Edgar was only twelve when he was made ruler of Mercia and Northumbria, and fourteen when his brother's death made him King of Wessex as well. To begin with he must have been very much of a figurehead rather than a leader, and some historians have been inclined to see his great reputation as the product of propoganda, particularly on the part of the Church. Edgar's reign was conspicuously peaceful, and even if much of the credit for this state of affairs can go to the great noblemen and prelates who clustered around the King, they were unquestionably his men and he both supported their work and held them in check.
In 973, curiously late in his reign, Edgar was solemnly annointed and crowned King, with ceremonies of great splendor and stateliness which seem to have provided the model for later coronations. Later in the year, Edgar was met at Chester by a number of vassal kings from Scotland and Wales, who rowed him in state along the River Dee. Not for nothing was he known as "Edgar the glorious, by the grace of Christ illustrious King of the English and of the other people dwelling within the bounds of the island of Britain."
One of Edgar's most notable achievements of Edgar's reign was a sweeping reform of the monasteries, carried out by three of the greatest figures in the history of the English Church: Dunstan of Canterbury, Oswald of York, and Ethelwold of Abingdon. The success of the reformers marked an important step in the development of the English state. At the same time it laid the foundation for future trouble by encouraging the belief that the King could and should act as Christ's vicar on earth towards the Church as towards laymen.Edgar was only twelve when he was made ruler of Mercia and Northumbria, and fourteen when his brother's death made him King of Wessex as well. To begin with he must have been very much of a figurehead rather than a leader, and some historians have been inclined to see his great reputation as the product of propoganda, particularly on the part of the Church. Edgar's reign was conspicuously peaceful, and even if much of the credit for this state of affairs can go to the great noblemen and prelates who clustered around the King, they were unquestionably his men and he both supported their work and held them in check.
In 973, curiously late in his reign, Edgar was solemnly annointed and crowned King, with ceremonies of great splendor and stateliness which seem to have provided the model for later coronations. Later in the year, Edgar was met at Chester by a number of vassal kings from Scotland and Wales, who rowed him in state along the River Dee. Not for nothing was he known as "Edgar the glorious, by the grace of Christ illustrious King of the English and of the other people dwelling within the bounds of the island of Britain."
One of Edgar's most notable achievements of Edgar's reign was a sweeping reform of the monasteries, carried out by three of the greatest figures in the history of the English Church: Dunstan of Canterbury, Oswald of York, and Ethelwold of Abingdon. The success of the reformers marked an important step in the development of the English state. At the same time it laid the foundation for future trouble by encouraging the belief that the King could and should act as Christ's vicar on earth towards the Church as towards laymen.
Crowned Kingston-upon-Thames. Edmund was barely eighteen when he succeeded his older brother on the throne, and his short reign made little mark on the chronicles. He was described as a "protector of friends", and won high praise for the firmness with which he put down rebellions by the Mercian Danes and brought the Five Towns of Danelaw (Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford) back to obedience. But his promising career ended abruptly and violently at a feast in his own hall. An outlaw named Leof, insolently intruded among the guests and drew his dagger when the major-domo tried to expel him. The King unwisely intervened and was himself fatally stabbed. (Leof was instantly "cut to pieces.")
It was the custom of Saxon royal families that a king's sons should begin to share their father's duties as soon as they were capable of doing so, and Edward the Elder was commanding armies in battle and signing charters as "Rex" some time before Alfred's death in 899. It is harldy surprising, then, to find him extending the pattern of Alfred's work by pushing back further the Danish power and consolidating the structure of Saxon rule. But the chroniclers who described his achievementsk make it plain that much of the credit must go to Edward's older sister Aethelflaed, who was married to the ruler of Mercia and seems to have governedd that kingdom in her own right after her husband died in 910. Evidently a forceful, even a formidable woman, "the lday of Mercia" campaigned on equal terms with her brother, and between them they inflicted a series of crushing defeats on the Danish settler of Midlands and East Anglia.
Aethelflaed died in 917, almost at the moment when the Danes of the Midlands made theirdk final submission. Edward, who has been described as a "formidable engine of war, a sort of infalliable military machine which gets through its task with admirable accuracy, if not always with great speed", went on to extract oaths from the eastern and northern Danes as well.
The towns of Mercia were systematically fortified to provide stability in defence, as Algred had first taught in Wessex. Edward was probably also responsible for a new division of territories on a military basis which survive until recently, almost unaltered, in the county map of Midland England.
Like his father,, Edward seems to have been more tha just a soldier and administrator. He "used books frequently", and his reign is notable for the bveauty and originality of its coinage in which he appears to have taken a direct interest. One of his portrait coins, in particular, is regarded as the finest thing to have been produced by an English mint until the reign of Edward I.
King of the Gaelic Scots Alpin
Reigned about 832-34 as king of the Gaelic Scots in Galloway.
Mayor of the Palace Pepin of Herstal
Carolingian mayor of the palace, reunited the Frankish realms in the late Merovingian period. A grandson of Pepin the Elder, he succeeded to his position in the kingdom of Austrasia around 680. In 687, he extended the Carolingian rule to the other Frankish kingdoms, Neustria and Burgundy, but retained members of the Merovingian dynasty as figurehead monarchs in all three. Two years later, he extended his control over the Frisians, a pagan people living on the North Sea coast. Pepins death was followed by a civil war and the succession of his illegitimate son Charles Martel.
