The Silver Branch'', ''The Lantern Bearers'', ''Literature/SwordAtSunset'', and ''Dawn Wind''.

!!'''[[UsefulNotes/{{Aethelflaed}} [=Æthelflæd=]]], Lady of the Mercians'''

Although not a ruler of England, [=Æthelflæd=] was ruler of Mercia, a semi-autonomous Kingdom under her father's rule, and is notable as a strong, independent and well-educated lady. During her early years, [=Æthelflæd=] witnessed her father take back large swathes of England from the Vikings (Danes), starting with the famous battle of Edington in Wiltshire, a key turning point in the Anglo-Saxon campaign against the Vikings. As [=Æthelflæd=] reached her teens, her father had begun to push the Vikings out of south eastern England and began to reclaim territory for both his own kingdom of Wessex and his northern ally of Mercia.

Most British school-children will instantly remember him as "the one who burnt the cakes" -- so what was that all about? One of the best known stories in English history, children are taught the story where Alfred is on the run from the Vikings, taking refuge in the home of a peasant woman. She asks him to watch her cakes (small loaves of bread) baking by the fire, but distracted by his problems, he lets the cakes burn and is roundly scolded by the woman. Possibly apocryphal, yet makes for a good story.

Alfred is the only monarch in British history afforded the accolade "The Great". There are three main reasons for Alfred’s fame: (1) his successful defence of his kingdom against the Vikings; (2) his policies which encouraged learning and scholarship in his realm, leaving a relatively large body of sources which survive from his reign; and (3) the desire in later centuries to find Anglo-Saxon origins for the English constitution, Church, empire, and character. These three aspects coalesce so that his very real achievements have become part of a myth. It is a process that began in his lifetime and reached its height in the millenary celebrations of his death in 1901.