Ethelred of Wessex
Encyclopedia
King Æthelred I was King of Wessex
Wessex
The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...

 from 865 to 871. He was the fourth son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex. He succeeded his brother, Æthelberht (Ethelbert), as King of Wessex
Wessex
The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...

 and Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

 in 865.

In the same year as Æthelred's succession as king, a great Viking
Viking
The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...

 army arrived in England, and within five years they had destroyed two of the principal English kingdoms, Northumbria
Northumbria
Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...

 and East Anglia. In 868 Æthelred's brother-in-law, Burgred
Burgred of Mercia
Burgred or Burhred or Burghred was the king of Mercia .-Rule:Burgred succeeded to the throne in 852, and in 852 or 853 called upon Ethelwulf of Wessex to aid him in subduing northern Wales. The request was granted and the campaign proved successful, the alliance being sealed by the marriage of...

 king of Mercia
Mercia
Mercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands...

, appealed to him for help against the Vikings. Æthelred and his brother, the future Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...

, led a West Saxon army to Nottingham, but there was no decisive battle, and Burgred bought off the Vikings. In 874 the Vikings defeated Burgred and drove him into exile.

In 870 the Vikings turned their attention to Wessex, and on 4 January 871 at the Battle of Reading
Battle of Reading (871)
The first Battle of Reading was a battle on 4 January 871 at Reading in what is now the English county of Berkshire. It was one of a series of battles, with honours to both sides, that took place following an invasion of the then kingdom of Wessex by an army of Danes led by Bagsecg and Halfdan...

, Æthelred suffered a heavy defeat. Although he was able to re-form his army in time to win a victory at the Battle of Ashdown
Battle of Ashdown
The Battle of Ashdown, in Berkshire , took place on 8 January 871. Alfred the Great, then a prince of only twenty-one, led the West Saxon army of his brother, King Ethelred, in a victorious battle against the invading Danes.Accounts of the battle are based to a large extent on Asser's "Life of...

, he suffered further defeats on 22 January at Basing
Battle of Basing
The Battle of Basing was a battle on 22 January 871 at Old Basing in what is now the English county of Hampshire. It was one of a series of battles that took place following an invasion of the then kingdom of Wessex by an army of Danes...

, and 22 March at Meretun
Battle of Marton
The Battle of Marton or Meretum took place on the 22nd March 871 at a place recorded as Marton, perhaps in Wiltshire or Dorset, after Æthelred of Wessex, forced into flight following their costly victory against an army of Danish invaders at the Battle of Ashdown, had retreated to Basing , where...

.

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.

Æthelred died shortly after Easter (15 April) 871, and is buried at Wimborne Minster in Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

. He was succeeded by his younger brother, Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...

.

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. Historians Barbara Yorke
Barbara Yorke
Barbara Yorke is a historian of Anglo-Saxon England.She studied history and archaeology at Exeter University, where she completed both her undergraduate degree and her Ph.D. She is currently Professor of Early Medieval History at the University of Winchester, and is a Fellow of the Royal...

 and Pauline Stafford
Pauline Stafford
Pauline Stafford is Professor Emerita of Early Medieval History at Liverpool University in England. Her work focuses on the history of women and gender in England from the eighth to the early twelfth centuries, and on the same topics in Frankish history during the eighth and ninth centuries...

, and the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England is a major research project based at King's College London in the Department of History and the Centre for Computing in the Humanities, and at the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge.From 2000, PASE has been funded by the...

, 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'", and Sean Miller in his Oxford Online DNB article on Æthelred does not mention her.

He had three known sons, Oswald (fl.
Floruit
Floruit , abbreviated fl. , is a Latin verb meaning "flourished", denoting the period of time during which something was active...

 863–875), Æthelhelm and Æthelwold
Æthelwold of Wessex
Æthelwold was the youngest of three known sons of King Æthelred of Wessex. His brother Oswald is recorded between 863 and 875, and Æthelhelm is only recorded as a beneficiary of King Alfred's will in the mid 880s, and probably died soon afterwards...

. Æthelwold disputed the throne with Edward the Elder
Edward the Elder
Edward the Elder was an English king. He became king in 899 upon the death of his father, Alfred the Great. His court was at Winchester, previously the capital of Wessex...

 after Alfred's death in 899. Æthelred's descendants include the tenth century historian, Æthelweard, and Æthelnoth, an eleventh century Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...

.

See also

  • House of Wessex family tree
    House of Wessex family tree
    The following chart is a family tree of the kings of the House of Wessex, a dynasty whose members were Kings of Wessex, and then, from Athelstan onwards, Kings of England....

  • List of monarchs of Kent
  • Chronology of Kentish Kings
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