Pepin's grandfather, Pepin the Elder (580-639), founder of the Carolingian dynasty. A noble of the Frankish kingdom of Austrasia, Pepin the Elder, also known as Pepin of Landen, joined with Arnulf, bishop of Metz, in the struggle to overthrow Brunhild, queen of Austrasia in 613, and subsequently governed the kingdom as mayor of the palace for Brunhild's successor, Clotaire II. Pepin's decendants remained dominant in Austrasia, and in the following century displaced the Merovingians as the royal house of the Franks.
This line has been traced back to Old King Cole (died 170 A.D.) and his ancestor Beli the Great of Britain (died 72 B.C.).Foregoing from "Magna Charta", by John S. Wurts.
Carolingian mayor of the palace, reunited the Frankish realms in the late Merovingian period. A grandson of Pepin the Elder, he succeeded to his position in the kingdom of Austrasia around 680. In 687, he extended the Carolingian rule to the other Frankish kingdoms, Neustria and Burgundy, but retained members of the Merovingian dynasty as figurehead monarchs in all three. Two years later, he extended his control over the Frisians, a pagan people living on the North Sea coast. Pepins death was followed by a civil war and the succession of his illegitimate son Charles Martel.
Pepin's grandfather, Pepin the Elder (580-639), founder of the Carolingian dynasty. A noble of the Frankish kingdom of Austrasia, Pepin the Elder, also known as Pepin of Landen, joined with Arnulf, bishop of Metz, in the struggle to overthrow Brunhild, queen of Austrasia in 613, and subsequently governed the kingdom as mayor of the palace for Brunhild's successor, Clotaire II. Pepin's decendants remained dominant in Austrasia, and in the following century displaced the Merovingians as the royal house of the Franks.
This line has been traced back to Old King Cole (died 170 A.D.) and his ancestor Beli the Great of Britain (died 72 B.C.).Foregoing from "Magna Charta", by John S. Wurts.
King of the English Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great, King of the English 871-899. It is not possible to point to any one figure in the history of the English monarchy and say, simply, "he - or she- began it all." Nonetheless, the story did receive a tremendous, even a decisive, forward impulse from Alfred of Wessex, King of the English as he styled himself on his coins, and Leader of the Christians as he was called by his devoted biographer Asser. He is the only English ruler to have been popularly accepted as "Great", and his position, both in British history as a whole and in the development of the monarchy in particular, is unique.
We know more about Alfred than about any other king of England before William the Conqueror, and the first features of his character to emerge are those of the warrior and commander. Succeeding to the throne at a time when the Viking invasions were rising to a crescendo, Alfred had aat one stage to struggle for bare survival but recovered to win his greatest victory in the field at Ethandune (Edington), in Wiltshire, where he routed a Danish army under King Guthrum, and subsequently compelled the survivors to capitulate at Chippenham and sign the peace of Wedmore (878). This successful campaign diminished the Viking threat, but could not remove it, and in the latter part of Alfred's reign Alfred's role as an active soldier was less important than his work as s strategist and an architect of victory. He embarked on a program of fortification to provide support for the local militia whose organization he strengthened. He also advanced his defensive frontiers by creating a naval force to patrol the coasts and meet invaders before they could deploy through the countryside. For this innovation, he is honoured as father of the Royal Navy. The same quality of originality that enabled Alfred to develop from a warrior into a military administrator inspired him to make his court a centre of dulture and religion worthy of European renown.
An educator and statesman, Alfred had big plans for the culture he helped save after defeating King Guthrum. He translated Latin texts from the Roman Empire into Anglo-Saxon. He recruited scribes to tell his people's story in their own tongue for generations to come. Today, 1,122 years later, an estimated 1.5 billion humans speak to each other in what Alfred's tongue has become. It has grown into the dominant language of commerce, of science, of the skies -- and of opportunity. It has spread culture -- first British, then American -- for good or for ill.
Legislation and administration in the modern sense were not seen as significant parts of the duties of a Saxon king, but Alfred's general concern for the quality of life, and the breadth of his vision, were such that he was naturally led to codify and promulgate laws, and spend time dispensing justice - activities which thereby became for subsequent generations part of the espected activity of a good king.
Alfred was an avid collector of other men's talents; but he is still more remarkable in that he was participant as well as patron in the culture of his brilliant court. He still speaks to us with amazing directness through his writings, most especially through his highly personal vernacular translations of Boethius and Augustine. It is from these, above all, that we feel we know him "as a man of strong imagination, anxious and temperamental; always afraid of himself, afraid of illness and incapacity to the point of hdypochrondia, aware of a larger world than he himself lived in, desperately keen to live in it, and to enable others to live in it."
King of the West Saxons Aethelwulf
"Noble Wolf." During his reign the Danes miserably spoiled England, daring to winter there for the first time. In 851, Ethelwulf routed them at Okely in Surrey. By the advice of St. Swithin, Bishop of Winchester, he granted the church the tithe of all his dominions.
Daughter of Oslac, Royal Cup Bearer.