General Notes

AETHELWULF, king of the West Saxons, succeeded his father, Egbert, in A.D. 839. Aelthelwulf's reign was chiefly occupied with struggles against the Danes. After the king's defeat 843-844, the Somerset and Dorset levies won a victory at the mouth of the Parret (c. 850). In 851 Ceorl, with the men of Devon, defeated the Danes at Wigganburg, and Aethelstan of Kent was victorious at Sandwich; despite this the Danes wintered in England that year for the first time. In 851 also Aethelwulf and Aethelbald won their great victory at Aclea, probably the modern Ockley. In 853 Aelthelwulf subdued the North Welsh, in answer to the appeal of Burgred of Mercia, and gave him his daughter Aethelswith in marriage. The year 855 is the date of the Donation of Aethelwulf and of his journey to Rome with Alfred. On his way home he married Judith, daughter of Charles the Bold. According to Aser he was compelled to give up Wessex to his son Aethelbald on his return, and content himself with the eartern under-kingdom. He died in 858. [Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1961 ed., Vol. 1, p. 276, AETHELFULF]
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Aethelwulf, also spelled ETHELWULF (d. 858), Anglo-Saxon king in England, the father of King Alfred the Great. As ruler of the West Saxons from 839 to 856, he allied his kingdom of Wessex with Mercia and thereby withstood invasions by Danish Vikings.
The son of the great West Saxon king Egbert (ruled 802-839), Aethelwulf ascended the throne four years after the Danes had begun large-scale raids on the English coast. In 851 he scored a major victory over a large Danish army at a place called Aclea in Surrey. Aethelwulf then married his daughter to the Mercian king Burgred (853), and in 856 he himself married the daughter of Charles II the Bald, king of the West Franks. Aethelwulf was deposed by a rival faction upon his return from a pilgrimage to Rome in 856, but he continued to rule Kent and several other eastern provinces until his death. In addition to Alfred the Great (ruled 871-899), three of Aethelwulf's four other sons became kings of Wessex