Aethelstan,
King of The English
By
Christine Smith
From her book “The Families of Early Tamworth”
He was never truly King of all
England, but during the bitter wars with the invading vikings of the early 10th
cent Athelstan became known as the “English King”. He was born around 886, probably at the royal residence of
Tamworth, the son of Edward, who was
the elder son of King Alfred of Wessex
and Ealhswith, daughter of Ethelred
Mucel, Alderman of the Hwiccas. Through
her mother Eadburgh, Ealhswith was
descended from Cenwealh, a brother
of King Penda of Mercia. Aethelstan`s descent was therefore through
the old ruling families of Mercia and Wessex.
King Alfred had
already put in motion the procedures to unite all the kingdoms of England, and
it is certain he made his son Edward the
Elder under-King of Mercia, during his reign. Edward had either married in
a handfasting or taken as a concubine Egwynna, the woman who is known only in
history by the disreputable remarks made about her by leading chroniclers of
the day including the description the “ignoble concubine”, implying she wasn`t a noblewoman. Kings did however marry commoners then,
especially the daughters of the powerful landowners and warriors who brought to
the king`s aid, vast armies of men. The
fact Egwinna`s parentage is unknown implies there was a possibility she was Danish, and the marriage
was meant to bring peace between the English and Danish settlers of the
midlands.
Some historians still say the marriage was a full and
legal one, while others maintain because of the description applied to her, she
was only a concubine and consequently her two children an unnamed princess and
Aethelstan, were illegitimate. Again, however, illegitimate sons were not
necessarily precluded from the succession.
Kings in those times ruled by right of their prowess as leaders of men
and their general popularity with the people.
They could be elevated by the Council of Elders, but could just as soon
be deprived of power if they proved inept.
The church too, was a powerful ruling body that could raise up or put
down kings, and royalty generally had to tread carefully when dealing with
these administrators and law-givers.
As the two children grew to be
obviously well-beloved of the people however, its assumed their mother must
have considerably contributed to their personalities. Egwynna is not recorded as having died untimely, but seemed to
fade into obscurity, probably after Edward succeeded his father as King of
Wessex in 899 and the West Saxons urged him to choose a wife from among their
noblewomen. If Egwynna was still alive
when Edward wed again, then there could not have been a full and legal marriage
between them. A handfasting however,
would have left the king free to wed legally.
The children were brought up
by their aunt, Ethelfleda, the “Lady of
the Mercians” at her royal residence of Tamworth, who, together with her
husband Ethelred, Earl of Mercia, had a great influence on him. Though Edward eventually married and
produced the sons who would take precedence over Aethelstan, his aunt Ethelfleda
never gave up hope that he would one day be king of the united England her
father had worked towards.
Nothing is known of Athelstan`s early days in
Tamworth. It was ideal country for a
young prince to grow up in; he could
hunt deer in the Royal Forest of Cannock and Kinver that stretched up to Mile
Oak, and wild boar that wallowed in the marshy morasses around the fort at
Tamworth. This was horse-trading
country, and Tamworth was from early on a centre of the leatherworking trade,
with tanneries and workshops being set up around the town. It was undoubtedly also as capital of the
Kingdom of Mercia, a training-ground for the military, and Edward`s armies
together with those of his sister and brother-in-law Ethelred, Earl of Mercia,
had proved successful in pushing back the Danish advances. Surrounded by water meadows, Tamworth was
in a strategic position for defence, and its inhabitants, that included settled
Danes, were skilled in boat-building and river navigation.
The richness of Alfred`s court
at Winchester had dazzled the western world.
He had invited clerics and tutors from the continent and was a scholar
himself, who wrote documents and translated others. He set up the first system
that made all men equal in law. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles were begun in his
day, much of the past history being gleaned from the known records but
unfortunately often being rather condensed. The king also collected religious
relics and other curios and ordered artistic objects to be made by the craftsmen
of the court. Aethelstan visited his
grandfather frequently and was given gifts such as a sword and a purple cloak
that denoted kingship, and was according to the chroniclers the “golden-haired
boy, so beloved of his grandfather”.
Intellectually curious like Alfred, he was to collect religious objects
and to encourage and re-vitalise the culture of magnificent art, architecture
and literature that the land had known for centuries, but which had lain
dormant for some time during years of war.
