In 937 King Athelstan was declared king of not only England but of the Scots and Irish too. For whatever reason - and there's been surprisingly little conjecture about this - he never married. It is usually suggested that he agreed not to marry so that the throne would pass to his half-brothers. Upon his death the throne passed very quickly to those two brothers and then, in 955, to his young nephew Eadwig who reigned for only four years and was succeeded by his brother, Edgar 'the peaceable'.
Athelstan's half-brother Eadred had subdued the Viking kingdom of York, chasing Erik Bloodaxe to his death atop Stainmore, and Edgar was able to rule a kingdom which was free from Viking attack and, ostensibly, united.
But Edgar's succession had only been possible by initially splitting the kingdom, with the old kingdom of Mercia allying itself to him against his brother in Wessex. Nature abhors a vacuum; so too, it seems, does human nature. Anglo-Saxon history now becomes one not of warring kingdoms and marauding invaders, but in-fighting, back-stabbing, and courtly intrigue.
Putting aside the unfortunate but very timely (for some) death of Eadwig at the age of just 19, Edgar's court soon filled up with men seeking favour, power, wealth and influence. Edgar was young - 14 or 15 - and seemingly pious; one of the first acts of his reign was to recall the exiled abbot, Dunstan, who had been banished by Eadwig. The story famously goes that Dunstan caught Eadwig frolicking in bed on his coronation day with his wife and her mother. It wasn't long before Dunstan became bishop of Worcester - he eventually became archbishop of Canterbury - and Edgar supported him and the bishops Æthelwold and Oswald in their reform of the monasteries as they attempted to establish uniform adherence to the Rule of St Benedict.
The old kingdoms had transmuted into earldoms and the earls of Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria became the first 'over-mighty barons'. The old kingdoms might have vanished but tribal sensibilities and border disputes had not (the Mercians, particularly, had rallied behind a nationalist flag when they rose up in support of Edgar).
The Churchmen had the chroniclers on their side, but there is some evidence which points to their feathering their own nests, taking land unlawfully, and there is an account of Archbishop Oswald feasting royally in his abbey at Ramsey while outside, folk starved, unable to pay the food rents owed to the Church.
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| Ramsey Abbey Gatehouse - David Deardon (nothing remains of the Anglo-Saxon abbey). Attribution |
The earls of East Anglia were members of what amounted to a dynasty, descended from a man whose epithet "Half-king" tells all we need to know about his power.
The earl of Mercia, Ælfhere, was a minor member of the royal family and equally well-connected. Notoriously tempestuous, he took exception to the bishop of Worcester's increasingly frequent attempts to establish centres of power and authority within his earldom. That same bishop, Oswald, also illegally held in duality the archbishopric of York, and thus trod on the toes of the earl of Northumbria, too. That earl, Oslac, was banished in 975, although we are not told why.
Bickering was kept to a minimum by Edgar. Strong, cocksure, he played the factions against one another and inspired devotion from them all. He recognised the Danelaw, he built up the fleet, and was famously rowed along the River Dee by several kings who bowed in homage to him.
But he, too, died young, although not childless. He left two sons - a third had died in infancy - but his marital history is rather difficult to unravel. Some say he had three wives, some two, but what is clear is that his surviving sons were half, not full brothers. One, Edward, was the son of - in my view - Wulfthryth, whose status was unclear and who was the subject of much gossip by the later chroniclers, some of whom thought she was a nun who had been seduced by the king. The other son was Æthelred, born to Edgar's anointed queen, Ælfthryth.
A charter from Edgar's reign shows clearly that Ælfthryth's elder son, who died in infancy, had taken precedence over Edward, but it was Edward who initially succeeded his father, reigning for three years, although he was not universally loved, or supported.
A charter from Edgar's reign shows clearly that Ælfthryth's elder son, who died in infancy, had taken precedence over Edward, but it was Edward who initially succeeded his father, reigning for three years, although he was not universally loved, or supported.
The factions divided, with the Church and the East Anglians supporting the firstborn son, Edward, while Ælfhere of Mercia supported the queen, whose son had been born 'in the purple'. What followed has been labelled the 'anti-monastic reaction' but was essentially a politically-driven righting of perceived wrongs.
And there it might have ended, with squabbling and a few land-grabs. But someone, and many pointed fingers at the queen, decided to remove Edward from the scene. Permanently.
And so the years of 'peace' had seen the growth of politics, self-serving nobles and the development of sharp elbows in the corridors of power. Now, the king of England was Æthelred. He was young, he was badly-counselled, (as Christopher Brooke puts it, "Dissidence and half-suppressed revolt ... in Æthelred's time now walked openly") and the Vikings were getting ready to sail again. So many young, strong, and politically astute Anglo-Saxon kings had died young, while Æthelred was to live long enough to see all their hard work unravel, in spectacular fashion.
Next time: Government in the reigns of Edgar and Æthelred II
