| Notes |
- Notes for King of Aethelwulf England, King of:
Aethelwulf, King of England. Aethelwulf was King of England 839 - 858
(Stuart, Royalty for Commoners, Page 171, Line 233-40). AKA:
Aethelwulf, King of Wessex. AKA: Aethelwulf, King of Kent. Born: circa
806 in Wessex, England, son of Egbert, King of England and
Redburga=Raedburh N? (Stuart, Royalty for Commoners, Page 171).
Married circa 839: Osburh of England, daughter of Olac, Princerna
Regis of England. Aethelwulf visited Rome in 839. Osburh was his first
wife. Annulled he and Osburh of England: in 853. Married on 1 Oct 856
in Wessex, England: Judith, Princess De France, daughter of Charles
II, King De France and Ermentrude D'Orleans (Stuart, Royalty for
Commoners, Page 171). Ruled Kent for his father and on accession
joined Mercia in prolonged wars against Danish Viking invaders,
winning a major battle at Oakley in Surrey (851). Ethelwulf's gold
ring can be seen in the British Museum. His younger brother Athelstan
ruled Sussex, Surrey, and Kent (839-c851). On returning with his fifth
son Alfred from a pilgrimage to Rome (856), Ethelwulf was made to
share the throne with his son Ethelbald, the first of four in
succession who became King of Wessex. Died: on 13 Jan 858 in England
(Stuart, Royalty for Commoners, Page 171).
ETHELWULF (d. 858) was the son of King Egbert of Wessex and reigned as
sub-king in Kent from 825 and then over Wessex from 839 until 858.
During his reign the Danish raids on England increased in size and
frequency. There were attacks on Southampton and the coast of
Dorsetshire in 840; on Kent in 841; on London, Rochester and
Southampton in 842; on Somersetshire in 843 and again in 845; on
Devonshire in 850. In that year a Danish army wintered in England for
the first time, on Thanet. In 851 they stormed Canter-bury and London
before being Defeated by Ethelwulf in Surrey. Kent was attacked again
in 853. In 854-55 the Danish host once more wintered in England, on
Sheppey. This is to list only the known descents upon the territory of
Wessex and its dependencies. Other parts of England suffered too.
Lindsey and East Anglia were attack-ed in 841, King Redwulf of
Northumbria was killed in 844, King Beorhtwulf of Mercia was Defeated
in 851 and we hear of a Danish army active in the inland parts of
Mercia, in Shropshire, in 855.
Ethelwulf and his subjects put up a stout resistance to the Danes. But
it was exceedingly difficult to make effective provision for resisting
an enemy whose forces were big, well-equipped and above all mobile.
Other rulers in western Europe faced the same dilemma. It is
instructive, as ever, to set the English experience in a continental
context. The Viking bases on Thanet and Sheppey were mirrored in those
of Dublin and Noirmoutier; attacks on trading communities like
Southampton and London were matched in raids on Dorestadt, Quentovic
and Rouen; and after wintering in England in 850-51 the Danes crossed
to Francia and wintered there in 851-52. The West Saxon kings of the
ninth century had much in common with their Frankish neighbours. Not
surprisingly, Ethelwulf had Dealings with them. Two letters of the
Frankish abbot, Lupus of Ferrieres -himself a pupil of a pupil of
Alcuin, reveal that Ethelwulf had a Frankish secretary named Felix.
When Ethelwulf married for the second time in 856 his queen was
Judith, daughter of the West Frankish king Charles the Bald.
Ethelwulf's second marriage took place while he was on his way back
from a pilgrimage to Rome in 855, accompanied by his youngest son
Alfred. The contemporary biography of Pope Benedict III (855-58) lists
the treasures which Ethelwulf offered at the shrine of St. Peter: they
included among much else a golden crown, a sword chased with gold,
precious vestments and hangings decorated with gold embroidery. We are
also told, by Asser in his Life of Alfred, that Ethelwulf undertook to
make an annual payment of three hundred gold pieces to the see of
Rome; as Asser pointed out, this was 'a great sum of money.' The
pilgrimage and the offerings demonstrate Ethelwulf's piety and
generosity. They also show that he was very wealthy. The same
impression is given by other sources. The correspondence which Lupus
of Ferrieres had with Ethelwulf was occasioned by his desire to secure
a present of lead for roofing the monastery church at Ferrieres: and
Ferrieres was an important monastic house, not beneath Alcuin's
notice, its church probably an ample one with a roof which would
require no small quantity of lead.
Ethelwulf's most lavish act of piety at home in England consisted in a
series of grants of lands and privileges to the churches of Wessex in
854. The documents which purport to record these grants are peculiarly
difficult to interpret, they are the most baffling of all Anglo-Saxon
royal charters, and there is no agreement among scholars about what
was going on. But what is plain is that Ethelwulf was a king who could
afford to be generous where the royal lands were concerned. We can
just make out a little of why this should have been so. Asser tells us
that Ethelwulf took steps to ensure 'that his sons should not quarrel
unnecessarily among them-selves.' He does not tell us exactly what
these provisions were, but the will of his son Alfred, drawn up in the
880s, casts a little light on the matter. Ethelwulf planned that his
sons should succeed one another as kings of Wessex. Each reigning king
was to be permitted by his younger brothers a life-interest in their
share of the dynasty's landed wealth. In this way the union between
the family property of the royal house and the office of king would be
preserved. The reigning monarch would be assured of a substantial
royal demesne, that is, of the material resources for effective rule.
The constitutional implications of the scheme may not have presented
themselves clearly to Ethelwulf. He was perhaps simply seeking a
harmonious solution to a new set of circumstances, for while he and
his father had been only children, or only survivors, he had fathered
five sons, at a time of national danger when the preservation of a
strong kingship was essential. Ethelwulf had only to look at his
Frankish neighbours to see what might happen if some such steps as
these were not taken. What the scheme presupposed was patient
restraint on the part both of the temporarily disinherited younger
sons and of the children of elder sons.
Harmony within the dynasty was probably a good Deal more frail than
our very discreet sources choose to reveal. While Ethelwulf was absent
from England in 855-56 his eldest son Ethelbald plotted against him
with the Bishop of Sherborne and the ealdorman of Somerset. Whether
Ethelbald disapproved of his father's dynastic schemes or feared the
possibility of offspring of his father's recent second marriage is not
clear; but the results were serious. When Ethelwulf returned, his
direct authority was confined to Kent and the south-east, while
Ethelbald ruled in Wessex. As it so happened, Ethelwulf's plans did in
the event work out well. On his death in 858 Ethelbald succeeded him
and his younger brother Ethelbert ruled as a sub-king in Kent. On
Ethelbald's death, childless, in 860, Ethelbert succeeded to the whole
kingdom. On his death, childless, in 866, his brother Ethelred
similarly. On Ethelred's death in 871 the youngest of the brothers,
Alfred, succeeded. But Ethelred had not died childless, and his son
Ethelwold was to try to supplant his cousin Edward, Alfred's son, a
generation later.
Doubtless the success of Ethelwulf's plan owed much to bio-logical
accident. Of his five sons one predeceased him, three others died
fairly young, and two of these three were childless. Yet that
Ethelwulf could diagnose the sources of dynastic insecurity and take
effective measures to neutralise them showed intelligence and
Political courage. Ethelwulf has been dismissed by an eminent
historian of the Anglo Saxon period as 'a religious and unambitious
man for whom engagement in war and politics was an unwelcome
consequence of rank.' This judgement seriously underestimates him. He
was a forceful and capable ruler whose achievement was the essential
precondition for the doings of his more famous son Alfred.
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Abt 806 - 899 (~ 93 years)