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Background

At the beginning of the ninth century England was almost completely under the control of the Anglo-Saxons. Northumbria in the northeast, Mercia in the midlands, and Wessex in the south were the most important Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Mercia was dominant over East Anglia and Kent, and it remained the most powerful kingdom until the 820s. Offa, who had come to the throne of Mercia in 757, did not initially have influence over Wessex: Cynewulf, the king of Wessex from 757 to 786, does not appear to have acknowledged Offa as his overlord, and in fact took Berkshire from the Mercians in about 758. Offa defeated Cynewulf in 779 at the Battle of Bensington in Oxfordshire, recovering the territory and possibly also London. By the 780s Mercian influence can be seen in Kent: King Ealhmund of Kent is last recorded in 784, and thereafter charter evidence clearly shows Offa’s authority there. It is possible that Ealhmund had some local overlordship over the southeastern kingdoms, and Offa may become involved in order to take over Ealhmund's dominance of the region. In 786, Cynewulf was murdered, and the throne was contested by Egbert, who may have been Ealhmund’s son, and Beorhtric. Beohrtric was successful, possibly with Offa’s help; he appears to have been subject to Offa’s authority to some degree thereafter. Three years later, in 789, Beohrtric married Offa’s daughter Eadburh, and it may have been at this time that Egbert was exiled to Francia, where he stayed for either three or thirteen years Beohrtric may have regained some independence after Offa's death in 797. In 802 Beorhtric died, and Egbert, perhaps with the support of Charlemagne, became king, against Mercian opposition.

Almost nothing is recorded of the first twenty years of Egbert's reign, apart from campaigns against the Cornish in the 810s. Relations between Mercian kings and their Kentish subjects were distant. Kentish ealdormen did not attended the court of Coenwulf of Mercia (796-821), and he quarrelled with Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury (805-832); Coenwulf's primary concern seems to have been to gain access to the wealth of Kent. His successors Ceolwulf I (821-23) and Beornwulf (823-26) restored relations with Archbishop Wulfred, and Beornwulf appointed a sub king of Kent, Baldred.

Family

Æthelwulf was the son of Egbert, King of Wessex from 802 to 839. His mother's name is unknown, and he had no recorded siblings. So far as is known, his wife Osburh was the mother of all his children. She was the daughter of Oslac, described by Asser, biographer of their son Alfred the Great as "King Æthelwulf's famous butler", a Goth who was descended from Goths and Jutes who had ruled the Isle of Wight. They had six known children: one daughter Æthelswith, an eldest son Æthelstan who predeceased his father, and four other sons who ruled successively as King of Wessex, Æthelbald, Æthelberht, Æthelred and Alfred. The marriage probably took place well before Æthelwulf succeeded to the throne as he appointed Æthelstan sub-king of Kent in 939 and Æthelbald started witnessing charters in 840. In 856 Æthelwulf married Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, King of West Francia and future Holy Roman Emperor. It is not known whether Osburh had died or been repudiated. There were no children from this second marriage.

Early life

Æthelwulf was first recorded in 825. In that year Egbert won the crucial Battle of Ellandun against King Beornwulf of Mercia, destroying the long Mercian hegemony over southern England. Egbert followed it up by sending Æthelwulf with Eahlstan, Bishop of Sherborne, and Wulfheard, Ealdorman of Hampshire, with a large army into Kent to expel Baldred. Æthelwulf may have been descended from kings of Kent, and he was sub-king of the south-eastern provinces of Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex until he inherited the throne of Wessex in 839. His sub-kingship is recorded in charters, in some of which King Egbert acted with his son's permission. Unlike their Mercian predecessors, Æthelwulf and his father appointed Kentish nobles as ealdormen, and promoted their interests. They also supported the Kentish church, and at Canterbury in 828 Egbert granted privileges to the bishopric of Rochester. In the view of Simon Keynes, the West Saxon kings took steps to secure the support of Archbishop Wulfred, but Nicholas Brooks argues that Wulfred's Mercian origin and connections proved a liability. Æthelwulf seized an estate in East Malling from the Canterbury church on the ground that it had only been granted by Baldred when he was in flight from the West Saxon forces; the issue of archiepiscopal coinage was suspended for several years, and the only estate Wulfred was granted after 825 he received from King Wiglaf of Mercia.

In 838 King Egbert held an assembly at Kingston in Surrey, where he and Æthelwulf restored the East Malling estate to Wulfred's successor as Archbishop of Canterbury, Ceolnoth, in return for a promise of "firm and unbroken friendship" for himself and Æthelwulf and their heirs. Æthelwulf may have received royal consecration by the archbishop. Egbert thus bought support for Æthelwulf, who became the first son to succeed his father as West Saxon king since 641. At the same meeting Kentish monasteries chose Æthelwulf as their lord, and he undertook that after his death, they would have freedom to elect their heads; they thus accepted Æthelwulf's authority instead of the Archbishop of Canterbury's. Increasing Viking attacks encouraged Kentishmen to look for protection to West Saxon royal power.

In 829 Egbert conquered Mercia, only for King Wiglaf of Mercia to recover his kingdom a year later; however, Kent was never separated from Wessex after 825.

