Athelstan: The First King of England

Here’s a sanitized version of the provided YouTube transcript:

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Welcome back to Biographics! I’m your host, Eric Malachite, and today we’re talking about a man who was not only the King of Wessex but who also eventually conquered all of ancient Britain. Today’s script was written by Ru Alexander, so be sure to show him some love in the comments and let us know whether you think Athelstan’s empire was handed to him or if he earned it himself. Let’s get to it!

In the past, we have already looked at the life of Alfred the Great, the King of Wessex, who repelled the Viking invasion and proclaimed himself the King of the Anglo-Saxons. Afterward, we studied the tale of his son and heir, Edward the Elder, who continued his father’s Viking-bashing ways, further fortified his position, and even added new territories to his kingdom. If you want to get the full picture, maybe watch those two videos first if you haven’t already seen them.

The goal both Alfred and Edward had in mind was obvious: to unite England under their rule. However, although both men were instrumental in laying the foundations to accomplish this, neither lived long enough to see their ambition fulfilled. Instead, that honor went to Edward’s son and the final subject in our little trilogy, Athelstan, the first King of England.

Athelstan was born circa 894 AD, the eldest son of King Edward the Elder and his first wife, Eadgifu. His early life is pretty much a mystery to us since medieval chroniclers were rarely interested in talking about children, even when they were the offspring of royalty. Therefore, we have no choice but to push the clock forward 30 years to 924 AD when Edward the Elder passed away, and Athelstan became the new king. That is to say, he became the new King of Mercia, not King of the Anglo-Saxons like his father before him. Wessex went to Athelstan’s half-brother, Aethelwulf.

We don’t know much about Athelstan’s mother, Eadgifu, but we do know that she died young, well before her husband, who married two more times after that and had several more children. Unsurprisingly, some of them weren’t too keen on the idea of Athelstan becoming the new undisputed ruler over the Anglo-Saxons, so they contested his claim to the throne. Back then, the king did not have the final say over who succeeded him. He could name an heir in his will if he wanted to, but the decision still had to be approved by a council called a Witen, which consisted of the most prominent noblemen and clergy in the land.

The point is that Athelstan had no trouble being recognized as king in Mercia since he had strong roots there, but not so much in Wessex, where his two stepmothers wielded considerable influence and naturally wanted their own sons to become king. This situation had all the makings of a classic royal conflict, but before they could face off, fate intervened in Athelstan’s favor. Just two weeks after the death of Edward the Elder, Aethelwulf passed away as well.

With his main competition gone, Athelstan was able to enter Wessex with his army pretty much unopposed and proclaim himself king. However, he was still not immediately accepted. He had another half-brother named Edwin, the younger sibling of Aethelwulf, who could have made a play for the throne. The most common version of the story says that Athelstan captured Edwin years later and sent him adrift at sea in a small boat with no provisions. Maybe he drowned, or maybe he starved to death, but either way, Edwin was never seen again.

With no more challenges to overcome, Athelstan had a clear path to kingship. His coronation had been delayed by over a year, but on September 4th, 925 AD, he was finally crowned the new King of the Anglo-Saxons at Kingston upon Thames. Truth be told, Athelstan’s grip on Wessex remained tenuous for years to come, and certain noblemen still would have preferred someone else as their king, perpetuating a rumor that Athelstan’s mother, Eadgifu, had been Edward’s concubine, not his wife, thus making her son illegitimate.

However, Athelstan paid little mind to such rumors. He knew that none of those who opposed him were a serious threat. Although there was a report of one nobleman named Alfred hatching a plan to blind Athelstan, it never happened, and there were no other reports of serious internal threats to his rule. Thus, Athelstan was able to divert his attention early on to the ultimate goal that he shared with his father and grandfather: becoming the King of England.

This was surprisingly easy for Athelstan to accomplish, mainly because his predecessors had already done much of the work for him. First, his grandfather repelled the Viking invasion, captured the western half of Mercia, and turned Wessex into the most powerful kingdom in the British Isles. Then his father conquered East Anglia and the rest of Mercia, which were Danish territories at the time, while also getting the Welsh kings to recognize his authority and swear allegiance to him.

All that was really left for Athelstan to conquer was Northumbria, the kingdom in the north of England. Fortunately for Athelstan, Northumbria wasn’t exactly united against him. The person in charge was whoever ruled York, the biggest and most powerful kingdom in the north, which at that time was ruled by Ceolwulf. However, he was not looking for open conflict with the Anglo-Saxons. In 926 AD, Ceolwulf and Athelstan met at Tamworth for a little get-together, and the two struck a tenuous alliance, with Ceolwulf even marrying a sister to seal the deal.

