England, King of England Alfred "The Great" King of

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Alfred 'the Great'
Born at Wantage, Berkshire, in 849, Alfred was the fifth son of Aethelwulf, king of the West Saxons. At their father's behest and by mutual agreement, Alfred's elder brothers succeeded to the kingship in turn, rather than endanger the kingdom by passing it to under-age children at a time when the country was threatened by worsening Viking raids from Denmark.
Since the 790s, the Vikings had been using fast mobile armies, numbering thousands of men embarked in shallow-draught longships, to raid the coasts and inland waters of England for plunder. Such raids were evolving into permanent Danish settlements; in 867, the Vikings seized York and established their own kingdom in the southern part of Northumbria. The Vikings overcame two other major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, East Anglia and Mercia, and their kings were either tortured to death or fled. Finally, in 870 the Danes attacked the only remaining independent Anglo-Saxon kingdom - Wessex, whose forces were commanded by King Aethelred and his younger brother Alfred. At the battle of Ashdown in 871, Alfred routed the Viking army in a fiercely fought uphill assault. However, further defeats followed for Wessex and Alfred's brother died.

As king of Wessex at the age of 21, Alfred (reigned 871-99) was a strongminded but highly strung battle veteran at the head of remaining resistance to the Vikings in southern England. In early 878, the Danes led by King Guthrum seized Chippenham in Wiltshire in a lightning strike and used it as a secure base from which to devastate Wessex. Local people either surrendered or escaped (Hampshire people fled to the Isle of Wight), and the West Saxons were reduced to hit and run attacks seizing provisions when they could. With only his royal bodyguard, a small army of thegns (the king's followers) and Aethelnoth earldorman of Somerset as his ally, Alfred withdrew to the Somerset tidal marshes in which he had probably hunted as a youth. (It was during this time that Alfred, in his preoccupation with the defence of his kingdom, allegedly burned some cakes which he had been asked to look after; the incident was a legend dating from early twelfth century chroniclers.)

A resourceful fighter, Alfred reassessed his strategy and adopted the Danes' tactics by building a fortified base at Athelney in the Somerset marshes and summoning a mobile army of men from Wiltshire, Somerset and part of Hampshire to pursue guerrilla warfare against the Danes. In May 878, Alfred's army defeated the Danes at the battle of Edington. According to his contemporary biographer Bishop Asser, 'Alfred attacked the whole pagan army fighting ferociously in dense order, and by divine will eventually won the victory, made great slaughter among them, and pursued them to their fortress (Chippenham) ... After fourteen days the pagans were brought to the extreme depths of despair by hunger, cold and fear, and they sought peace'. This unexpected victory proved to be the turning point in Wessex's battle for survival.

Realising that he could not drive the Danes out of the rest of England, Alfred concluded peace with them with the treaty of Wedmore. King Guthrum was converted to Christianity with Alfred as godfather and many of the Danes returned to East Anglia where they settled as farmers. In 886, Alfred negotiated a partition treaty with the Danes, in which a frontier was demarcated along the Roman Watling Street and northern and eastern England came under the jurisdiction of the Danes - an area known as 'Danelaw'. Alfred therefore gained control of areas of West Mercia and Kent which had been beyond the boundaries of Wessex. To consolidate alliances against the Danes, Alfred married one of his daughters Aethelflaed to the ealdorman of Mercia (Alfred himself had married Eahlswith, a Mercian noblewoman), and another daughter Aelfthryth to the count of Flanders, a strong naval power at a time when the Vikings were settling in eastern England.

The Danish threat remained, and Alfred reorganised the Wessex defences in recognition that efficient defence and economic prosperity were interdependent. First, he organised his army (the thegns, and the existing militia known as the fyrd) on a rota basis, so he could raise a 'rapid reaction force' to deal with raiders whilst still enabling his thegns and peasants to tend their farms.

Second, Alfred started a building programme of well-defended settlements across southern England. These were fortified market places ('borough' comes from the Old English burh, meaning fortress); by deliberate royal planning, settlers received plots and in return manned the defences in times of war. (Such plots in London under Alfred's rule in the 880s shaped the streetplan which still exists today between Cheapside and the Thames.) This obligation required careful recording in what became known as 'the Burghal Hidage', which gave details of the building and manning of Wessex and Mercian burhs according to their size, the length of their ramparts and the number of men needed to garrison them. Centred round Alfred's royal palace in Winchester, this network of burhs with strongpoints on the main river routes was such that no part of Wessex was more than 20 miles from the refuge of one of these settlements. Together with a navy of new fast ships built on Alfred's orders, southern England now had a defence in depth against Danish raiders.