Aethelstan was to be a traveller who familiarised himself with all the
kingdoms of England, and beyond, and who not only spread the culture of the
Britons and Anglo-Saxons, but took on board the many other arts and traditions
from Scandinavia and the continent.
After Ethelfleda`s death in
918, Edward had usurped her daughter Elfwynne and taken over Mercia, causing a
revolt among the Mercians who had just helped him win his cause over the Danes.
Edward the Elder
died in 924, and his son by Aelfflaed, the aetheling Aelfweard a few months
later. Aethelstan was then pronounced
king by the Witan, and succeeded to both Mercia and Wessex. He was accepted by the Mercians, including
the leaders of the settled Danes, who had never entirely trusted Edward, and he
set about securing the united kingdoms in the wake of fresh waves of
invaders. Some years later, his other
half-brother Edwin tried to have Aethelstan blinded as he came out of church,
but the plot was thwarted and Edwin was later found drowned in the
channel. Edward had had only had two
sons by Aelfflaed, as well as five daughters who all made prestigious marriages
abroad, but he had married again to Eadgyfu, and had had two more sons Edmund
and Eadred as well as three more daughters.
Aethelstan, the priestly king, never married, and named Edmund the Elder
as the atheling, and took him on many campaigns.
Aethelstan had
learned his soldiering under his aunt and uncle`s guidance, and during his
travels became particularly attached to Northumbria, a kingdom rich in
heritage. In 926 the marriage had taken place at Tamworth of Aethelstan`s only
full sister, the unnamed princess, to
Sihtric “Caoc”, the Danish King of York and Dublin, an alliance that brought
Aethelstan nearer to overlordship of Northumbria. This was realised a few months later when the ageing Sihtric died
and Aethelstan took over his territory, receiving the support of many of the
Danes there. The town of York was a viking trading centre, where money was
minted and goods from all over Europe exchanged, and the Danes there defended
their town against further invasion. The many isolated monastic settlements of
Northumbria, with their rich treasures, were still coveted by marauding
vikings, who sailed along the coast in their longboats and plundered these
unprotected villages. As the people`s
wealth grew, this attracted more profiteers, and Aethelstan set about securing
these ecclesiastical centres with army outposts and fortifications.
He was later to collect a unique library, and to endow and gift many churches, including Durham
Cathedral. Sihtric had accepted Christianity, it is said, as a condition of his
wedding the unnamed princess, but it is certain he was already a Christian, as
many Danes of the north were. The
Kings of York and Dublin had for some time been retiring to Iona monastery,
where they were eventually laid to rest in the viking burial-ground there.
The Danish kings still ruled under Aethelstan, but despite the tentative peace, were to have several
attempts at revolt, though the inner strife in their ruling families prevented
them for a long time from mustering a competent enough army to take on the
powerful English king. Aethelstan,
still cautious of the treaties they pledged together, was popular with the
people for he helped keep Northumbria a rich and prosperous land, a seat of
learning. He did not neglect Mercia and
Wessex, however, and the fact that after his time so many powerful families
ruled the midlands bears witness to the fact his rule was stable enough to keep
Mercia an influential cultural and governmental centre.
In 937, after many treaties
had been broken, the Danes, who had been allying with fresh hordes of vikings
from Scandinavia and Iceland, massed for battle on a plain in Northumbria,
called Brunanburh, obviously as the name implies, near a fort. Many historians have tried to identify this
site, and I`m wondering if it could be Bamburgh, on the North Sea coast, a
defensive site where later a Norman castle was built. The King of Scots, having wed his daughter to one of the leaders,
felt obligated to go to war on their side.
He and his five sons led a vast army to the battlefield and had ships
waiting offshore loaded with supplies.
Aethelstan had the loyalty of both Mercians and West
Saxons and he led a combined army north;
many more, including settled Danes, joining them on the way. Like his grandfather however, he realised
how vital it was to train men in combat, and mould them into a skilled
fighting-force. Like King Alfred he
too, used ancient military tactics from the Greeks and Romans, as illustrated
in many of the books he had had re-copied in the monasteries. The Greeks were
apparantly the first to use the shield-wall, a wedge of men armed with spears
and swords protected by a wall of shields.
With this tactic, although outnumbered, they had won many battles. The
vikings however, had learned of the tactic of the shield-wall from Alfred`s
victory over them at Eddington. The
Scots too, were no undisciplined horde.