What Athelstan’s ultimate goal with this union was, we cannot say, because just a year later, fate once again weaved its web in his favor. Ceolwulf died, and Athelstan saw a vacancy sign on the throne of York. Almost immediately, a cousin of Ceolwulf named Guthfrith sailed across the Irish Sea with a fleet from the kingdom of Dublin to try and claim the throne for himself, but he was easily repelled by the Anglo-Saxon army. With York in his hands, Athelstan controlled Northumbria. Never before had the grasp of a southern king reached so far into the north, and with the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms also under his domain, Athelstan had become too powerful for any other king to challenge.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, they quickly fell in line and recognized Athelstan’s authority. First, Howell, King of West Wales, and Constantine, King of the Scots, and Owen, King of Monmouth, and Aldred, the son of Ealdred of Bamburgh, all swore fealty to him. Athelstan adopted a new title, Rex Anglorum, King of the English.

Finally, Athelstan held dominion over all of England, or “Engeland,” as it became known in the following centuries. But now that he had conquered what he wanted, he needed to start actually governing his kingdom. What followed was years of peace during which the king focused on diplomacy and reform. One new issue he had to deal with was simply the size of his extended dominion. The bigger a kingdom gets, the harder it is to govern.

Like the monarchs who came before him, Athelstan ruled with the help of the Witen, his king’s council, as well as local representatives known as Aldermen. However, Athelstan still saw the need for a more centralized government. Instead of holding gatherings whenever it was most convenient, he mainly used Wessex as his base of operations and made everyone else come to him. This was not only practical but also a power move to remind everyone who was in charge.

Like his grandfather, Alfred the Great, Athelstan was an enthusiastic lawgiver who enacted many new policies throughout his land. His main areas of interest were crime and social welfare. Theft was a particular concern of his, so he passed more stringent laws targeting it while also focusing on poverty-stricken regions of his kingdom where lawlessness and robbery had become commonplace. At the same time, the king decided to show leniency toward young offenders. It was the law in Wessex that children as young as 10 could be condemned for theft, which could carry a capital punishment. When Athelstan passed his new laws, he specified that all those under the age of 13 would be spared from execution, no matter their crimes, and later raised the age to 15.

Athelstan also saw it as his duty, and the duty of all nobles and officials, to look after the vulnerable. On Christmas Eve, 932 AD, he issued a new charter that made it a legal requirement to care for the poor. Landowners were obligated to ensure that no one would starve on their lands; otherwise, they would be fined, and the proceeds would go to charity. Actions like these stemmed from Athelstan’s deep piety and his belief that being a good Christian and being a good king went hand in hand. To show his devoutness, Athelstan made a vow not to get married or have any children, and he kept that vow all his life.

Although this is speculation, this course of action may have helped stabilize his kingdom since, after his death, his stepbrother Edmund I took the throne. When Athelstan originally fought Aethelwulf for control of Wessex, Edmund was too young to participate, but by the time Athelstan died, Edmund was ready to take charge. If he had faced competition from one of Athelstan’s children, it was likely that another power struggle would have ensued.

Besides being pious, Athelstan was a keen bibliophile. He collected rare books and manuscripts, often giving them as gifts to his allies or the churches under his domain. Before long, his reputation as a man of letters began attracting scholars and academics from continental Europe to come study at his court. Speaking of international relations, Athelstan relied on diplomacy to establish connections with kingdoms across the channel. This mainly consisted of marrying off his half-sisters to noble European families, with one of them even marrying Otto I, the future Holy Roman Emperor.

However, Athelstan’s diplomatic overtures did not extend to the kingdoms of his own island. After a few years of peaceful reign, Athelstan thought to himself that “King of the English” sounded good, but “King of All Britain” sounded even better. For reasons lost to history, in 934 AD, Athelstan decided to invade Scotland. It may have been because the King of Scotland, Constantine II, stopped paying tribute to him, or it could be that this was something Athelstan always planned on doing and was simply waiting for the right time.

Either way, Athelstan gathered a large army, which was said to include four Welsh kings and 13 earls, and marched north. Unfortunately, the military campaign is almost completely left out of the historical record. We know that it happened, but we do not have details on any of the battles that ensued. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle simply states that this year, King Athelstan went into Scotland with both a land force and a naval armament and laid waste to a great part of it. Other later chroniclers offered a bit more information, stating that Athelstan returned to the south victorious after only a short while.

It didn’t take long for him to make the Scottish king submit. Constantine was then present as a witness during the signing of a charter acknowledging Athelstan’s authority, which means that he traveled to Wessex alongside the English king and may have even left his son behind at Athelstan’s court as a hostage. The king’s coinage, as well as poets and chroniclers, started referring to Athelstan around this time as “Rex Totus Britanniae,” the king of the whole of Britain.

However, it would not be long before Athelstan’s overlordship would be tested once more, leading to what would become not only his toughest challenge but also the defining moment of his legacy. In 937 AD, the smaller kingdoms were getting fed up with how Athelstan was stringing them along. On their own, there was little they could do about it other than start an angry letter campaign together. However, they stood a chance.

