Edward the Elder

     Edward the Elder was born circa 875; Edward was the second surviving child and elder son born to Alfred the Great and his Mercian queen, Ealhswith. Edward's birth cannot be dated with certainty. His parents married in 868 and his eldest sibling Æthelflæd was born soon afterwards as she was herself married in 883. Edward was probably born rather later, in the 870s, and probably between 874 and 877.

Asser's Life of King Alfred reports that Edward was educated at court together with his youngest sister Ælfthryth. His second sister, Æthelgifu, was intended for a life in religion from an early age, perhaps due to ill health, and was later abbess of Shaftesbury. The youngest sibling, Æthelweard, was educated at a court school where he learned Latin, which suggests that he too was intended for a religious life. Edward and Ælfthryth, however, while they learned the English of the day, received a courtly education, and Asser refers to their taking part in the "pursuits of this present life which are appropriate to the nobility."¹ He was the son of King Alfred the Great and Ælhswitha. Edward the Elder married Eadgifu of Kent, daughter of Sigehelm Ealdorman of Kent, circa 919 at Berkshire, England; Edward was married three times and had fourteen children. Four of his sons were king after him, and five of his daughters married into continental noble or royal houses.
Eadgifu was the third wife of Edward the Elder, King of the Alnglo-Saxons. She survived Edward by many years, dying in the reign of her grandson Edgar.

She disappeared from court during the reign of her step-son, King Æthelstan, but she was prominent and influential during the reign of her two sons. As queen dowager, her position seem to have been higher than that of her daughter-in-law.² Edward the Elder died on 17 July 924 at Berkshire, England.¹ He was buried at New Minster, Winchester; Edward was buried in New Minster, a monastery he had founded in 901.
     When Alfred died, Edward's cousin Æthelwold, the son of King Æthelred of Wessex, rose up to claim the throne and began Æthelwold's Revolt. He seized Wimborne, in Dorset, where his father was buried, and Christchurch (then in Hampshire, now in Dorset). Edward marched to Badbury and offered battle, but Æthelwold refused to leave Wimborne. Just when it looked as if Edward was going to attack Wimborne, Æthelwold left in the night, and joined the Danes in Northumbria, where he was announced as King. In the meantime, Edward is alleged to have been crowned at Kingston upon Thames on 8 June 900.

Edward extended the control of Wessex over the whole of Mercia, East Anglia and Essex, conquering lands occupied by the Danes and bringing the residual autonomy of Mercia to an end in 918, after the death of his sister, Æthelflæd. Æthelflæd's daughter, Ælfwynn, was named as her successor, but Edward deposed her, bringing Mercia under his direct control. He had already annexed the cities of London and Oxford and the surrounding lands of Oxfordshire and Middlesex in 911. By 918, all of the Danes south of the Humber had submitted to him. By the end of his reign, the Norse, the Scots and the Welsh had acknowledged him as "father and lord".[15] This recognition of Edward's overlordship in Scotland led to his successors' claims of suzerainty over that Kingdom.¹