King Catch Up

Here's two more kings for you guys, Edward the Elder, Alfred's son, and Edward's son Athelstan - the first king of a unified England.

Alfred

Here's the second King as promised - my favorite King Alfred the Great. I decided to skip right to him instead of doing the rest of Cerdic's heirs because while the monarchs between Cerdic and Alfred ruled Wessex Alfred was the one who started the idea of a united England even if he was never king of England himself. He did call himself King of the Anglo-Saxons, which was fair enough considering his was the only purely Saxon country left after the Danish invasion of Britain and his heirs were the first rulers of the country as a whole.

So here you have it, an often ill, scholarly, youngest son who kicked warrior-Viking behind, took back his kingdom and then laid the foundations for one that's lasted until the modern day. Not bad at all, Alfred, not bad at all.

Next, his son Edward the Elder.

Cerdic

And so starts what is probably gonna take a far while to finish. I've decided to have a go at giving myself a challenge-a-day type affair and as I love history and have a really handy book on the matter I've decided to do a King-or-Queen a Day. Not only because they're mostly fun to read about but also it'll hopefully give me a catalogue of different characters to think about.

To start off here's Cerdic, not the first king ever but the founder of Wessex, the kingdom that would one day be the last of the Saxon kingdoms and eventually give rise to the kings of all England, not just one petty kingdom. There aren't many descriptions of him and I resisted the temptation to make him look all cunning and evil the way I've often read historical-fiction to portray him. The dates are his reign, he landed in Britain earlier, sometime around 490A.D but the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle only dates him as starting his reign as King from 519, he died in 534 and was succeeded by his son Cynric. 

Next up my favorite King from British history - Alfred the Great X]