(no subject)

[wellinghall]

[Poll #1252953]

Comments

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

You've got your Kings of Wessex, and then they sort-of gradually evolve into Kings of England. Athelstan, they told us in school. Somewhere between 900-1000, I don't recall exactly when. I could look it up, I suppose.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Sort of depends how you define it, doesn't it? I mean, there's Egbert, the king of Wessex whose lordship over the Saxons led to the development of an English crown. There's Alfred the Great, of course. Then there's Athelstan, "Rex Totius Brittannae," the first man to be crowned King of the English. Etc....

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Egbert is what they said! Well done you!

ETA: And what an appropriate icon you have used :-)

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

LOL! Glad to know the history Ph.D. still comes in handy once in a while. :)

(My officemate in grad school had a flow chart of British leaders running along half of our wall, so I think I gained some knowledge by pure osmosis.)

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

I can soon find you something to do :) (really...)

I don't know the answer to the above (being Not A History Buff), but probably someone like Aethelred, but anyway well before Harold / (also Harald?) & William and all that malarky. Breakfast telly often get things wrong (or are just banal and annoying) which is why I don't watch it. That and not being awake at the right time, of course. On the other hand, listening to the review of the papers at 12.40am on my regional BBC Radio programme is a complete hoot, once you give up expecting any sense from them. They haven't a clue what they are on about (even about relatively local matters, let alone anything else) ;) (It is a good show in other respects though).

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I can only answer with qualifications. I would be sorely tempted to begin any list of kings of England with Offa, because he reduced several neighbouring kingdoms to the status of earldoms and effectively ruled almost all the territory of what is now England one way or another. He was a stronger figure than Egbert, the Kentish graft onto the West Saxon family tree who often heads king-lists. Alfred the Great was king of the English south and west of the Danelaw; his grandson Athelstan is regarded as first king of England by the Royal Historical Society's Handbook of British Chronology, and consequently by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, though he never used that title, preferring 'king of the English'. So, I'll go for Athelstan, but it's by no means cut and dried. I think the first monarch actually to call himself 'king of England' (rex Angliae) was either John or Henry III (I suspect the latter) in the thirteenth century, imitating the French kings who had shifted under Philip Augustus from 'rex Francorum' (king of the Franks) to 'rex Franciae' (king of France).

IIRC...

edit emperor's answer reminds me that it was Edred (Athelstan's half-brother) who finally snuffed out the Northumbrian kingdom by elimiating Erik Bloodaxe, so he does have a claim, though there had been kings of the West Saxon line recognised in York/Jorvik before this, and the earls of Northumbria ruling north of the Tees generally seem to have acknowledged West Saxon overlordship as a bulwark against York, though not consistently.

And don't forget the claims of Edgar, who put himself through an elaborate coronation ceremony in 973, though that might have been more of a claim to be king of Britain as opposed to the English. Lots of overlapping identities back then, as now.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I thought I could rely on you for an erudite discussion of the question.

[tree_and_leaf]

'king of the English

Like the Scots monarchs, who were 'Kings of Scots' right to the end of the song (though people persistently get this wrong).

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I think some of the thirteenth-century monarchs used 'rex Scotiae' on occasion, almost certainly definitely King John [Balliol] though his title to the throne rested on a distinct basis to his predecessors and successors. It's all in A.A.M. Duncan, The Kingdom of the Scots, which is well worth reading, though very historically contentious.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oooh, ooh, can I put in a claim for possibly-mythical Aelle, as the first listed bretwalda, assuming that he knew what a bretwalda was, that he existed, and that bretwalda means what we think it mean which it might not...? He's delightfully hazy.

Or I quite like Alfred, on the grounds that he started what Athelstan finished, and was the one who kind of set the ground rules what with 'liberating'/ conquering Mercia...

I do have a soft spot for Offa, particularly as he's a descendent of Penda who is my favorite pagan king, but I don't think he can really be king of England, because he's from the West Midlands and we can't possibly have a king from there, it just wouldn't be very English.

People call their kids after Alfred not Offa, even though Offa is a much cooler name. This is odd.

[malaheed.livejournal.com]

I thought Athelstan was the grandson of Alfred?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's right - sorry, was I confusing? Alfred, then Edward, who built on that and tidied up a lot of loose ends, then Athelstan the Historical Golden Boy.

Athelstan seems to get a good writeup as kings go, but most of what he achieves is based on the foundations laid by Alfred, so it might seem a bit odd to hand him an exciting new historical hat that Alfred and Edward didn't have. Though you could argue otherwise (and people do, that's the fun of it after all).

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I confess I had't heard of Aelle.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I'd avoided the whole bretwalda question, though the claims of Athelstan and Edgar to be kings of Britain (Edgar uses basileus rather than rex, IIRC, possibly paying some tribute to Byzantine models) perhaps makes some appeal to it.

The problem with Offa is that his heirs are unable to maintain Mercian dominance or defend England against incursions by the Danes; Alfred becomes the (re)unifier and national hero.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Have you heard a theory that I rather like, that Alfred really is just the conquering hero of Wessex, and because most of the records come through Wessex, the Mercian viewpoint has been lost? A theory I rather liked when I read it. Alfred certainly took Mercia but whether the Mercians wanted to be taken is another matter. Later generations presented this as liberation rather than conquest. I wish I could remember where I came across it, but it was rather a long time ago now...

Though I think if you argue that, you could also argue that Wessex is what eventually becomes England when it reaches a certain size, so Offa couldn't have been king of England, as he lived outside it at the time.

Re bretwaldas: my understanding is that the derivation of the word is unclear, and it doesn't necessarily imply anything to do with the word Britain? Though it does seem unlikely that in the 5tyh century there was a clear concept of an England for Aelle to be king of, that could apply to Alfred too. Or even Athelstan.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

I'm glad we didn't earn your disapprobation by naming Frodo-lad 'Alfred'! Mainly, though, I was thinking that if we did, half the time we'd end up calling him Arthur ;-) (You know, 1066... , "Then slowly answered Alfred from the barge", by Arthur Lord Tennyson.)

[malaheed.livejournal.com]

Always thought it was Athelstan - who did breakfast tv/tv brainless list? Harry? Bill?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Egbert.

[malaheed.livejournal.com]

yolks on them then

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I bet that this comment thread is far, far more erudite than anything at all on Breakfast...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Oh yes!

[meglorien.livejournal.com]

This sounds way complicated. Portuguese History is much simpler. Everybody knows who the first king was. I'm thoroughly baffled by the set of comments and it sounds like a tricky question to ask at breakfast time...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The problem here is really about how you define "England". Early kings were arguably kings of just bits of England - for eaxmple, some were just a / the leading king among several Anglo-Saxon kings; others shared the kingdom with the Danes / vikings.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Plus the ones who may not have even existed.

[tree_and_leaf]

Brutus!

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Surely a king of Britain rather than a king of England... unless you are appealing to the same arguments as Edward I in the 1290s, that the two are essentially the same thing? (I'm not - Edward I's policy towards Scotland wrecked the governance of Northumberland and Durham for centuries.)

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

It is a tricky one. I'd have said either Alfred or Athelstan myself and ended up plumping for Athelstan. I hadn't even thought of Egbert.