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Edward I "the Elder" of Wessex
b.Abt 872
Facts and Events
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Edward the Elder (17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin Æthelwold, who had a strong claim to the throne as the son of Alfred's elder brother and predecessor, Æthelred I.
Alfred had succeeded Æthelred as king of Wessex in 871, and almost faced defeat against the Danish Vikings until his decisive victory at the Battle of Edington in 878. After the battle, the Vikings still ruled Northumbria, East Anglia and eastern Mercia, leaving only Wessex and western Mercia under Anglo-Saxon control. In the early 880s Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, the ruler of western Mercia, accepted Alfred's lordship and married his daughter Æthelflæd, and around 886 Alfred adopted the new title King of the Anglo-Saxons as the ruler of all Anglo-Saxons not subject to Danish rule. Edward inherited the new title when Alfred died in 899.
In 910 a Mercian and West Saxon army inflicted a decisive defeat on an invading Northumbrian army, ending the threat from the northern Vikings. In the decade that followed, Edward conquered Viking-ruled southern England in partnership with his sister Æthelflæd, who had succeeded as Lady of the Mercians following the death of her husband in 911. Historians dispute how far Mercia was dominated by Wessex during this period, and after Æthelflæd's death in June 918, her daughter Ælfwynn briefly became second Lady of the Mercians, but in December Edward took her into Wessex and imposed direct rule on Mercia. By the end of the 910s he ruled Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia, and only Northumbria remained under Viking rule. In 924 he faced a Mercian and Welsh revolt at Chester, and after putting it down he died at Farndon in Cheshire on 17 July 924. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Æthelstan. Edward's two youngest sons later reigned as kings Edmund I and Eadred.
Edward was admired by medieval chroniclers, and in the view of William of Malmesbury, he was "much inferior to his father in the cultivation of letters" but "incomparably more glorious in the power of his rule". He was largely ignored by modern historians until the 1990s, and Nick Higham described him as "perhaps the most neglected of English kings", partly because few primary sources for his reign survive. His reputation rose in the late twentieth century and he is now seen as destroying the power of the Vikings in southern England while laying the foundations for a south-centred united English kingdom.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Edward the Elder, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
- Searle, William George. Anglo-Saxon bishops, kings and nobles, the succession of the bishops and the pedigrees of the kings and nobles. (Cambridge: University Press in Cambridge, 1899)
pp. 343-344, pp. 346-347.
- The Royal Line of Succession, A16A225, p. 6-7.
- Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons, Eng. 36, v. 2, p. 143-197.
- Plantagenet Ancestry, Eng. 116, p. 21.
- Keiser und Koenig Hist., Gen. Hist. 25, pt 1, p. 12-13, 96-97.
- Burke's Peerage, Eng. P, 1949, pref. p. 251.
- Tab. Gen. Souv., France 22, Tab. 4, 5.
- Anderson's Royal Gen., Eng. 132, p. 738.
- Betham's Gen. Tab., Eng. 133, Tab. 601, 602.
- ↑ Denis R. Reid. Royal Genealogies DB. (Name: 149 Kimrose Lane, Broadview Heights, OH 44147-1258;).
- Frederick Lewis Weis. Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America bef 1760. (Name: 7th ed Genealogical Publishing, Baltimore 1992;)
line 1 pp 1-4.
- Eadweard I, King of Wessex, in Lundy, Darryl. The Peerage: A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 EADWEARD, son of ALFRED King of Wessex & his wife Ealhswith ([872]-Farndon-on-Dee near Chester 17 Jul 924, bur Winchester Cathedral), in Cawley, Charles. Medieval Lands: A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 Eadweard (Edward) "the Elder", in Baldwin, Stewart, and Todd Farmerie. The Henry Project (King Henry II ): Ancestors of King Henry II.
- ↑ Edward 2 (Male), in The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England.
- ↑ Asser, and William Henry (ed.) Stevenson. Asser's Life of King Alfred. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904)
p. 57.
The estimate for Edward's birth date is based on the fact that he is named here by Asser as the second surviving child of Alfred and Ealhswith. (No birth place is given. "Wessex" would be conjectural.)
- One early English chronicle claims Thyra, the wife of Gorm "The Old", King of Denmark, was the daughter of Edward I; however, all other early sagas and chronicles identify her as the daughter of (Earl) Klakharald of Jutland or Holstein. This is most likely as indicated by her great love and devotion to the Danish people in her efforts to better their conditions and to educate them. Based upon the one supposition mentioned above, however, she was erroneously sealed to the above couple on 28 Sep 1937.
- ↑ New Minster te Winchester werd door Edward de oudere gebouwd in 0901 als koninklijk mausoleum voor zijn vader Alfred de Grote en als kerk voor het nieuwe dorp. In oorsprong domineerde het naastgelegen kleinere 7de eeuwse Old Minster. Old Minster werd einde 10de eeuw echter volledig herbouwd op grote schaal. Bij wijze van competietie werd ca 0980 een 6 verdiepingen tellende klokketoren aan New Minster toegevoegd rijkelijk gegraveerd in de gekende Winchester-stijl. Met het bouwen van de huidige kathedraal en de Viking invallen werd het New Minster afgebroken en werden de monikken gedwongen te verhuizen naar het net buiten de noordelijke stadpoort gelegen Hyde. Hier werd een nieuwe abdijkerk gebouwd waar de resten van beide Saxische koningen werden herbegraven. De abdij van Hyde werd einde 1530 afgebroken. Op de plaats verscheen een groot Tudor domein dat op zijn beurt in 1769 grotendeels werd vernietigd. Alleen het 15de eeuwse poortgebouw overleeft vandaag tegenover de kerk van Hyde waar een plakaat herinnert aan de laatste rustplaats van beide grote koningen. Men denkt dat ze nu onder de parkeerplaats van het River Park Leisure Center liggen. Hun naam leeft verder in de straten zoals Arthur Road, Nuns road, King Alfred Place, Egbert road, Nuns walk, Monks road.
- ↑ The nickname "the Elder" was not, of course, used by Edward or his contemporaries.
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