King Edward the Elder (r. 899-924), son of Alfred the Great, as shown in the Roll Chronicle of ?1300-?1340, which is kept today in the British Museum. Edward the Elder should not be confused with King Edward I ‘Longshanks’ (r. 1272-1307), who also dedicated his life to expanding the realm, and inflicted such pain upon the Welsh and the Scots. (Kings who ruled prior to the Norman Conquest in 1066 are not normally given regnal numbers such as I, II etc. but are known by a cognomen such as Ethelred the Unready or Harold Godwinson.) It was Edward the Elder’s son Athelstan who first brought the boundaries of England to something like their current extent.
Introduction
In 917, King Edward the Elder, successor of Alfred, King of Wessex, summoned his royal troops and began a campaign to secure the loyalty of towns beyond his father’s realm, many of which had long been under Viking control. He broke first the power of Northampton and Huntingdon, followed by Colchester and Cambridge; and then it seemed as if all England opened up before him, flower-like.
AD 918.* In this year, between the Rogations* and Midsummer, King Edward* went with a force* to Stamford, and commanded the burgh* to be wrought on the south side of the river: and all the people who belonged to the northern burgh submitted to him, and sought him for their lord.
And then, while he was there sitting, Æthelflæd his sister died at Tamworth,* twelve nights before Midsummer. And then he took possession of the burgh at Tamworth; and all the people in the Mercians’ land, who had before been subject to Æthelflæd, submitted to him; and the kings of the North Welsh, Hywel, and Clydog, and Idwal,* and all the North Welsh race, sought him for lord. He then went thence to Nottingham, and reduced the burgh, and ordered it to be repaired, and peopled, both with Englishmen and with Danish. And all the people who were settled in the Mercians’ land submitted to him, both Danish and English.
* Benjamin Thorpe, the translator of this passage, followed the original Chronicle and gave the year of these events, which include the death of Lady Æthelflæd, ruler of Mercia, as 922. However, another hand recorded Æthelflæd’s death in an entry for the year 918. This earlier date clears up a lot of subsequent confusion, and most modern reference works adopt it. The chronology of this extract has been altered accordingly throughout.
* The Rogation Days are (or were) a three-day fast observed in the Western churches as a time of prayer for a bountiful harvest, during which processions would ‘beat the bounds’ of the parish carrying banners and singing litanies. They were spread over the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday preceding Ascension Day, which is celebrated forty days after Easter. In 918, Easter fell on Sunday April 5th, as determined by the Julian calendar in use at the time in both East and West, so Ascension Day fell that year on Thursday May 14th. (Translator Benjamin Thorpe dated the Rogations to May 27th, because he was following the Chronicle’s dating of these events to 922, when Easter fell on April 21st.)
* Edward the Elder (r. 899-924), son of Alfred, King of Wessex. Edward styled himself King of the English, a choice of words that was bolder than King of Wessex, but tacitly acknowledged that he was not yet King of England.
* Literally, with his fyrd (rhymes with ‘heard’), or royal militia.
* A burgh (pronounced ‘borough’, rhymes with ‘thorough’) was an Old English term for an urban settlement with a regular market and, as the Chronicle emphasises here, sometimes a military garrison. ‘Burgh’, derived from late Latin burgus, became a coveted honour, and a common element in British place names such as Edinburgh, Loughborough and Middlesbrough. Boroughs remain part of the legal structure of local politics to this day.
* Tamworth had for centuries been the chief town of Mercia, one of the most powerful of all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Mercia was conquered by Egbert of Wessex in 825, and King Alfred gave it into the care of Ethelred, husband of Alfred’s eldest daughter Æthelflæd (?870-?918), Lady of the Mercians. Ethelred died in 911 and his remarkable widow ruled Mercia until her death on June 12th, 918.
* Idwal ab Anarawd (Idwal son of Anarawd, also known as Idwal Foel or the Bald), was King of Gwynedd from about 916 to 942. He remained on good terms with Edward and Edward’s son Athelstan, but in 942 he led an ill-fated revolt against Athelstan’s brother and successor Edmund. Clydog ap Cadell is thought to have been king of Powys in the north-east. Their weakened kingdoms were annexed by Hywel Dda ‘the Good’ (?880-948), who became King of Dyfed, Powys and Gwynedd, and Prince of Seisyllwg and Deheubarth. He was one of the period’s most powerful Welsh rulers.
Précis
In the year that his sister Ætheflæd died, which the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded in 918, King Edward the Elder embarked on an audacious tour of the midlands, establishing urban centres and summoning local leaders to acknowledge his authority as King. They included Welsh kings as well as English earls and Danish warlords. (52 / 60 words)
In the year that his sister Ætheflæd died, which the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded in 918, King Edward the Elder embarked on an audacious tour of the midlands, establishing urban centres and summoning local leaders to acknowledge his authority as King. They included Welsh kings as well as English earls and Danish warlords.
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