General Notes

Note: In the list of Sovereigns of Britain by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Aethelstan is the first listed as "Sovereigns of England", the prior ones are listed as "Kings of Wessex (West Saxons)".

Athelstan, also spelled Aethelstan or Ethelstan (d. 27 Oct 939), first West Saxon king to have effective rule over the whole of England.

On the death of his father, Edward the Elder, in 924, Athelstan was elected king of Wessex and Mercia, where he had been brought up by his aunt, Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians.  Crowned king of the whole country at Kingston on 4 Sep 925, he proceeded to establish boundaries and rule firmly.  His domination was significantly challenged in 937 when Constantine of the Scots, Owain of the Strathclyde, and Olaf Guthfrithson, claimant of the kingdom of York, joined forces and invaded England.  They were routed at Brunanburh.

Six of Athelstan's extant codes of law reveal stern efforts to suppress theft and punish corruption.  They are notable in containing provisions intended to comfort the destitute and mitigate the punishment of young offenders.  The form and language of his many documents suggest the presence of a corps of skilled clerks and perhaps the beginning of the English civil service.  [Encyclopaedia Britannica]

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Following copied from Barry Hummel, Jr, World Connect db=siderhummel, rootsweb.com:
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Edward's heir Athelstan (reigned 925-39) was also a distinguished and audacious soldier who pushed the boundaries of the kingdom to their furthest extent yet. In 927-8, Athelstan took York from the Danes; he forced the submission of king Constantine of Scotland and of the northern kings; all five Welsh kings agreed to pay a huge annual tribute (reportedly including 25,000 oxen), and Athelstan eliminated opposition in Cornwall. The battle of Brunanburh in 937, in which Athelstan led a force drawn from Britain and defeated an invasion by the king of Scotland in alliance with the Welsh and Danes from Dublin, earned him recognition by lesser kings in Britain.

Athelstan's law codes strengthened royal control over his large kingdom; currency was regulated to control silver's weight and to penalise fraudsters. Buying and selling was mostly confined to the burhs, encouraging town life; areas of settlement in the midlands and Danish towns were consolidated into shires. Overseas, Athelstan built alliances by marrying four of his half-sisters to various rulers in western Europe. He also had extensive cultural and religious contacts; as an enthusiastic and discriminating collector of works of art and religious relics, he gave away much of his collection to his followers and to churches and bishops in order to retain their support. Athelstan died at the height of his power and was buried at Malmesbury; a church charter of 934 described him as 'King of the English, elevated by the right hand of the Almighty ... to the Throne of the whole Kingdom of Britain'.

Little is known about the reigns of childless Athelstan's immediate successors. His half brother Edmund successfully suppressed rebellions by the Mercian Danes, but he was murdered at a feast in his own hall, at the age of 25 in 946, after seven years on the throne. Edmund's brother Edred (reigned 946-55) also dealt with trouble from Danes in the north; he brought up Edmund's sons as his heirs. The elder son Edwy was crowned by Oda, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 956 at Kingston-on-Thames (sited on the Wessex/Mercia border, and on the frontier between Alfred's kingdom and the Danelaw, this was where most recorded West Saxon consecrations took place). Aged 13 at his succession, Edwy became entangled in court factions, and Mercia and Northumbria broke away in rebellion. Edwy died before he was 20.

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The following is excerpted from a post to SGM, 3 May 1998, by Ken Flinton:

From: KHF333 (KHF333@@aol.com)
Subject: Re: Aethelstan
Newsgroups: soc.genealogy.medieval
Date: 1998/05/03

In case anyone is curious about the follow up on the question about Aethelstan, my friend Tom Cain helped greatly to straightem this out. I repeat his post for the record:  (see below)

Kenneth Harper Finton
Editor, THE PLANTAGENET CONNECTION

Ken,

You've got an amazing amount of information in an incredibly garbled format here. You're sources have conflated and misidentified several people.

Firstly, I would check the following articles and books;
Ann Williams - The English and the Norman Conquest (Boydell, 1995)
Ann Willaims - "Princeps Merciorum Gentis: The family, career and conections of AElfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia, 956-83" in Anglo-axon England 10 (1982) pp.143-72
Ann Williams - "The king's nephew: The family, career and connections of Ralph, earl of Hereford" in Studies Presented to R.Allen Brown eds.Harper-Bill, Holdsworth and Nelson (Boydell, 1989)
A Biographical Dictionay of Dark Age Britain eds.Ann Williams, A.P.Smyth and D.P.Kirby (Seaby, 1991)
C.R.Hart - "Athelstan Half-King and his family" in Anglo-Saxon England 2 (1973) pp.115-44 (republished and revised in C.R.Hart - The Danelaw (Hambledon Press, 1992) pp.569-605)
C.R.Hart - "Hereward 'the Wake' and his companions" in The Danelaw pp.625-648.
David Roffe - "Hereward 'the Wake' and the barony of Bourne: a reassessment of a fenland legend" in Lincolnshire History and Archaeology 29 (1994) pp7-10
David Roffe - "Lady Godiva and the Book of Washigborough" (forthcoming, but I don't know where as the copy I have is a typescript from David sent to me prior to submission)

Secondly, one of your problems is the "antiquarian" nature of your sources and their insistance on using "antiquarian" language. For example, Duke or Latin 'duces -is' was not a title ever used in Anglo-Saxon England (nor, for that matter was Count or Latin 'comes -itis') being merely the rather imprecise Latin rendering of "Ealdorman" or later A/S "Eorl". Therefore looking for people from before 1066 with these titles is not only pointless, it's anachronistic.

Your whole arguement to identify "Duke Athelstan" with Guthrum relies on your sources being right - unfortunately they're not.

King Athelstan was probably born c.895 and was clearly the eldest of Alfred's grandsons. He was possibly illegitimate, although it is also possible that his mother Ecgwynn was Edward the Elder's 'hand-fast' wife. Certainly, Edward was married to AElfflaed - daughter of Ealdorman AEthelhelm of Wiltshire - when he became king in 899, and it was her son AElfweard who became king after Edward (but only for 16 days). Edward had married again after Ecgwynn's death, to Eadgifu who - unlike AElfflaed - had been consecrated Queen and had borne him two sons, Edmund and Eadred, by his death in 924. Athelstan's accession was not unopposed. A certain Alfred - whose position in the royal dynasty is uncertain - attempted to sieze the crown and it wasn't until Athelstan was crowned King of Wessex on 4 Sept 925 (he was already King of Mercia by this time), that his position was secure. However, it wasn't until AElfweard's brother Edwin drowned on his way to Frankia in 933 that he was unassailable. He had at least six sisters (or half-sisters) who were married to various continental kings and magnates to secure advantageous alliances. Simon Keynes has identified at least one daughter and suggests there may be other children of both sexes, none of whom entered the inheitence race with their uncle Edmund on their father's death on 29 Oct 939. Athelstan was not - nor had ever been - ealdorman of East Anglia before he was king. Indeed, fostered as he was to his aunt AEthelflaed and her husband Ethelred (the rulers of Mercia) who had absolutely no claim to any ealdordom or "duchy" in East Anglia, as it was completely beyond their political reach!  It is probable that Athelstan was always intended to become king of Mercia [by] his grandfather Alfred, as AEthelflaed and Ethelred were only able to produce a daughter, AElfwynn - who was spirited away by her uncle Edward when he siezed Mercia in 918. Athelstan was certainly a Mercian nationalist, promoting many Mercian nobles into positions of power over those from Wessex.