825
Ceolwulf’s place
was taken by
Beornwulf who presided over two councils to resolve Kentish disputes in
824 and
825. Evidence suggests that Kent
remained a Mercian dependency under Beornwulf but with its vassal king,
Bealdred, who was probably a Mercian. This may have been an attempt to
meet the
Kentish wish to be independent, a determination which had already cost
the
Mercians so much, and may have been a factor in the quarrel between
Coenwulf
and Wulfred which led to the archbishop’s suspension from his See from
817 to
821. Beornwulf’s third year (825) was the critical one: in this year he
and
Egbert of Wessex fought a battle which was to turn the whole course of
English
history, and to register the fall of Mercia
as an imperial power.
The first entry
of
the Chronicle in that summer of 825 deals with the activity of Egbert
in
another area. He battled once more against the West Welsh he had fought
in 814.
Two casual grants of lands by Egbert made at “Crediantreow” giving
August as
the date of the expedition. There was a complete defeat of the
Damnonians at
Gafulford, which is generally interpreted as Camelford in Cornwall.
The battle fought near Camelford–Slaughter
Bridge still bears the
tradition of
ancient fight. The place of the battle betrays its cause and its
object.
Camelford is close to the “Bretland” coast, and it was fought in order
to seize
and hold Cornwall against
invasion
by sea.
The Britons of
Cornwall had never
accepted the loss of territory resulting from their previous war with
Egbert.
They had merely waited until they judged the time was right to take
back their
lost land. Britons knew time was running short, because every year
since 815,
King Egbert had been encouraging and sending his people to colonize the
newly-won
land.
The battle sealed
the fate of West Devonshire, which remained
there after
a part of Wessex.
The occupation of large estates in Cornwall
as personal inheritance by the family of Egbert possibly dated from
this same
conquest. But their seizure may equally well go as far back as the
king’s first
Damnonian campaign in 814, or have been made only as a punishment for
the later
revolt of the West Welsh in 835. Whatever the date it illustrates the
importance Egbert placed on retaining the land.
No sooner had
Egbert brought his second Cornish war to a successful conclusion than
he found
his realm under attack by the king of Mercia.
King Beornwulf had realized when he seized the throne in 823 that Mercia’s
prestige and glory had faded. He was determined to restore Mercia
to her former position and to reestablish his overlordship over Wessex,
which Egbert had renounced during the reign of Beornwulf’s predecessor,
Ceolwulf. Beornwulf marched an army to Swindon
in Wessex
before Egbert could return from the Cornish fight to confront him. It
looks as
if the Mercian had taken advantage of the absence of the king and army
in the
extreme west, in order to strike at the heart of the realm of the West
Saxons. Perhaps he had even stirred up the diversion in
Damnonia
for that very purpose. But if so his design was defeated. Egbert led
his army
against the invaders, encountering them at Ellandun in northeast
Wiltshire.
Although heavily outnumbered, Egbert chose to attack. He knew that he
had one
of the best trained armies in England
at this time, plus the experience they had gained in two Cornish wars.
The Battle of
Ellandun (Wilton) was fought in September of 825, and since the army of
Wessex
was outnumbered and tired from their previous fight with the men of Cornwall,
the struggle was long and bitter. By the end of the day, however,
Egbert of
Wessex defeated Beornwulf in one of the most decisive battles of
Anglo-Saxon
history. The battle had been extremely bloody and destructive, and it
is said
that “Ellandun’s stream was tinged with blood, was choked with the
slain, and
became foul with the carnage.” Beornwulf managed to escape with his
life from
the battlefield, and fled back to his capitol at Lichfield.
Yet as complete as the victory was for Egbert, he too found it very
costly. One
of his best friends and most ardent supporters, Hun, the ealdorman of
the province of Somerset,
had been killed, along
with many other valiant leaders. Sorrowfully,
Egbert had Hun’s body brought to his city of Winchester
for burial. The clash at Ellandun was a great and fiercely fought
battle, with
a heavy fall of men: but it was decisive. As a result the whole of England
south of the Thames fell into the hands of
Egbert.
Egbert then sent
a
large army into Kent,
commanded by Aethelwulf, his eldest son (then 29 years old), Wulfheard,
his
ealdorman, and Eahlstan of Sherborne, the first fighting bishop known
in
English history. Egbert was determined to recover the kingdom of his
father
Ealhmund, which, as the Chronicler says, had been unjustly lost. Egbert
himself, to cover his son’s attack, entered Mercia
with an army on the side of Oxfordshire, and threatened the heart of