They were trained for battle, and had the advantage of linden-wood
shields, an effective protection from arrows and sword-blows, for Scotland was
covered in forest then. Aethelstan`s
half-brother Edmund the Elder rode beside him, and was to prove himself on the
battlefield that day.
This was one of the few tumultous events in Anglo-Saxon
history that was recorded at first-hand by the monks and court chroniclers who
wrote down their eye-witness accounts.
The Mercians were
skilled in horsemanship, and it was the mounted archers who first wreaked havoc
on the enemy; then came the hand-to-hand fighting, when “the Mercians broke the shield wall, hewed linden-wood with hammer`s
leaving……..” and brought down men and horses. The chroniclers left a graphic account of the battlefield that
day, pouring out their feelings on the futility of war, and even their sympathy
for the enemy, “five young kings, the
King of Scots` son, seven of Olaf`s eorls and numberless slain……..” The spoils, they said, were left to the “dusk-dressed one, the black raven with hard
beak of horn”, and the ”hoary-coated
eagle, white-tailed”, and the “grey
beast, the wolf of the wood”. Olaf,
King of York and Dublin, tried to escape to Ireland but his boat floundered and
Aethelstan sent his soldiers out to rescue him. On several occasions he had saved the Danish leaders` lives, and
I think perhaps this could have been because his mother was a Dane who had been
wed to his father in some alliance to keep the peace, and the Kings of York
were distant kinfolk. This would also
explain the animosity that had been shown towards his mother by the West
Saxons.
This was the last great battle of Aethelstan`s reign.
There were some insurrections, but the Danes were slowly becoming Christianised
and realising the benefits of settling rather than invading.
Right until the end of his
life, Aethelstan carried on his work of bringing culture to this land. His stepmother Aelfflaed, the mother of the
sons who had ousted and tried to maim Aethelstan, was treated kindly by the
king. She had entered a nunnery (and
Edward had obviously been granted an annulment because of this) and the
intricate gold-embroidered church furnishings that she made, she requested Aethelstan
give to Durham Cathedral. Aethelstan
had good relationships with his half-sisters by this marriage, and all through
their lives he exchanged gifts of books with Editha, who had married Otto the
Saxon. His next stepmother Eadgyfu granted land to Christchurch, Canterbury. Her two sons Edmund the Elder and Eadred
became kings in turn, and her two sainted daughters were Eadburgha, Abbess of
Winchester, and Elfrida, a nun of Romsey Abbey. Eadburgha had been asked as a
child by her father which she preferred, some glittering jewels or a prayer
book. She chose the prayer-book and
became known for her humility and piousness. The church at Yardley, Birmingham,
is dedicated to her, for it was once part of the holdings of Pershore Abbey,
where the royal nun was also for a time, an inmate. Eadgyfu died sometime after 966.
Aethelstan reigned
for fifteen years. Described as physically frail like his grandfather, both nevertheless had gone into battle and survived long
winters on the march and all kinds of hardships. He lived the average life-span for those times, dying at about
the age of 50 in 939, forty years nearly to the day after his
grandfather`death. Thus ended an era
of military might, but also of great religious culture and learning. The king`s last resting-place is at
Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, a magnificent edifice, where still today his tomb
has a cult-following with people from all over the world coming to visit one of
the earliest shrines to Christendom, and an ecclesiastical centre of the
Anglo-Saxon kings. The abbey officials keep it an uncommercialised centre.
While being there to answer questions, they leave visitors alone to take in the
atmosphere of this ancient and peaceful place. This is just as an abbey should
be.
The men of Malmesbury
still today own the plots of land the king rewarded them with for their
unstinting loyalty to their country.
Sons receive their inheritance in their fathers` lifetimes in a strange
ceremony, by being beaten about the head and shoulders with a small bunch of
twigs. Many old buildings remain
reminiscent of Malmesbury through the centuries, the butter-cross, the timbered
inns and cottages, the mills.
Aethelstan had no
children, but through his nephew Edgar the Peaceful, the lines went on into
English and Scottish royalty.
THE SCOTTISH CONNECTION
Aethelstan (unmarr.)
(his half-brother)
Edmund the Elder
/
Edgar the Peaceful
/
Ethelred the Unready
/
(son by Aelfgyfu of Northumbria) Edmund Ironside
/
(son by Ealdgyth of Northumbria) Edward Ironside
/
Margaret m Malcolm Canmore, King of Scots
/
Editha (Mathilda)
m King Henry I
/
Descent continued to present royalty