Alfred's concept of kingship extended beyond the administration of the tribal kingdom of Wessex into a broader context. A religiously devout and pragmatic man who learnt Latin in his late thirties, he recognised that the general deterioration in learning and religion caused by the Vikings' destruction of monasteries (the centres of the rudimentary education network) had serious implications for rulership. For example, the poor standards in Latin had led to a decline in the use of the charter as an instrument of royal government to disseminate the king's instructions and legislation. In one of his prefaces, Alfred wrote 'so general was its [Latin] decay in England that there were very few on this side of the Humber who could understand their rituals in English or translate a letter from Latin into English ... so few that I cannot remember a single one south of the Thames when I came to the throne.'

To improve literacy, Alfred arranged, and took part in, the translation (by scholars from Mercia) from Latin into Anglo-Saxon of a handful of books he thought it 'most needful for men to know, and to bring it to pass ... if we have the peace, that all the youth now in England ... may be devoted to learning'. These books covered history, philosophy and Gregory the Great's 'Pastoral Care'- a handbook for bishops, and copies of these books were sent to all the bishops of the kingdom. Alfred was patron of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (which was copied and supplemented up to 1154), a patriotic history of the English from the Wessex viewpoint designed to inspire its readers and celebrate Alfred and his monarchy.

Like other West Saxon kings, Alfred established a legal code; he assembled the laws of Offa and other predecessors and of the kingdoms of Mercia and Kent with his administrative regulations to form a body of Anglo-Saxon law. 'I ... collected these together and ordered to be written many of them which our forefathers observed, those which I liked; and many of those which I did not like I rejected with the advice of my councillors ... For I dared not presume to set in writing at all many of my own, because it was unknown to me what would please those who should come after us ... Then I ... showed those to all my councillors, and they then said that they were all pleased to observe them' (Laws of Alfred, c.885-99).

By the 890s, Alfred's charters and coinage (which he had also reformed, and extended its minting to the burhs he had founded) referred to him as 'king of the English', and Welsh kings sought alliances with him. Alfred died in 899, aged 50, and was buried in Winchester, the burial place of the West Saxon royal family.

By stopping the Viking advance and consolidating his territorial gains, Alfred had started the process by which his successors eventually extended their power over the other Anglo-Saxon kings; the ultimate unification of Anglo-Saxon England was to be led by Wessex. It is for his valiant defence of his kingdom against a stronger enemy, for securing peace with the Vikings and for his farsighted reforms in the reconstruction of Wessex and beyond, that Alfred - alone of all the English kings and queens - is known as 'the Great'.

Source:Biography from the official web site of Queen Elizabeth II

Alfred married England, Ealhswith Queen of in 869. Ealhswith (daughter of Gainai, Ealdorman of the Gaini Æthelred "Mucil" Eald of The and Edburga) was born about 852 in , MerciaEngland; died in 904. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Ethelred, Duke of Mercia. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Edward married England, Edgiva Queen of in 919 in Wessex, England. Edgiva (daughter of Sighelm Ældorman of Kent) died on 25 Aug 968. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: England, Elfleda Queen of. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: England, Ecgwyn of. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Alfthryth married Flanders, Count of Flanders and Artois Baudouin II "The Bald" Count of in 884. Baudouin (son of Flanders, Baudouin I Count of and France, Queen of England Judith Princess of) was born between 863 and 865 in Of, Flanders, Nord, France; died on 10 Sep 918. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: England, Mrs-Ethelwerd of. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: France, Charles III of. Charles died on 7 Oct 926. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Biographical Text:
Son of Edward the Elder, succeeded his half-brother, Æthelstan, with whom he had fought at Brunanburh. Combated the Norse Vikings in Northumbria and subdued them in Cumbria and Strathclyde. He entrusted these lands to an ally, Malcolm I of Scotland. Edmund met his death when he was killed at Pucklechurch, in Gloucestershire, by a robber.