Beornwulf’s kingdom. Aethelwulf’s expedition met with complete success.
Baldred, the Mercian vassal-king of Kent,
led an army to confront the forces sent against him. Aethelwulf easily
defeated
the Kentish army, and passing through every part of the country, drove
Baldred
into the northern parts beyond the river Thames.
The
people of Kent
had not rallied to Baldred in his hour of need, having rather all
deserted him.
After the
conquest
of Kent
had
been secured, the people of Surrey, Sussex,
and Essex willingly submitted to Egbert as the
rightful
successor of his father, “because formerly they had been wrongly forced
away
from their loyalty to his kinsmen.” This statement of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers to the
fact that Egbert’s father, Ealhmund, had been the king of Kent from
784-86, and
that the kingdom of Surrey had formerly been an integral part of the
kingdom of
Wessex. Sussex
had been ruled by Nunna, a relative of Ine, and his descendants. Only
the claim
to Essex is debatable since there has never
been any
proven connection between that kingdom and the house of Egbert. After
825, Kent,
Surrey, and Sussex
were never again separated from the West Saxon monarchy. Essex
was only detached from it by a Danish conquest long after Egbert had
died.
It seems that Kent
joyfully accepted liberation from the Mercians. Archbishop Wulfred, who
had so
long been oppressed by Coenwulf, led the whole people to accept the new
overlord. In the case of Kent,
where the kingship had come to an end, Egbert adopted a special policy.
The
kingdom was important, both as the seat of the ecclesiastical
government of England,
and as the district most closely connected with the continent. At the
same time
the strong local feeling that had manifested itself in opposition to Mercia,
rendered it unadvisable to attempt a policy of absolute annexation.
Accordingly
Egbert, who regarded the kingdom as peculiarly his own, bestowed it on
his son
Aethelwulf, probably in 825, and it remained attached to the heir to
the West
Saxon throne until it was united with the rest of the south of England
on the
succession of Aethelbert to the kingdom of Wessex.
When Egbert
enlarged Wessex
by adding to it Kent,
Sussex,
Surrey,
and Essex, he acquired in the process two of
the most
important cities in all of England,
Canterbury and London.
In these cities were the principal mints responsible for producing the
currency
of Southern England. The continuous production
of
English currency began with Offa, and from the reign of Offa to that of
Henry
III, the English currency was based on a silver penny which showed the
king’s
name on the obverse and the moneyer’s name on the reverse. Since the
mints in Canterbury
and London had been
controlled by
the kings of Mercia,
when Egbert conquered Kent and Essex these mints and the future
production of
currency became his responsibility. In 825, for the first time in his
reign,
Egbert ordered the production of his own coinage. There is little doubt
that
this issuance was made at Canterbury
and that Egbert, prior to securing the Canterbury
mint, made no issues of coin. His coins, which are rare though examples
from
nineteen different mints are known, bear his name and the title Rex,
the
additions Saxo, “M,” or “A’ denoting Wessex,
Mercia,
and East Anglia
respectively.
The coins that
Egbert minted in 825 show the king’s head and are of great rarity. They
are of
the denomination of pennies and were made by the moneyer Tidbearht.
Egbert’s
profile on these coins is to the right, and it is possible to get a
description
of his features from them. Egbert is shown with a thick neck and an
oval shaped
face, with a high set brow, and a long straight nose. He has low cheek
bones
that extend down to a round, smooth chin. His ears are of average size,
set
close to his head. His eyes are depicted as quite serious and
determined. This
sense of determination is further accentuated by the set of his jaw.
His
semi-full lips are set in a half smile, with the corners of his mouth
slightly
turned up showing smile lines. Egbert’s features suggest that he is a
happy
man, and a kind but stern ruler. He wears a simple unadorned crown very
low on
his forehead.
Shortly after
Egbert took control of the mints at Canterbury
and London, he ordered the
construction of a minor mint at Southampton,
and took
possession of the last mint under Mercian control at Rochester.
Under Egbert, the coins produced at these sites remain essentially
proto-pennies,
what numismatists today call “stycas.” Egbert eventually employed
twenty
different moneyers, and from the end of 825 to his death in 839
completely
controlled the money supply throughout Southern England.
The tax-function of the whole Anglo-Saxon coinage system had been
neglected
since the reign of Ceolwulf, and Egbert worked hard to stabilize the
quality
and the quantity of coins being produced. He provided for the
production of a
