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Historian seeks recognition for first English king
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9d07w50e15o
Somewhere I have a list of Anglo-Saxon, Wessex and English kings.
Well there is nothing new there. Parts of Britain experienced tribal rivalries/conflicts as well as invasions by the Romans, Vikings/Norsemen, Angles, Saxons and Jutes, then Normans, and various monarchs/emperors declared war on other monarchs/emperors. Seems that behavior has not ceased.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9d07w50e15o
A University of Cambridge academic has joined calls for greater recognition of the first king of England.
Aethelstan ruled England from 927 AD to 939 and united the kings of Wessex, Mercia, Northumberland and East Anglia/Danelaw under a single crown.
He was also king of the Anglo Saxons from his coronation in 925, and was buried in Malmesbury Abbey in Wiltshire.
David Woodman, a professor of history at Cambridge University who has written a new book about the king, said: As we approach the anniversaries of Aethelstan's coronation in 925 and the birth of England itself in 927, I would like his name to become much better known. He really deserves that."
Aethelstan was the grandson of Alfred the Great and in 929 he conquered the last Viking kingdom, York, at the Battle of Brunanburh, making him the first Anglo-Saxon ruler of the whole of England.
He died in Gloucester in 939 and was succeeded by his half-brother Edmund.
Woodman, from Robinson College, said: "There has been so much focus on 1066, the moment when England was conquered.
Somewhere I have a list of Anglo-Saxon, Wessex and English kings.
He (Prof Woodman) added Aethelstan brought England together just as parts of continental Europe were fragmenting.
"Nobles across Europe were rising up and taking territory for themselves.
"Aethelstan made sure that he was well placed to take advantage of the unfolding of European politics by marrying a number of his half-sisters into continental ruling houses."
Well there is nothing new there. Parts of Britain experienced tribal rivalries/conflicts as well as invasions by the Romans, Vikings/Norsemen, Angles, Saxons and Jutes, then Normans, and various monarchs/emperors declared war on other monarchs/emperors. Seems that behavior has not ceased.
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