King Ęthelwulf OF WESSEX (795?-858)

	Presentation ring bearing the name of Aethelwulf probably given as gifts to loyal subjects, circa 836-858; at the British Museum. Photo by Dana Otstott Shear

Name:	Ęthelwulf OF WESSEX 1,2
Sex:	Male
Name Prefix:	King
Father:	Egbert OF ENGLAND (aft769-839)
Mother:	Raedburga ( - )

Individual Events and Attributes

Birth	0795 (app)	Aachen, Germany
Title	frm 0839 to 0858 (age 43-63)	Subregulus of Kent, Essex, Sussex and Surrey 2
Occupation	frm 0839 to 0855 (age 43-60)	King of Wessex
crowned	0839 (age 43-44)	Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey
Group/Caste Membership		House of Wessex
Death	13 Jan 0858 (age 62-63)	Stamridge, Wessex
Burial		Stanbridge Earls then the Old Minster, Winchester 3

Additional Information

Occupation	succeeding his father Egbert on 4 February, 839
crowned	He resigned Wessex to his son Ethelbald in 855 or 856 and became Subregulus of Kent, Sussex and Essex only
Burial	Remains are now in Winchester Cathedral

Marriage (1)

	Statue of Alfred the Great, Winchester		Statue of Alfred the Great, Winchester		Statue of Alfred the Great at Wantage		Alfred the Great's white horse carved into chalk hills near Avebury, Wiltshire co. Carved as a symbol of allegiance to King Alfred after battle with the Vikings. Photo by Dana Otstott Shear 2012.

Spouse	Osburga (810-bef846)
Children	Ęlfred the Great OF WESSEX (849-899?)
Marriage	0830 (app) (age 34-35) 2

Marriage (2)

	Baldwin II, Count of Flanders		Baldwin II, Count of Flanders

Spouse	Judith OF THE FRANKS (844?-870)
Children	Baldwin II OF FLANDERS (863?-918)

Individual Note

Ęthelwulf, also spelled Aethelwulf or Ethelwulf; Old English: Ęželwulf, meaning 'Noble Wolf', was King of Wessex from 839 until his death in 858.[1] He is the only son who can indisputably be accredited to King Egbert of Wessex. He conquered the kingdom of Kent on behalf of his father in 825, and was sometime later made King of Kent [2] as a sub-king to Egbert. He succeeded his father as King of Wessex on Egbert's death in 839, at which time his kingdom stretched from the county of Kent in the east to Devon in the west. At the same time his eldest son or younger brother Ęthelstan became sub-king of Kent as a subordinate ruler.

 

Historians give conflicting assessments of Ęthelwulf. According to Richard Humble, Ęthelwulf had a worrying style of Kingship. He had come to the throne of Wessex by inheritance. He proved to be intensely religious, cursed with little political sense, and with too many able and ambitious sons.[3] To Frank Stenton, "Ęthelwulf seems to have been a religious and unambitious man, for whom engagement in war and politics was an unwelcome consequence of rank."[4] However, Janet Nelson thought that his reign has been under-appreciated in modern scholarship, and that he laid the foundations for Alfred's success, finding new as well as traditional answers, and coping more effectively with Scandinavian attacks than most contemporary rulers.[1] In Simon Keynes's view, "it was he, more than any other, who secured the political fortune of his people in the ninth century, and who opened up channels of communication which led through the Frankish realms and across the Alps to Rome."[5]

 

Martial career

The most notable and commonly used primary source is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which refers to Ęthelwulf's presence at some important battles. In 840 AD, he fought at Carhampton against thirty-five ship companies of Danes, whose raids had increased considerably. His most notable victory came in 851 at "Acleah", possibly Ockley in Surrey or Oakley in Berkshire. Here, Ęthelwulf and his son Ęthelbald fought against the heathen, and according to the chronicle it was "the greatest slaughter of heathen host ever made." Around 853 AD, Ęthelwulf and his son-in-law, Burgred, King of Mercia, defeated Cyngen ap Cadell of Wales and made the Welsh subject to him. The chronicle depicts more battles throughout the years, mostly against invading pirates and Danes. This was an era in European history when nations were being invaded by many different groups; there were Saracens in the south, Magyars in the east, Moors in the west, and Vikings in the north.[6] Before Ęthelwulf's death, raiders had wintered over on the Isle of Sheppey, and pillaged at will in East Anglia. Over the course of the next twenty years the struggles of his sons were to be "ceaseless, heroic, and largely futile."[7]

 

Family life

One of the first of Ęthelwulf's acts as king was to split the kingdom. He gave the eastern half, including Kent, Essex, Surrey and Sussex, to his eldest son Ęthelstan (not to be confused with the later Athelstan the Glorious). Ęthelwulf kept the ancient, western side of Wessex (Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset and Devon) for himself.

 

Ęthelwulf and his first wife, Osburh, had five sons and a daughter. After Ęthelstan came Ęthelbald, Ęthelbert, Ęthelred, and Alfred. Each of his sons, with the exception of Ęthelstan, succeeded to the throne. Alfred, the youngest, has been praised as one of the greatest kings to ever reign in Britain. Ęthelwulf's only daughter, Ęthelswith, was married as a child to King Burgred of Mercia.