respectable standard silver penny that greatly facilitated the
collection of
royal taxes and revenues.
The attack upon West
Devonshire during the month of August of 825 had
interrupted a
meeting of the West Saxon witan at which Egbert had been presiding.
Egbert
summoned the assembly of magnates at “Creodantreow” in order to make
and
confirm several grants to the church
of Winchester and to take
care of
certain other ecclesiastical matters. On August 19, 825, Egbert made two grants of lands
to the church at Winchester,
and the witan witnessed the profession of obedience made by Herefrith,
Bishop
of Winchester to Wulfred, Archbishop of Canterbury. The significance of
Herefrith is that he became the first coadjutor or shire-bishop.
Wigthegn had
been Bishop of Winchester since 816, and continued to be the principal
bishop
of the city until 828. Egbert, in consultation with the Archbishop of
Canterbury, was initiating a policy of increasing the number of West
Saxon
bishops by appointing a bishop to assist another bishop in the same
city.
After the long
interruption caused by the second Cornish War, and after that the war
with Mercia,
Egbert reconvened his witenagemot on December 26, 825 at Southampton.
This session of the
witan lasted into January 826, and Egbert took the occasion to reward
Archbishop Wulfred for the great assistance he had given during
Egbert’s
annexation of the kingdom of
Kent.
At Egbert’s command, and attested by Bishops Wigthegn, Ealkstan, and
Hereferth,
as well as the rest of the witan, two more grants of lands were made
and
confirmed to the church of Winchester.
After this, Egbert spent the rest of 826 organizing and consolidating
the
conquests he had made in 825.
“At the same
time,” the Chronicle adds in 825, “the King of the East Angles and his
people
sought alliance and protection of Egbert, for dread of the Mercians.”
Immediately after the note about the alliance of the East Angles with
Egbert,
there is the statement that Beornwulf of Mercia turned himself against
them,
and was slain by them in battle. This must have been very late in 825,
after
the Ellandune campaign and Egbert’s conquest of Kent,
when the Mercian king met his end at the hands of the East Angles
Egbert had
withdrawn his army from Mercia
as soon as his son’s conquest of Kent
was complete. As soon as he left Beornwulf began to gather another
army. When
he learned of the new alliance between East
Anglia and Wessex
the king of Mercia
decided to attack the East Angles before Egbert could arrive to help
them.
Beornwulf, with his newly assembled forces, invaded East
Anglia. But the East Angles, motivated
by
their hatred of the Mercian government and remembering their subjection
to the
Mercian overlord, fought the invaders with savage determination. The
result was
another disastrous defeat for Mercia;
Beornwulf was killed, and most of his army perished with him. East
Anglia then chose to be under the
overlordship of Egbert, and Egbert was now master of a third of England
at the age of fifty.
After the
victories of 825 Egbert
had united most of southern England,
expanded its agriculture and trade, and given it wise and just
government. The
business of establishing his own coin production, and attending to
other
internal matters throughout his newly expanded kingdom, absorbed the
attention
of Egbert throughout the year 826. The Mercians, reeling from their
defeat at
Ellandun, followed by the loss of their king and the rest of their army
in East Anglia,
were too busy putting their own
house in order to bother Wessex.
Ludecan succeeded his kinsman Beornwulf as king of Mercia
at the end of 825, but this kingdom was greatly reduced in size; it now
comprised only Mercia
proper, Lindsey, Middle Anglia, and the provinces of the Hwicce and
Magonsaetan. Ludecan did not trouble Egbert during the first year of
the
former’s reign.
826-828
In a charter of
828 he was styled “rex Anglorum;” this, however, must not be taken as
signifying more than the over-lordship of East Anglia, and in 830 he is
described simply as “king of the West Saxons and Kentishmen,” and in
833 as
“king of the West Saxons.” His description as “king of Kent
and other nations” in another charter of 833 does not necessarily imply
any
termination of Aethelwulf’s authority; Egbert was presiding over a
meeting of
the Kentish witan, and naturally used the style of the kingdom. It is,
however,
curious that Aethelwulf’s name does not occur among the witnesses.
Charlemagne died
the year before
the Cornish expedition. A little time passes, and the King Coenwulf of Mercia
died, and Mercia
slid a little further into chaos. A very little more time passes, and
then the
new king of Mercia,
Ceolwulf, was thrust out by his people, and Beornwulf reigned in his
stead only
to be defeated by Egbert. The events that follow this show clearly that
Egbert
had foreseen them and prepared for them–had even, perhaps, helped make
it
happen. Great and sudden movements are not made with sudden decisions.