Early rule

When Æthelwulf succeeded in 839, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "he gave to his son Æthelstan the kingdom of the people of Kent, and the kingdom of the East Saxons and of the people of Surrey and of the South Saxons". However, Æthelwulf did not give his son the same power as his father had given him, and although Æthelstan attests his father's charters as king, he does not appear to have been given the power to issue his own charters or coins. Æthelwulf exercised authority in the south-east and made regular visits there. He governed Wessex and Kent as separate spheres, and assemblies in each kingdom were only attended by the nobility of that country. He maintained his father's policy of governing Kent through ealdormen appointed from the local nobility and advancing their interests, but gave somewhat less support to the church. He also continued his father's policy (after 830) of maintaining good relations with Mercia. London was traditionally a Mercian town, but in the 830s it was under West Saxon control; soon after Æthelwulf's accession it reverted to Mercian influence.

In ninth-century Mercia and Kent, royal charters were produced by religious houses, each with its own style, but in Wessex there was a single royal diplomatic tradition, probably by a single agency acting for the king. This may have originated in Egbert's reign, and it becomes clear in the 840s.

Historiography

Discussing Æthelwulf's grant in 854 of a tenth part of his lands to the churches, Patrick Wormald writes:

What Æthelwulf gained from it is still unclear. What does seem clear is, first that Æthelwulf was a king of perhaps more than conventional piety, as his pilgrimage to Rome with the young Alfred also suggests; and, second, that Æthelwulf was anyway both rich and generous.

Pilgrimage to Rome

Death and succession

Æthelwulf died on 13 January 858. His will has not survived, but the will of his son Alfred provides some information about Æthelwulf's intentions. The kingdom was to be divided between two oldest surviving sons, Æthelbald and Æthelberht: Æthelbald's control of Wessex was confirmed, and Aethelberht was to inherit Kent, which he had already ruled as a subking.

Notes

1. Janet Nelson and Ann Williams date Baldred's removal and the start of Æthelwulf's sub-kingship to 825. However, D. H. Kirby states that Baldred was probably not driven out until 826, and Æthelwulf was appointed sub-king by 838. Simon Keynes cites the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as stating that Æthelwulf expelled Baldred in 825, and secured the submission of the people of Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex; however, charter evidence suggests that Beornwulf was recognised as overlord of Kent until he was killed in battle while attempting to put down a rebellion in East Anglia in 826. His successor as king of Mercia, Ludeca, never seems to have been recognised in Kent.

References

1. Edwards 2004.
2. Keynes 1993, pp. 113–19; Brooks 1984, pp. 132–36.
3. ^ Nelson 2004a.
4. Nelson 2004b.
5. Nelson 2004a; Williams 1991.
6. Kirby 2000, pp. 155–56.
7. Keynes 1993, p. 120.
8. Williams 1991; Stenton 1971, p. 231; Kirby 2000, pp. 155–56.
9. Keynes 1993, pp. 120–21.
10. Brooks 1984, pp. 136–37.
11. Wormald 1982, p. 140; Keynes 1994, pp. 1112–13.
12. Nelson 2004a; Keynes 1993, p. 124; Brooks 1984, pp. 197–201.
13. Stenton 1971, pp. 232–33.
14. Keynes 1993, pp. 124–28.
15. Keynes 1994, pp. 1109–23.
16. Wormald 1982, p. 140.
17. Kirby 1991, pp. 201–202.

Sources

• Brooks, Nicholas (1984). The Early History of the Church of Canterbury. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press. ISBN 0-7185-1182-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Edwards, Heather (2004). "Ecgberht [Egbert] (d. 839), king of the West Saxons". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8581. Retrieved 5 April 2015. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (subscription or UK public library membership required)
• Keynes, Simon (1993). "The Control of Kent in the Ninth Century". Early Medieval Europe. 2 (2). ISSN 1468-0254. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Keynes, Simon (November 1994). "The West Saxon Charters of King Æthelwulf and his sons". English Historical Review. 109. ISSN 0013-8266. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kirby, D. P. (1991). The Earliest English Kings. London, UK: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-09086-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kirby, D. P. (2000). The Earliest English Kings (Revised ed.). London, UK: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-24211-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Nelson, Janet L. (2004a). "Æthelwulf (d. 858), king of the West Saxons". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/39264. Retrieved 8 March 2015. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (subscription or UK public library membership required)
• Nelson, Janet L. (2004b). "Osburh [Osburga] (fl. 839)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/20887. Retrieved 8 March 2015. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) (subscription or UK public library membership required)
• Stenton, Frank M. (1971). Anglo-Saxon England (3rd ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280139-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Williams, Ann (1991). "Æthelwulf King of Wessex 839-58". In Williams, Ann; Smyth, Alfred P.; Kirby, D. P. (eds.). A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain. London, UK: Seaby. pp. 33–36. ISBN 978-1-85264-047-7. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wormald, Patrick (1982). "The Ninth Century". In Campbell, James (ed.). The Anglo-Saxons. London, UK: Penguin Books. ISBN 9780714821498. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)