Æthelwold ætheling

Æthelwold and his brother Æthelhelm were still infants when their father the king died while fighting a Danish Viking invasion.

The throne passed to the king's younger brother (Æthelwold's uncle) Alfred the Great, who carried on the war against the Vikings and won a crucial victory at the Battle of Edington in 878.

As senior ætheling (prince of the royal dynasty eligible for kingship), Æthelwold had a strong claim to the throne.

[a] The Danes were victorious but suffered heavy losses, including the death of Æthelwold, which ended the challenge to Edward's rule.

[7] By 878 the Vikings had seized eastern Mercia and nearly conquered Wessex, and Alfred was reduced to being a fugitive in the Somerset marshes, but he fought back and won the Battle of Edington.

This was followed by a period of peace, and in the late 880s Alfred concluded a treaty with Guthrum, king of the East Anglian Vikings, setting the boundary between Wessex and English Mercia on the one hand, and the Danelaw on the other.

[13] After King Æthelred's death in 871, his sons' supporters complained about Alfred keeping property that should have belonged to his nephews.

Æthelwulf had left property jointly to three of his four surviving sons, Æthelbald, Æthelred and Alfred, stipulating that all of it was to be inherited by the brother who lived the longest.

This plan was abandoned when Æthelbald died in 860 and the kingdom was reunited under Æthelberht, and Æthelred's confirmation of the arrangement when he acceded in 865 recognised Alfred as heir apparent.

[21] Ann Williams comments: "Æthelred virtually disinherits his children in favour of Alfred's in the event of his own previous death, at least in respect of the lion's share of the inheritance and therefore the kingship.

The largest of these was Steyning, Æthelwulf's original burial place; in Patrick Wormald's view, Alfred may have moved the body to Winchester because he was required to give the estate to Æthelwold under his agreement with Æthelred, and he did not want his nephew to have the prestige of owning his grandfather's grave.

[25] Keynes and Lapidge comment: "If only to judge from the relatively small number of estates he received, Æthelwold in particular would have had cause to be aggrieved by this allocation of property, and his resentment is shown by his rebellion against Edward soon after Alfred's death.

[16][g] Alfred also assisted his own son by promoting men who could be relied on to support him, and by giving him opportunities for command in battle once he was old enough.

[30] In the view of Barbara Yorke, the compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which magnified Alfred's achievements, may have been partly intended to strengthen the case for the succession of his own descendants.

"[33] According to the 'A' version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Æthelwold abducted a nun from her convent without the permission of King Edward and against the command of the bishop.

[35][36] Æthelwold took her to the royal manors of Twynham (now Christchurch) and then Wimborne Minster,[i] symbolically important as his father's burial place, and declared that "he would live or die there".

[39] However, when Edward's army approached and camped at Badbury Rings, an Iron Age hill fort four miles west of Wimborne, Æthelwold was unable to gain sufficient support to meet them in battle.

In his view Æthelwold was aiming to secure recognition in part of the kingdom of Wessex in order to strengthen his claim to the throne, and he succeeded in gaining the submission of the English rulers of Essex.

[46] The East Anglian Danes joined Æthelwold in a raid on Mercia, reaching as far as the fortified burh at Cricklade on the border with Wessex.

[56] Lavelle argues that "it is important to acknowledge the audacity of Æthelwold's actions" and that he "well deserves to be ranked amongst the 'Nearly Men' of early Medieval Europe".

[58] Shashi Jayakumar suggests the rivalry between King Eadwig and his younger brother Edgar in the 950s dates back to the conflict which resulted in the Battle of the Holme.

In Jayakumar's view: "The emergence of Ælfgifu, descendant of the ætheling Æthelwold, did not just threaten Edgar's position, it represented a revanche to a line and lineage with royal claims of its own ...