Twenty-three years of preparation had made Wessex
ready and Egbert followed through with his plans with great success.
Mercia,
however, was not yet subdued, for Beornwulf was succeeded by Ludecan,
who had
been one of Beornwulf’s ealdormen, and his kinsman. He reigned for less
than
two years (end of 825 to middle of 827). Ludecan worked hard during 826
to
prepare another army so Mercia
could reassert their supremacy. He nearly drained the royal treasury to
attract
warriors into his army. Ludecan’s burning desire was to avenge the
death of
Beornwulf by conquering East Anglia
and replacing Egbert’s overlordship with his own. He invaded East
Anglia in the middle of 827, and
suffered an
even more terrible defeat than had his predecessor. He was slain in
battle “and
his five ealdormen with him.” Such a slaughter evidently represents a
most
bloody defeat, involving the extermination of the vanquished, for Mercia
did not have more than seven, and perhaps only five, ealdormen within
its
borders. Once again, the battle occurred before Egbert and the army of Wessex
could intervene. How the East Angles twice achieved victory over the
Mercians within
three years has never really been explained.
829
Ludecan was succeeded by
Wiglaf, who was
not regarded with the respect that the earlier kings of Mercia had received. The old royal
house of Mercia had become extinct with the
death of
Ceolwulf, and all the ealdorman of Mercia had perished with Ludecan.
Egbert regarded
him with contempt. Egbert was now at the head of a league of all the
minor
states against the old regime, a huge army. Egbert marched against
Wiglaf in
829, and drove him completely out of his realm. “He conquered all the
kingdom
of the Mercians, and all that lies south of Humber.” Moreover–and here it is not
the
Chronicle that give the information, but the actual coins that the
conqueror
struck–he actually annexed Wiglaf’s realm, and took the title of King
of the
Mercians.
At the end of his
Mercian campaign Egbert led his army to Dore where King Eanred of
Northumbria
came and offered him obedience and allegiance, “and with that they
separated.” That
Northumbria was in no condition to contest the supremacy of England
with
Egbert, or even to defend itself, was shown by the tame fashion in
which it is
said Eanred did homage to the king of Wessex at Dore in 829. In the
Chronicle’s
words, the Northumbrians “offered him submission and peace.” It is at
this
point that the chronicler proudly adds Egbert to Bede’s list of
bretwaldas. The
West Saxon kingdom was obviously the success story of the first half of
the
ninth century.
The Northumbrian Chronicle
incorporated
in Roger of Wendover’s thirteenth century history shows that the
Northumbrian
campaign was a bloodier affair than the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles implies.
“When
Egbert had obtained all the southern kingdoms, he led a large army into
Northumbria, and laid waste that province with severe pillaging, and
made King
Eanred pay tribute.” The brutal conquest left deep-seated resentments
among the
Northumbrian people. Egbert gained sovereignty over them but was denied
their
loyalty. This is
a good
illustration of how a king claimed as bretwalda by sources from his own
kingdom
can look differently in sources from elsewhere; it also shows the sort
of
resentments that still divided England on the eve of the main Viking
attack.
Nevertheless, he had now united all the kingdoms in one great state,
almost
four hundred years after the first arrival of the Saxons in Britain.
The combination
of
an army styled along continental lines and a prudent political policy
had at
last enabled Egbert to realize the ambitions he had formed while
residing at
Charlemagne’s court many years before. Kent, Northumberland, and
Mercia, which
had successively aspired to rule all Britain, were now incorporated in
his
empire. Egbert’s territories in 829 were nearly the same as those that
are now
properly called England. In three campaigns, with the energy, speed,
and
completeness rivaling Charlemagne’s, Egbert had made himself master of
England.
Returning from
Northumbria to Lichfield in Mercia Egbert announced that henceforth
Mercia was
annexed to Wessex, and he then had himself crowned King of the
Mercians. By an
ironic twist of fate, Egbert was now in a position to deal with the
former
king, Wiglaf, much as Offa had once dealt with him forty years ago.
Egbert,
with what may have been grim satisfaction, banished Wiglaf from the
latter’s
former kingdom until such time as it would please him to let Wiglaf
return.
Egbert then returned to Winchester to be acclaimed as Bretwalda. Such
homage
had been demanded and received by earlier king. Egbert would be the
last,
because after him the title would be dropped and never used again. The
consecration
of Egbert as Bretwalda took place in the Cathedral of Old Minster, in
Winchester, the chief city of Wessex in 829.
After the
