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My vote goes to Athelstan. This is an article I wrote on the great man-
The English are a weird bunch. Among our eccentricities is a tendency to invent fictitious heroes as a source of national pride (such as King Arthur) or glorify deeply unpleasant robbers (Robin Hood) while neglecting the people who genuinely achieved greatness. This is particularly true of the Saxon times- Alfred "The Great" is an exception, but he owes most of his fame to a rather dubious biography. He was good, but not good.The biggest tragedy of this is that we've practically lost one of our greatest heroes, Athelstan. English unity was forged over three generations of Wessex rule, covering five kings and one Queen. In the middle of these names was Athelstan, the man who first united England and was probably the greatest of them all.
1- First claim to greatness- The hard road.
His first great achievement was becoming king at all. Like most really great kings, he didn't simply inherit the throne. Though he was the grandson of Alfred the Great, and the eldest son of the reigning king Edward the Elder, he was a bastard (his mother may even have been a shepherdess, according to some sources). Saxons didn't observe a strict code of primogeniture, but they kept the succession within the Athelings- sons of legitimate royal birth. Athelstan was never intended to rule. He was sent off from Wessex to be fostered in the neighbouring kingdom of Mercia, intended to become a Earl there and loyally maintain local support for the intended Wessex king.
Edward the Elder had taken his royal duty to produce heirs reeeeeeeaaaaaallly seriously. Untroubled by the sexual guilt that had plagued his father Alfred, Edward's rampantly active loins created a multitude of offspring, legitimate and bastard. In total he sired at least 30 children, of which 16 were legitimate and survived infancy. More pressingly, 4 of those legitimate kings were sons. His intended heir was his favourite, Aelfweard, backed up by Edwin who was crowned sub-king of Kent. Athelstan was only ever supposed to be a bit-part player- handy to have around but no-one of real importance. However he had other ideas.
Athelstan's charm was legendary. He was a superlative networker, and forged friendships and connections all over Mercia. So much so, that when Edward the Elder died, the Mercians refused to follow their Wessex overlords and hailed Athelstan as their king. The next 16 days were chaos- there was a failed attempt to have Athelstan blinded, and on the 16th day Aelfweard died en route to his coronation- probably assassinated. For the next year, civil war threatened to break out.
2- Second claim to greatness- Political verve and vision.
Up until Athelstan's day, this sort of carnage was commonplace. Kingdoms got divided up between sons who promptly carved each other's tripes out in attempting to re-establish kingdoms through wading through the blood, guts and gristle of their nearest relatives. Athelstan tried something new, however. Seeing that the Mercians only wanted him, while his illegitimacy made him unplatable to Wessex, he cut a deal. He took an oath never to produce an heir, and install one of his legitmate half-brothers Edmund as his heir. In return, he was to get the crown of Wessex and Mercia. It worked- after a year of negotiation in 925 he was crowned. Edward's oldest legitimate son Edwin was effectively disinherited by the deal, and died in 933.
Rather surprisingly, Athelstan kept to his oath. He never married and never acknowledged any child as his own. This meant that his eventual successor had an unchallenged accession, and his kingdom was spared the trauma of civil war.
3- Third claim to greatness- Military achievements.
Alfred the Great had saved Wessex, and re-organised his kingdom in order to defend itself. In the next generation, Athelflaed of Mercia and Edward the Elder fortified Mercia and grimly won back land from the Danes, yard by bloody yard. Then Athelstan was unleashed on the islands like the wrath of the Old Testament God in a particularly irritable moment.
The impact was immediate. He scared the crap out of the Vikings. Sihtric, the Norse king of York, had fought tooth and nail against Edward, contesting every yard of land. Yet the moment Athelstan was crowned, Sihtric capitulated and acknowledged him as his king. Sihtric was no fool- he knew that unlike his predecessors, Athelstan had massive popular support in Mercia; York's neighbours. Rather than being in truculent servitude, the Mercians were ready to fight and die for a Wessex king, and do so right on York's doorstep.
Within two years of being crowned, Athelstan had given the Welsh an almighty kicking and fixed the southern border at the river Wye. Then he headed down south and hammered the rebelling Celts of Cornwall, knocking the border right back from Exeter to the Tamar. On Sihtric's death in 927, Athelstan invaded Northumbria and captured York. For the first time, all England had a sole unchallenged king- all other kings acknowledged him as overlord.
He wasn't finished there. The Norse kings of Dublin fought back in alliance with the Scots, so in 934 Athelstan invaded Scotland and razed it as far north as Edinburgh. Then in 937, arguably the most important battle ever fought on British soil took place. A massive alliance of forces from Scotland, Strathclyde, Viking Dublin, Norway and Iceland invaded Northumbria under the command of the brilliant young king of Dublin, Olaf Guthfrithson. At Brunnanburh, in a closely-fought battle, Athelstan won and left 6 enemy kings dead on the battlefield. It was the last time England's very existance as a sole nation was ever seriously threatened by British neighbours.
Bear in mid the timescales. Just over 50 years earlier. Alfred had been hiding in a marsh with England on the brink of extinction. Now his grandson had won a kingdom over three times as large, and was viewed as an unstoppable force. Imagine the Terminator with a crown and a ****ing huge sword and you're getting close.
4- Fourth claim to greatness- Humanity.
So if he was this driven and militaristic, he had to be a complete bastard, didn't he? Like William the Conqueror, or Richard the Lionheart?
