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First King of England?


observer

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Additionally he was succeeded in 839 AD by his son Aethelwulf. Egbert 'on and off' ruling the major Kingdoms of England during his reign. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describing him as the BRETWALDA or 'Ruler of Britain' :wink:

 

Point of fact Obs but quite frequently Henry II is regarded as THE VERY first 'King of the English' :wink:

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As I say Obs ........... loadssssss of different opinions on this particular subject, draw your own conclusions :wink: ............. it's the same with the Brunanburgh reference, was it actually on the Wirral ?? maybe ......... certain factors do point to that ............ but ....................... ??????????? :wink:

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And what happened to the Witangemot's right to elect monarchs? Like overlooking Edgar the Aetheling for Harold Godwinsson in 1066? Primogeniture doesn't really become fixed until Edward III, and even then, Henry Bolingbroke made a nonsense of that in 1399, then Edward Earl of March in 1461 again.

 

As for the first King of England, that was claimed by Egbert as Bretwalda, but then Offa of Mercia was Bretwalda before that. Alfred claimed overlordship over all the English, as had Egbert his grandfather. Edward the Elder was King of the Anglo-Saxons. His son, Alfred's grandson, Athelstan, was Rex Totius Britanniae, and Imperator Britorrum, as well as the first King of All England, of the United Kingdom of England, as opposed to being overlord over the sub-kingdoms of the old Heptarchy as Alfred and Edward the Elder were. Then Edmund lost Northumbria to the Norse-Irish King Olag Tryggvason of Dublin who ruled from York, then upon Tryggvason's death came Eric Bloodaxe, his Norwegian mercenary general, only to be defeated by King Eadred of Wessex who became King of England. Edgar was re-crowned King of England in Bath in AD 973, the master-model for all subsequent coronations, and furthermore had Irish, Scottish and Welsh kings row a boat with him as their passenger on the River Dee, highlighting his overlordship over the entire British Isles. The Anglo-Saxon and Danish Kings of England called themselves 'King of the English' up to the Conquest. If that helps, and like as if none of you knew that in the first place, though it might help other readers. :wink:

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  • 2 weeks later...

What pure English blood? :lol:

 

No such thing. Debate over. :wink:

 

Wait a minute. It's the precise nature of the cocktail that's under debate! :D

 

Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Norse Irish (Dane and Norwegian), Britons, pre-Celtic 'aboriginals', Norman, the Irish (of all types), the Scots, Afro, Indian subcontinentals, Chinese, and, of course, THE POLES.

 

PS Did I forget to mention the Poles?

 

PPS Did I forget to mention the Poles?

 

PPPS Did I forget to mention the Poles?

 

And of course, the Filipinos.

 

And the Poles.

 

Nor to mention England's future language-

 

ARABIC.

 

Obs would prefer to learn Mandarin.

 

Funny, I would love to learn Arabic, Mandarin and Cantonese. Though for very different reasons.

 

PPPPS And so as to not offend the Welsh, given the hotels they run in London- one very good hotel I know in Paddington- the Welsh.

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I did mention the Irish, the Norse-Irish and later on the Irish (of all kinds). Shame on me for not mentioning the Jews, Obbs, though they cannot be termed a nationality- well, as British Israelites,real British Israelites. (After all, I visited Beavis Marks Synagogue last year.)

 

Yes, Mary, it's about the first King of England. Just a few side notes about ethnicity, which is inevitable given the comeplxity of the Royal Family's history.

 

OK. King Athelstan then. I was at his tomb in Malmesbury Abbey in Wiltshire two years ago. There is also a book on Athelstan which I have got which I have not read yet. (Too busy studying Greece and Rome.) When and if I finally move to London this year (the preliminary trip is only now nine days away now!), Kingston-Upon-Thames is a must on my itinerary on places to visit in my freetime. That's where the last Kings of Wessex and so first Kings of England were crowned, upon a stone throne. Edgar was indeed crowned there in 959, but was re-crowned in Bath in 973.

 

Wilts is a place full of crucial places and events in the creation of the English State. It is where King Alfred nearly lost the crown altogether in the infamous Christmas banquet in Chippenham in 877 and where he won the crucial Battle of Edington in 878 against the Danes. So it could be said that given this and the extensive patronage of Athelstan in Wiltshire, the county can be said to be the cradle of England. The Warrington area, for the record, was never part of England until William the Conqueror created the Earldom Palatinate of Chester. Before that, it was in a no-man's land, and more often than not part of the Scottish sub-kingdom of Strathclyde, a testing ground for future Kings of Scotland. (It also fell under the control of David I of Scotland during the war between Stephen and Matilda, but that's another story.)

 

To think that although Alfred sowed the seeds of the unification of England under Athelstan, and became the first king all English people could identify themselves with, before Edington all he had left were the secret royal hideout in a monastery slap bang in Athelney island hidden in Somerset marshes, and if the legend is true, some burnt cakes and the wrath of the rolling pin of the woman who made them![/i]

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I didn't know any of it - although had heard the name King Alfred in history class at school.

 

All I knew was an MGM movie made in the 40s with Robert Taylor as Lancelot, Mel Ferrer as Arthur Pendragon, and Ava Gardner as Guinevere suggested Arthur as the noblest of them all was the FIRST KING OF ENGLAND.

 

I knew it was NOT historically accurate though. When Arthur dies, Lancelot takes his un-named sword and throws it off a cliff into the sea.

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