Listen to me very carefully.
Everything they told you is a lie, it’s all part of the Norman conspiracy.
I will show you the true first king of England but to do so I must break that most sacred
rule of English History.
We’re going back…
Before 1066!
[INTRO]
I’m guessing if you’re from England you probably know that pre-Norman English history
is actually every bit as cool as the rest of it, maybe not, I don’t know what they’re
teaching you, you’ve got a thousand years to cover anyway, but it is!
Like today we think of England as belonging to the Western European family of countries,
but once upon a time it was practically Scandinavia.
I’ll spare you the details, but there were Romans in Britannia, then Anglo-Saxons in
Anglo-land, they became Christian, then a whole bunch of Vikings came ashore and went
“Nyar, we’re going to settle down, and become entangled in your culture, and participate
in a Northern European trade network!
Hahar!” thus establishing the Danelaw, which had almost asserted itself over all of England,
but for Alfred the Great and his Wessex.
Quite frankly he deserves his own episode, all in due time (probably never).
The Vikings were kind enough to break up the heptarchy, so where England used to be ruled
by Kent, Mercia, East Anglia, Northumbria, Essex, Wessex, and Sussex - Anglo-Saxons were
so good at naming things - now it was just Wessex and a little itty bitty little piece of York
still ruled by the Vikings.
For a while, though, it looked like proto-England was a lot more likely to split up than unify.
Alfred’s son Edward had two sons, and it looked like he had opened up the throne of
Mercia for Aethelstan while giving Wessex to Aelfweard, which of course was bound
to go swimmingly.
Not to mention he was on his third wife by this point, who was more inclined to support
her own children as mothers are wont to do, just a recipe for disaster.
And can we just take a moment to appreciate how many Ælfs were in pre-England?
Seriously, Edward deposed Ælfwynn so that his wife Ælfflaed’s son Ælfwaerd could
have a separate kingdom from Æthelstan, no wonder everybody starts with William!
Conveniently for us all Alfwaerd died about two weeks after Edward.
Aethelstan was still only king of Mercia for a little bit, but the Wessaxons came around
eventually, possibly on the condition that he didn’t get married or have kids, so he
got himself a fancy crown instead of the helmet that kings used to wear which was so last
century.
Opposition continued for a little while, but eh it’s fine, Edwin drowned eventually.
And he did some pretty noteworthy things with most of England under his belt.
Like any noteworthy leader he centralised the government, not because a government focused
on an individual always does good things, but because it’s just not as interesting
to talk about that time local lords were happy with the status quo and continued tending
to their fiefdoms.
Not that his vassals weren’t also getting more powerful -- with the rapid expansion
of the kingdom, the ealdormen went from managing a single shire to in some cases ruling over
what used to be an entire kingdom unto itself, which is why one of them, who was also called
Æthelstan, because it was such a popular name, was called Half-King and adopted a son
who would later become Edgar the Peaceable, not that he lived to see the coronation.
By the way, his wife was named Ælfwynn, his children, Æthelwig, Æthelsige, Æthelwine,
Æthelwald and Ælfwald.
Seriously.
To keep things from getting too out of hand, he wrote a common law in Old English vernacular,
largely inspired by Charlemagne and his grandfather’s Doom Book.
This was nice because that meant people could actually read it, though on the other hand
he wrote a law so petty it made Javert look like Jesus.
Not even kidding, if you stole eight pence worth of property and were old enough to order
off the adult menu it was lights out for you, pal.
He tried a whole bunch of things to fix burglary, never seemed to work out, though he eventually
raised the death penalty age to fifteen and lumped everyone into groups of ten and made
them accountable for each other.
Speaking of, uh, accountability and Jesus and whatnot he made a close connection to
the Church, who was pretty cool with the whole “Taking back land from the Pagans” thing.
Just because I love the naming conventions of the time so much I’ll mention that he
got to appoint various bishops, so he made his personal priest Ælfheah the bishop of
Wells, and appointed a man named Beornstan as the bishop of Winchester, but he died so
he appointed a new priest… also named Ælfheah.
And he also collected a whole bunch of religious relics that he gave as wedding presents when
he married his relatives to various people on the continent.
Like one time his cousin stopped by and was like “Hey, you got any sisters left, the
Duke of the Franks wants one” and Æthelstan was like “Here you go!
And here’s a crown of solid gold, and Constantine’s sword, and Charlemagne’s lance, and a piece
of the Crown of Thorns, here let me give you something to carry that in”
Monarchs, of course, are known for their complicated marriage networks, but Æthelstan was leagues
ahead of the game.
He was shipping out sisters to Francia, the Holy Roman Empire, he had
all the bases covered.Including, that’s right, York!
See shortly after becoming King he married his sister to the king of York, Sitric Caech,
who had already gotten kicked out of Dublin, and promised he wouldn’t kick him out of
England too because that’s too much, man.
Aw, look at that, we managed to get Ireland in this episode, hello Ireland!
Soon Sitric died, and Aethelstan took the chance to invade.
It was a pretty safe bet, considering the next in line Guthfrith had to sail all the
way from Dublin and England was finally a thing, hooray!
Not wanting to gather any moss, Aethelstan set out for Scotland a few years later once
his biggest contenders were all dead.
He rode off into the fog of history, but when he came back he had Constantine the Second
with him swearing fealty.
But back in Dublin, Olaf Guthfrithson, son of Guthrfith, was a little peeved about being
left out of the picture, just like Constantine was a bit peeved having to play second fiddle
to Aethelstan.
So in Autumn of 937, in what can only be described as a fantasy writer’s wet dream, a combined
force of Gaels, Norsemen, Scots, and Britons, marched South to challenge the English, who
miraculously pulled through, meaning that England would continue to be a thing!
For another couple years, anyway, until the Vikings took back York after Aethelstan died.
So yeah, you can debate whether or not he was really king of England, but either way
he did a lot with fifteen years, because technically Wessex had gained dominion with Alfred, and
technically Eadred had the last laugh with York, and technically England got taken over
by some Danish Cnut, and technically William’s was the last successful conquering
but my end card’s running out of time so like if you liked it, subscribe
if you subscribe to my world view and have a nice day!