 

Pilgrimage to Rome, marriage, conspiracy of Ęthelbald, death

Religion was always an important part of Ęthelwulf's life. As early as the first year of his reign he planned a pilgrimage to Rome. Due to the ongoing and increasing raids he felt the need to appeal to the Christian God for help against an enemy "so agile, and numerous, and profane."[3]

 

In 853, Ęthelwulf sent his son Alfred, a child of about four years, to Rome. In 855, about a year after his wife Osburga's death, Ęthelwulf followed Alfred to Rome. In Rome, he was generous with his wealth. He distributed gold to the clergy of St. Peter's and offered them chalices of the purest gold and silver-gilt candelabra of Saxon work.[8] During the return journey in 856 he married Judith, a Frankish princess and a great-granddaughter of Charlemagne. She was about twelve years old, the daughter of Charles the Bald, King of the West Franks.

 

Upon their return to England in 856 Ęthelwulf met with an acute crisis. His eldest surviving son Ęthelbald (Athelstan had since died) had devised a conspiracy with the Ealdorman of Somerset and the Bishop of Sherborne to oppose Ęthelwulf's resumption of the kingship on his return. While Ęthelwulf was able to muster enough support to fight a civil war or to banish Ęthelbald and his fellow conspirators, he instead chose to yield western Wessex to his son, while he himself retained central and eastern Wessex. The absence of coins in Ęthelbald's name suggests that West Saxon coinage was in Ęthelwulf's name until his death. He ruled there until his death on 13 January 858.

 

That the king should have consented to treat with his rebellious son, to refer the compromise to a meeting of Saxon nobles, to moderate the pugnacity of his own supporters, and to resign the rule over the more important half of his dominions - all this testifies to the fact that Ęthelwulf’s Christian spirit did not exhaust itself in the giving of lavish charities to the Church, but availed to reconcile him to the sacrifice of prestige and power in the cause of national peace.[9]

Ęthelwulf's restoration included a special concession on behalf of Saxon queens. The West Saxons previously did not allow the queen to sit next to the king. In fact they were referred to not as a queen, but merely as the "wife of the king." This restriction was lifted for Queen Judith, probably because she was a high-ranking European princess.

 

He was buried first at Steyning and later re-interred in the Old Minster in Winchester. His bones now rest in one of several "mortuary chests" in Winchester Cathedral.

 

The ring depicted in the picture is about an inch across, richly decorated with religious symbols, and inscribed Ęthelwulf Rex. It was found at Laverstock, Wiltshire, in 1780; it is believed to have been a gift from Ęthelwulf to a loyal follower.

 

Issue

Ęthelwulf was first married to Osburh, daughter of Oslac. They had six children, four of whom became kings of Wessex.

 

Ęthelstan c. 829[9] c. 851-855[9] Eldest son. Defeated a Viking fleet and army at Sandwich in 851 and died by 855.[10] Did not rule.

Ęthelswith ? 888 Only daughter. Married Burgred of Mercia; no issue.

Ęthelbald c. 834[11] 20 December 860 Son. Married 858, Judith of Flanders, his father's widow and teenage stepmother; deemed incestuous by the church, the marriage was annulled in 860, with no issue. Ruled 856–860.

Ęthelbert c. 835 865 Son. Ruled 860–865.

Ęthelred c. 837 23 April 871 Son. Married. Three known children. Ruled 865–871.

Alfred c. 849 26 October 899 Son. Married 868, to Ealhswith in Winchester; six children. Ruled 871–899.

 

Ęthelwulf married a second time to 12-year-old Judith of Flanders, with whom he had no issue.

 

NOTES:

1 http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=seek&query=S+282

2 a b Humble, Richard. The Saxon Kings. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980. 41.

3 Stenton, p. 245.

4 Nelson, Ęthelwulf, Oxford Online DNB.

5 Ashley, Maurice. Great Britain to 1688: A Modern History. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961. 34.

6 Hindley, Geoffrey. The Anglo-Saxons. London: Robinson, 2006. 186

7 Hodgkin, RH. A History of the Anglo-Saxons. London: Oxford UP, 1935. 512.

8 Hodgkin, RH. A History of the Anglo-Saxons. London: Oxford UP, 1935. 515.

9 a b Person and Factoid Information

10 D. P. Kirby, The Earliest English Kings (1991, 2000), pages 147–149.

11 Weir, Alison (1999), Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy, London, U.K.: =The Bodley Head, p. 6

 

SOURCES:

Ashley, Maurice. Great Britain to 1688: A Modern History. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1961.

Garmonsway, GN. Translation of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. London: JM Dent & Sons, 1953.

Hindley, Geoffrey. The Anglo-Saxons. London: Robinson, 2006.

Hodgkin, RH. A History of the Anglo-Saxons. London: Oxford UP, 1935.

Humble, Richard. The Saxon Kings. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980.

Nelson, Janet L. Ęthelwulf. Oxford Online DNB, 2004

Stenton, Frank. Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford: Oxford UP, 3rd Edition 1971.⁴

Note on Marriage to Osburga

She was repudiated in 853.⁵

Sources

1	Weis, Frederick Lewis & Sheppard, Walter Lee, Jr, "Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700: Lineages from Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and other Historical Individuals". p 1, 1-14; p 5, 1B-14.

2	Weir, Alison, "Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy" (Vintage, 2008). p 5.

3	Ibid. p 7.

4	"Wikipedia". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelwulf_of_Wessex.

5	Weis, Frederick Lewis & Sheppard, Walter Lee, Jr, "Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700: Lineages from Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and other Historical Individuals". p 1, 1-13.