The first step to this budding alliance took place when Athelstan’s one-time foe and challenger for the throne of York, Guthfrith, died and was succeeded by his son, Olaf, as the king of Dublin. Olaf turned his attention to his father’s greatest failure: not being able to conquer York. He set off to right that wrong. His first ally was the aforementioned Constantine II of Scotland, who had already shown that he was unhappy under Athelstan’s rule and was willing to go to war against him. According to one chronicle, Olaf even married Constantine’s daughter to solidify their allegiance. The last member of their little triumvirate was Amlaíb, king of Strathclyde.

Once they gathered their armies together, they marched south to challenge the so-called King of the Whole of Britain. Fortunately for Athelstan, they first had to pass through Northumbria and Mercia to reach Wessex, so he had advanced notice of their impending invasion and had time to muster his army. The two sides met in battle at Brunanburh, one of the most pivotal battles in English history. Unfortunately, once again, details of the actual fighting are scarce, and those that are provided come from chroniclers who lived hundreds of years after the fact.

Truth be told, we do not know for certain where Brunanburh even was. It is unlikely that Athelstan would have waited for the opposing army to reach him in Wessex since they plundered and set fire to all the villages they encountered on the way. What’s the point in fighting to save your kingdom if half of it is just smoldering ashes? Athelstan charged and faced his enemy head-on, most likely somewhere in the north of England. Cheshire County is often put forward as a likely candidate, possibly in the town of Bromborough, but this is just one of multiple possibilities.

There is only one thing we can say for certain about the Battle of Brunanburh: with the help of his heir and younger half-brother Edmund, Athelstan opened up a major victory. Every medieval chronicle that mentions the war says that the anti-Athelstan alliance suffered a decisive defeat and was routed after sustaining heavy casualties. Multiple kings, princes, and earls perished in the fight, including Constantine’s son and two of Athelstan’s nephews. The closest thing we have to a contemporary account of the battle is a poem recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

“King Athelstan, Lord of nobles, dispenser of treasure to men, and his brother also, Prince Edmund, won by the sword’s edge undying glory in battle round Brunanburh. They clothed the shield wall, hewed the linden wood shields with hammered swords. The people of the Scots and the pirates fell doomed; the field grew dark with the blood of men.”

Although the Battle of Brunanburh came to define Athelstan’s reign and is regarded as one of the greatest military conflicts in British history, how much of a personal triumph it was for the Anglo-Saxon king is still a matter of debate. Some see it as a pyrrhic victory where Athelstan won the battle but ultimately lost the war. His main enemy, King Olaf, survived the battle and made it back across the sea to Dublin, where he was able to assemble a new army and bide his time.

Athelstan, although still in his early 40s at this point, returned home to Wessex a weakened man. We aren’t sure exactly what happened; maybe he sustained an injury during combat, or perhaps he encountered a debilitating illness. Either way, less than two years later, King Athelstan died at Glastonbury on October 27th, 939 AD. As per his own wish, he was not buried at Winchester alongside his father and grandfather but rather at Malmesbury Abbey, where he also buried his two nephews who fell in battle.

Following Athelstan’s death, things quickly went downhill for his kingdom. As we mentioned, he did not have any children, so he was succeeded on the throne by his half-brothers, first Edmund, then Edred, both sons of Edward the Elder and his third wife, Eadgifu. Going by his actions at the Battle of Brunanburh, Edmund had already proven himself a capable leader and warrior, even though he was only 18 years old when he took the throne.

However, right off the bat, he found himself swimming against the current. What followed over the next decade and a half was a game of hot potato with the kingdom of York. The men in the north never truly wanted or accepted a southern king. Athelstan may have forced his way into their kingdom, but as soon as he was gone, the people of York voted for their own king and broke off from the rest of the Anglo-Saxons by choosing Olaf as their new king. Obviously, Olaf was thrilled with this new development. He left a cousin in charge of Dublin and sailed the sea once more to Northumbria, where he took control.

But he was no spring chicken either, and he died in 941 AD, two years after Athelstan, thus allowing Edmund to bring Northumbria under southern control once more. But then Edmund died too, and the north went back to the Vikings. His younger brother Edred then spent his reign trying to regain control of Northumbria.

Ultimately, Athelstan left behind a divisive legacy. He achieved something that had never been done before, a crucial moment in the history of the British Isles, and yet he is nowhere near as well-known as his grandfather or even his father. Some historians feel that Athelstan was almost handed his achievement thanks to the efforts of Alfred and Edward, and that almost anyone in his position would have been able to attain the same goal. Others, however, consider that Athelstan’s accomplishments and his victory at Brunanburh are enough to solidify his place as one of the founding fathers of England.

I hope you learned something today! If you enjoyed this video, be sure to like, comment on who your favorite British king is, and share this video with someone who loves learning about British history. I’m Eric Malachite, and I’ll see you next time!

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This version removes any inappropriate language and maintains a respectful tone throughout.