February 17, 2009
Rex Anglorum, the First 1200 Years - Part the Third
Previously....
Part the First: Offa of Mercia - Mercian King makes coins and dykes. Make up your own joke here.
Part the Second: Egbert of Wessex - South-west England ruled by Tom Selleck look-alike with a ridiculous name.
Up next:
Part the Third: The Wolf, the Bold, the Magnificent and the Advised (839-871)
The early Anglo-Saxon kings often tend to blur into the mind as a string of similarly silly named blokes blundering about Dark Ages Britain. So it is with Egbert's successors, Ethelwulf (Noble Wolf), Ethelbald (Bold Noble), Ethelbert (Magnificent Noble) and Ethelred (Noble Advice). As you can see back in those days the Anglo-Saxons had a pretty simple method of naming their rulers, seemingly consisting of a Mad-Libs game where you had to pair "Ethel" with some suffix you hadn't already used yet.
Seems a bit of shame this method isn't still used.
Above: "Ethel-Ranga"
Ethelwulf, the first in our Ethel-cavalcade, succeeded his father, the aforementioned Egbert, in 839 AD where, along with his son Ethelbald, fought against the invading Danes with a fair amount of success, but the fight was fairly relentless, and when Ethelwulf died was succeeded by Ethelbald, and then his other son, Ethelbert, in turn, the English were beginning to lose ground against the invaders.
Finally, in the reign of Ethelwulf's fourth son, Ethelred, the English suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Reading in 871, and, despite a victory at Ashdown, led by Ethelred's younger brother Alfred, the English army was again defeated at Basing and then Merton, where Ethelred was killed.
It seemed the Danes had won, and England would end just another Scandinavian fiefdom, full of tall, incomprehensible men and busty, flexible women...but it was not to be....for you see, the last son of Ethelwulf was about to turn things around.
England or an old woman's pies, Alfred would only be able to save one - but which? Ah, for that answer, you'll have to wait for the next installment.
Posted by Quentin George at February 17, 2009 09:56 PM