Athelstan
924-940
Athelstan, eldest son of King Edward the Elder, was a tall and handsome youth with light flaxen hair, who had been ennobled by his grandfather, Alfred the Great. He was a great favourite of his grandfather who gave him a mantle of purple, a girdle set with precious stones and a Saxon seax (sword) in a golden scabbard.
As a child, Athelstan had been brought up in the care of his aunt, Ethelfleda, Lady of Mercia. He was thirty when he succeeded to England's throne on the death of his father. William of Malmesbury describes him as being fair haired, slender and of middle height.
Kingston-upon-Thames
Athelstan was crowned with much splendour at Kingston-upon -Thames on 4 September, 925. Kingston was the traditional site of the coronation of the Saxon Kings, seven of which where crowned there. In accordance with an ancient custom, they took possession of their throne standing upon a large rock.
The stone still exists, standing outside the Guildhall at Kingston-upon-Thames, with a silver penny from the reign of each Saxon king set into its plinth.
Conspiracies against his rule formed in the early months of Athelstan's reign, lead by one Alfred, probably a member of the Saxon Royal House. The Kings brother, Edwin, was in 933 accused of being party to this conspiracy, despite his protestations to the contrary.
Athelstan strongly suspected his brother of complicity and became resolved to be rid of him. To spare the King the neccessity of having him executed, the unfortunate Edwin was sent to sea in a leaking old boat without a sail and with neither water or provisions. Dreading the prospect of drifting and starving to death, Edwin threw himself into the sea and drowned. Athelstan was said to later regret his conduct in the matter and did pennance for this action.
The complete supremacy of the House of Wessex was firmly established under Athelstan and he could correctly be described as the first true King of all England. Athelstan used the title Basilius, the Greek term for king.
Much of his reign was occupied, as were his forefather's, with the ongoing struggle with the Viking invaders. Athelstan concluded a treaty with them at Tamworth, by the terms of which he married his sister, Edith, to the Danish leader Sithric, King of York. Sithric died the following year and Athelstan siezed the opportunity to take Northumbria. His kingdom thereby became roughly equivelant in size to modern England.
The Celtic Princes of Wales paid homage to him at Bamburgh in the early part of his reign, along with Hywel, King of Cornwall, Constantine II, King of Scots and Owen of Gwent. Athelstan succeeded in expelling the Cornish from Exeter and established the border with Cornwall as the River Tamar.
The King lead an invasion of Scotland, winning victory at the Battle of Brunanburgh in 937, against a combined invasion force of Vikings and Scots. Constantine of Scotland fled the battlefield after his son was killed in the fighting. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the King's resounding victory in the form of a jubilant poem in celebration of the event:-
'The hoary man of war had no cause to exult
in the clash of blades; he was shorn of his kinsmen,
deprived of friends, on the meeting place of peoples,
cut off in strife, and left his son
on the place of slaughter, mangled by wounds,
young in battle. The grey-haired warrior,
old crafty one, had no cause to boast'
Political alliances were arranged through the marriages of the King's sisters. His sister Edith was married to the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I and another sister, Edgifu became Queen of France through her marriage to Charles the Simple. He also married one of his sisters to the Viking Egil Skallagrimson, the subject of an Icelandic saga and a further sister's marriage forged a political alliance with Alan II of Brittany.
Athelstan was an able administrator and made many good laws, which combated theft, oppression and fraud and mitigated severity to young offenders. He was charitable and popular and like his great-grandfather
Ethelwulf, made provisions for his poorer subjects. Athelstan directed that each of the manors owned by the crown should be subject to an annual charge,
which should be used to relieve the poor and the destitute. The Annals of Ulster refer to him as 'a pillar of dignity in the western world'.
King Athelstan died on 27th October, 940, at Gloucester, aged forty-four, after a sixteen year reign and chose to be buried at Malmesbury Abbey in Wiltshire, a favourite of his, in preference to his family mausoleum at Winchester. Although his tomb still survives, his body was lost decades after his death.
William of Malmesbury wrote of him two hundred years later ' The firm opinion is still current among the English that no one more just or learned administered the state.'
Saxon Stone commemorating the Peace of Dacre