Died:
Age: 24

Family/Spouse: of England, Saint Ælfgifu (Elgiva) Princess. Saint was born about 922 in Wessex, England; died in 944 in Shaflebury Abbey, Dorset, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Simple", King of the Franks Charles III "the. Charles (son of France, King of the Franks Louis II "The Stammerer" King of and Paris, Adélaïde of) was born on 17 Sep 879; died on 7 Oct 929 in Peronne. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Arnold married (Alice, COUNTESS OF FLANDERS Alix) De Vermandois Adèle in 934 in Of, Flanders, Belgium. Alix) (daughter of Vermandois, Count de Vermandois and Troyes Herbert II Count of and of France, Liegarde (Hildebrante) Princess) was born in in Of, Vermandois, Neustria; died on 10 Oct 960 in Bruges, Aquitaine; was buried in Abbaye De St Pierre, Gand, Flandres. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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Biographical Text:
On the death of Eadred, who had no children, Eadwig was chosen to be king since he was the oldest of the children in the natural line of the House of Wessex. He became king at 16 and displayed some of the tendencies one could expect in one so young, royalty or not. Historians have not treated Eadwig especially well, and it is unfortunate for him that he ran afoul of the influential Bishop Dunstan (friend and advisor to the recently deceased king, Eadred, future Archbishop of Canterbury and future saint), early in his reign. An incident, which occurred on the day of Eadwig's consecration as king, purportedly, illustrates the character of the young king. According to the report of the reliable William of Malmesbury, all the dignitaries and officials of the kingdom were meeting to discuss state business, when the absence of the new king was noticed. Dunstan was dispatched, along with another bishop, to find the missing youth. He was found with his mind on matters other than those of state, in the company of the daughter of a noble woman of the kingdom. Malmesbury writes, Dunstan, " regardless of the royal indignation, dragged the lascivious boy from the chamber and...compelling him to repudiate the strumpet made him his enemy forever." The record of this incident was picked up by future monastic chroniclers and made to be the definitive word on the character of Eadwig, mainly because of St. Dunstan's role in it.

Dunstan was, after that incident, never exactly a favorite of Eadwig's, and it may be fair to say that Eadwig even hated Dunstan, for he apparently exiled him soon after this. Eadwig went on to marry Ælgifu, the girl with whom he was keeping company at the time of Dunstan's intrusion. For her part, " the strumpet" was eventually referred to as among "the most illustrious of women", and Eadwig, in his short reign, was generous in making grants to the church and other religious institutions. He died, possibly of the Wessex family ailment, when he was only 20.

Family/Spouse: England, Elgiva Queen of. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: England, CONCUBINE Mrs-Edwy of. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Edgar was made King of Mercia and Northumbria in 957 and succeed to the throne of Wessex at his brother, Eadwig's, death in 959. With this, Edgar was King of Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex (the three most powerful kingdoms in England at that time), simultaneously and could be considered the first ruler of a United England. Some of his predecessors were Kings of All England by virtue of being King of Wessex and, at the same time, enjoying a temporary military ascendancy over the other kingdoms.
He was formally crowned in 973 and received the ceremonial submission of all the other kings in Britain. He wisely recalled (St.) Dunstan from exile and made him Archbishop of Canterbury and his closest personal advisor. His reign was prosperous and peaceful and he is generally credited with the revival of the English church.

Edgar married of England, Ælfthryth (Elfrida) Queen in 964 in Wessex, England. Ælfthryth (daughter of (Ældorman of Devon), Ordgar and (Ealdorman), Mrs-Ordgar) was born in 945; died in 1000. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: England, Wulfryth of. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Edgar married England, Ethelfleda Queen of in 961 in Of, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Biographical Text:
King of France from 936. His reign was marked by the rebellion of nobles who refused to recognize his authority. As a result of his liberality they were able to build powerful feudal lordships.

He was raised in England after his father Charles III the Simple, had been overthrown in 922 by Robert I. After the death of Raoul, Robert's brother-in-law and successor, Louis was chosen by the nobles to be king. He had difficulties with his vassal Hugh the Great, and skirmishes with the Hungarians, who had invaded southern France.

Louis married Saxony, ABBESS OF NOTRE DAME Gerberga of between 939 and 940. Gerberga (daughter of Germans, King of the Saxons Heinrich I "The Fowler" King of The and Ringelheim, Mechtilde of) was born in in , Nordhausen, Saxony, Prussia; died on 5 May 984 in , Reims, Champagne; was buried in , Reims, Champagne. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Elstrude married Guisnes, Sigfried Le Danois Count of about 930 in Of, Guisnes, Neustria. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

III married Saxony, COUNTESS OF FLANDERS Mathilde Princess of about 961. Mathilde (daughter of Saxony, Hermann Billung Duke of and Hildegardis) was born in in Of, Saxony; died on 25 May 1008. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Holland & Westfriesland, Dirk Ii Count of. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Vexin, Valeran De. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Ledgarde married Gand, Wickmann (Wieman) I Count of about 955 in Of, Gand, Flandres. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]