consecration was over, Egbert and his guests retired to the royal
palace for
further celebration. Egbert’s royal residence stood in the very center
of
Winchester, and had been built there in 650 by Coenwalch (634-672),
king of
Wessex, when he had moved his capital from Dorchester-on-Thames. The
site of
the palace lay immediately west of the Old Minster, in the area east of
Little
Minster Street, and south of the New Minster cemetery. Since no
excavations
have yet taken place on this site, and with no archaeological evidence,
no
information regarding the size, architecture, or furnishings of what
became
Egbert’s palace is known with any certainty.
It is known that
the palace in the center of Winchester was not the only royal residence
which
Egbert had at his disposal. He probably also had a manor at Kings
Worthy, two
miles from Winchester, and still further north, on the route to Bath
and
Gloucester, he had a palace at Andover, twelve or thirteen miles from
Winchester. His royal manors of Barton Stacey and Wherwell formed a
continuous
tract of royal territory along the Roman road between Winchester and
Andover.
The location of these manors suggest that Egbert may have preferred to
reside
outside the city of Winchester, and used the Winchester palace purely
on formal
or ceremonial occasions. He had yet other royal residences in
Hampshire, at
Micheldever and Southampton. Since from the beginning of Egbert’s reign
royal
charters would appear to have been dated from Southampton almost as
often as
from Winchester, his fondness for Southampton may indicate that he was
born on
his family’s ancestral estate there.
Wiglaf had, after various
wanderings,
found shelter with Aethelthryth, the daughter of Offa and betrothed of
Aethelbert
of East Anglia. With the help of his good friend Siward, the abbot of
Abingdon,
Wiflaf entered into long and difficult negotiations with Egbert
concerning his restoration
as king in Mercia. After
holding the Mercian crown himself for about a year, Egbert permitted
Wiglaf to
return to his old kingdom and to reign there as his vassal king for the
remainder of his life (830-39). Egbert
allowed the reconciliation with Wiglaf and, with the condition of an
annual
tribute, restored him to his former kingdom under the suzerainty of the
West
Saxon monarch. The terms of the agreement between Egbert and Wiglaf
gave the
Mercian king back not only his crown but many of its powers. Wiglaf
once again
had control over Middlesex and London and Berkshire, and commanded
homage in
church-state matters from the bishops of Kent and Sussex. Returning
London to
Mercia meant giving up direct control of the mint in that city. The
restoration
of Wiglaf was probably caused by some hostile movement of the Welsh on
the
Mercian border, which rendered it advisable to secure the fidelity and
provide
for the defense of the kingdom.
Egbert had for
the
first time united all the English under one over-lordship, and, though
there
were future divisions of his empire, his work was never wholly undone.
He was
not king of England, for the idea of a territorial kingship belongs to
a later
period. Nor was he the immediate ruler of the peoples that had
submitted to
him; they still had kings of their own, who were dependent on Egbert as
the
West Saxon overlord.
Homage had been
demanded and received by earlier kings, and might have meant no more in
the end
than the slight submission that had been granted to Edwin or Oswald.
But the
situation in 829 differed from that which had repeatedly been seen
before. A
new power was about to appear in Britain, and to dash to pieces all the
states
which might have asserted themselves against Egbert’s heirs, when he
himself should
have disappeared from the scene. It was the sudden continuation of the
Danish
invasions that changed the situation for the English states, and
prevented the
rivals of Wessex from reasserting themselves.
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The Camelford-Slaughter Bridge

Depiction of a king in battle

Wessex in 802
Wilton was then known as Ellandun, the Hwicce
in Mercia were to the north of Bath, Devon and Cornwall to the
southwest in pink, Surrey and Sussex to the east in light yellow, and
Mercia to the north in tan.

To the west lies Mercia and Wessex

a coin of
King Egbert
 
both sides of a coin of King Egbert

East Anglia in 802
Wessex is to the southwest in orange,
Sussex to the southeast in dark green

In Battle

Saxon Spearmen

Ready for Battle

Anglo-Saxon Kite Shield and Banner
The lion rampant and cross fleury was said
to have been used by King Egbert.

© The
British Library Board
for
larger image
King Offa and St. Albans Abbey
“King Offa of Mercia” King Offa, a royal benefactor of St. Albans
Abbey, is
seated holding a model of the abbey, from Golden Book
of St. Albans, author
Thomas Walsingham, with William
DeWylum scribe, illustrator Alan Stayler, made
in 1380.
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