Wulfnoth Cild ([wuɫf.noːθ t͡ʃiɫd]; died c. 1014) was a South Saxon thegn who is regarded by historians as the probable father of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and thus the grandfather of King Harold II.
[1] In 1008, King Æthelred the Unready ordered the construction of a fleet, and the following year 300 ships assembled at Sandwich, Kent to meet a threatened Viking invasion.
There Brihtric, brother of Eadric Streona, brought unknown charges against Wulfnoth before the king, unjustly according to John of Worcester.
In the view of historian Ann Williams, this is chronologically impossible as it would lead to significant generational displacement.
[7] A separate theory, first proposed by Alfred Anscombe in 1913,[8] and advocated since by the genealogist Lundie W. Barlow in 1957[9] and the Mayanist scholar and genealogist David H. Kelley in 1989[10] suggests that this Æthelmær was the same person as Æthelmær the Stout, who himself was the son of Æthelweard, a historian, and he a descendant of Æthelred I of Wessex.