Person:Æthelbald of Wessex (1)

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Æthelbald, King of Wessex (died 860) was the second of five sons of King Æthelwulf of Wessex. In 850 Æthelbald's elder brother Æthelstan defeated the Vikings in the first recorded sea battle in English history, but he is not recorded afterwards and probably died in the early 850s. The next year Æthelwulf and Æthelbald inflicted another defeat on the Vikings at the Battle of Aclea. In 855 Æthelwulf went on pilgrimage to Rome and he appointed Æthelbald king of Wessex, while Æthelberht, the next oldest son, became King of Kent, which had been conquered by Wessex thirty years earlier. When Æthelwulf returned to England in 856, Æthelbald refused to give up the crown. Most historians believe that Æthelbald continued to be king of Wessex while Æthelberht gave up Kent to his father, but some scholars think that Wessex itself was divided, with Æthelbald ruling the west and his father the east, while Æthelberht kept Kent. When Æthelwulf died, in 858 Æthelbald continued as (or became again) king of Wessex and his brother resumed (or carried on) his kingship of Kent.

On his way back from Rome, Æthelwulf stayed for several months with Charles the Bald, King of the Franks and married Charles' twelve-year-old daughter, Judith. After Æthelwulf's death Æthelbald married his stepmother, to the later horror of Asser, the biographer of his youngest brother, Alfred the Great. Asser denounced the union as being "against God's prohibition and Christian dignity, and also contrary to the practice of all pagans", but the marriage does not appear to have been condemned at the time. Æthelbald and Æthelberht appear to have been on good terms: when Æthelbald died in 860 Æthelberht became king of both Wessex and Kent, and they were never again divided.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} Æthelbald of Wessex, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
2.   Æthelbald, King of Wessex, in Lundy, Darryl. The Peerage: A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2} ÆTHELBALD, in Cawley, Charles. Medieval Lands: A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families.
4. ↑ Earle, John (ed.), and Charles (ed.) Plummer. Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892)
   pp.66-67.

   Both manuscript A and D have Æthelbald dying in 860 and being buried at Sherborne.

5.   Æthelbald 13 (Male), in The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England.
6. ↑ Allison Weir appears to be the source of "20 Dec" as the death date. It is not clear what original source this comes from.