Æthelred of Wessex

For the later King of England, see Æthelred the Unready.
Æthelred I
King of Wessex
Reign 865–871
Predecessor Æthelberht
Successor Alfred
Consort Wulfthryth?
Issue
Oswald, Æthelwold, Æthelhelm
House House of Wessex
Father Æthelwulf of Wessex
Mother Osburga
Born c. 840
Wessex, England
Died April 871
Burial Wimborne, Dorset

King Æthelred I (Old English: Æþelræd, sometimes rendered as Ethelred, "noble counsel") was King of Wessex from 865 to 871. He was the fourth son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex. He succeeded his brother, Æthelberht (Ethelbert), as King of Wessex and Kent in 865.[1]

In the same year as Æthelred's succession as king, a great Viking army arrived in England, and within five years they had destroyed two of the principal English kingdoms, Northumbria and East Anglia. In 868 Æthelred's brother-in-law, Burgred king of Mercia, appealed to him for help against the Vikings. Æthelred and his brother, the future Alfred the Great, led a West Saxon army to Nottingham, but there was no decisive battle, and Burgred bought off the Vikings.[2] In 874 the Vikings defeated Burgred and drove him into exile.[3]

In 870 the Vikings turned their attention to Wessex, and on 4 January 871 at the Battle of Reading, Æthelred suffered a heavy defeat.[4] Although he was able to re-form his army in time to win a victory at the Battle of Ashdown,[5] he suffered further defeats on 22 January at Basing,[6] and 22 March at Meretun.

In about 867, Æthelred effectively established a common currency between Wessex and Mercia by adopting the Mercian type of lunette penny, and coins minted exclusively at London and Canterbury then circulated in the two kingdoms.[7]

Æthelred died shortly after Easter (15 April) 871,[8] and is buried at Wimborne Minster in Dorset.[9] He was succeeded by his younger brother, Alfred the Great.

His wife may have been called Wulfthryth. A charter of 868 refers to Wulfthryth regina (queen). It was rare in ninth century Wessex for the king's wife to be given the title queen, and it is only definitely known to have been given to Æthelwulf's second wife, Judith of Flanders.[10] Historians Barbara Yorke[11] and Pauline Stafford,[12] and the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England,[13] treat the charter as showing that Wulfthryth was Æthelred's queen, but Keynes & Lapidge in their notes to Asser's Life of King Alfred the Great refer to a "mysterious 'Wulfthryth regina'",[14] and Sean Miller in his Oxford Online DNB article on Æthelred does not mention her.[2]

He had three known sons, Oswald (fl. 863–875),[15] Æthelhelm and Æthelwold. Æthelwold disputed the throne with Edward the Elder after Alfred's death in 899. Æthelred's descendants include the tenth century historian, Æthelweard, and Æthelnoth, an eleventh century Archbishop of Canterbury.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Johnson, pp. 49.
  2. ^ a b Sean Miller, Æthelred I, Oxford Online Dictionary of National Biography, 2004
  3. ^ S. E. Kelly, Burgred, Oxford Online Dictionary of National Biography, 2004
  4. ^ Chisholm, p. 290.
  5. ^ Lyon, pp. 20.
  6. ^ Stephen, pp. 890.
  7. ^ Geoffrey Hindley, A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons, Robinson, London, 2006, p. 206
  8. ^ Keynes & Lapidge, p. 80
  9. ^ Stephen, pp. 27.
  10. ^ Keynes & Lapidge, pp. 71, 235
  11. ^ Barbara Yorke, Edward as Ætheling, in N. J. Higham & D. H. Hill eds., Edward the Elder, p. 31
  12. ^ Pauline Stafford, Queen Emma & Queen Edith, Blackwell, 1997, p. 324
  13. ^ Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England, Wulfthryth 2
  14. ^ Keynes & Lapidge, p. 235
  15. ^ Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England, Oswald 6

References

Printed

Æthelred of Wessex
Born: c. 837 Died: 23 April 871
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Æthelbert		 King of Wessex
865–871		 Succeeded by
Alfred the Great
King of Kent
865–871
Family information
Egbert of Wessex Æthelwulf Æthelred of Wessex
Redburga
Oslac Osburga
unknown
  • Also monarch of Mercia
  • † Also monarch of East Anglia and Mercia
  • ‡ Also monarch of Wessex, Essex, Sussex and Mercia
  • ♥ Also monarch of Wessex.