He was ruthless when he had to be. When hostage-taking failed to ensure peace, hostages tended to die- and there's also the matter of those dead brothers. Yet by the standards of the day he was an amazingly enlightened ruler. Several of his surviving statutes show concern for the young- he ended the application of the death penalty on children for starters (the first moves towards a modern notion of culpability in criminal law). There was also a great deal of local representation in government- while it was way short of a modern notion of democracy, it was probably the closest equivalent to it in those dark times. The High Saxon years made the earlier and later centuries look barbaric in comparison.
His greatest achievement was to deal with all the varying ethnic factions he ruled- Saxons, Angles, Britons, Danes and Norse. Rather than stamping rule on them, he used a mix of diplomacy, charm and bullying to gain obedience from vassal kings. There were no massacres of ethnic cleansing- once Athelstan imposed his rule on a people, they tended to stay ruled whatever their ethnic make-up.
5- Fifth claim to greatness- Culture and prestige.
Athelstan was a noted patron of the arts, investing heavily in monastery libraries and scriptoriums and kick-starting the great years of monastic culture in England. He also loved enticing noted scholars, artists and poets to his court to share their wisdom, and they flocked from around the world (Among them were Egil Skallagrimsson and Israel the Grammarian). He was also a great collector of art, books and relics.
At that time, the House of Wessex was one of the oldest and most prestigious ruling families in Europe, and this attracted the notice of continental royals. Thanks to his father's apparent ability to spray forth the royal seed like a fireman's hose, Athelstan had an abundance of sisters and half-sisters and he used them well. No fewer than 5 were married off to leading royals, including Charles the Simple of France and Otto I of Germany, and Athelstan made the most of those alliances. He also collected fosterlings too- the future King Haakon of Norway was raised in his court. Two generations after being a hunted bunch of fugitives, the Wessex descendants of Cerdic were the most celebrated royal family in western Europe, with Athelstan the most influential king since Charlemagne.
6- Sixth claim to greatness- Legacy.
Athelstan created England. It's as simple as that. Its borders are overwhelmingly the ones he fixed. In his reign, the nation turned from a brawling bunch of grotty little kingdoms into a united force. Even though the Danes re-invaded after his death, they were inevitable beaten back. Even the Normans were assimilated- England is predominantly a Saxon nation.
7- The Cons.
So what did he do wrong? He died too young- in 939 aged just 44. He also got forgotten due to the eccentricities of biographers. Those were beyond his control though. There was one definite mistake in his reign- in the first known example of English imperialism he sent an army to help his ally Alain of Brittany. In an unexpected turn of events, the army all got blind drunk and decided they couldn't be bothered to go to war, so the raided the friendly ports of North-East France instead. This was probably the event that first established the notion of English football hooligans in the world at large.
Even at the end of his life, to some he was not considered a real king. He was buried in Malmesbury, not the royal capital of Winchester. He left his throne to his half-brother Edmund "The Magnificent"- a young man not worth one-tenth of his great, half-brother, reputed to be the son of a shepherdess.
1- First claim to greatness- The hard road.
His first great achievement was becoming king at all. Like most really great kings, he didn't simply inherit the throne. Though he was the grandson of Alfred the Great, and the eldest son of the reigning king Edward the Elder, he was a bastard (his mother may even have been a shepherdess, according to some sources). Saxons didn't observe a strict code of primogeniture, but they kept the succession within the Athelings- sons of legitimate royal birth. Athelstan was never intended to rule. He was sent off from Wessex to be fostered in the neighbouring kingdom of Mercia, intended to become a Earl there and loyally maintain local support for the intended Wessex king.
Edward the Elder had taken his royal duty to produce heirs reeeeeeeaaaaaallly seriously. Untroubled by the sexual guilt that had plagued his father Alfred, Edward's rampantly active loins created a multitude of offspring, legitimate and bastard. In total he sired at least 30 children, of which 16 were legitimate and survived infancy. More pressingly, 4 of those legitimate kings were sons. His intended heir was his favourite, Aelfweard, backed up by Edwin who was crowned sub-king of Kent. Athelstan was only ever supposed to be a bit-part player- handy to have around but no-one of real importance. However he had other ideas.
Athelstan's charm was legendary. He was a superlative networker, and forged friendships and connections all over Mercia. So much so, that when Edward the Elder died, the Mercians refused to follow their Wessex overlords and hailed Athelstan as their king. The next 16 days were chaos- there was a failed attempt to have Athelstan blinded, and on the 16th day Aelfweard died en route to his coronation- probably assassinated. For the next year, civil war threatened to break out.
2- Second claim to greatness- Political verve and vision.
Up until Athelstan's day, this sort of carnage was commonplace. Kingdoms got divided up between sons who promptly carved each other's tripes out in attempting to re-establish kingdoms through wading through the blood, guts and gristle of their nearest relatives. Athelstan tried something new, however. Seeing that the Mercians only wanted him, while his illegitimacy made him unplatable to Wessex, he cut a deal. He took an oath never to produce an heir, and install one of his legitmate half-brothers Edmund as his heir. In return, he was to get the crown of Wessex and Mercia. It worked- after a year of negotiation in 925 he was crowned. Edward's oldest legitimate son Edwin was effectively disinherited by the deal, and died in 933.
Rather surprisingly, Athelstan kept to his oath. He never married and never acknowledged any child as his own. This meant that his eventual successor had an unchallenged accession, and his kingdom was spared the trauma of civil war.
3- Third claim to greatness- Military achievements.
Alfred the Great had saved Wessex, and re-organised his kingdom in order to defend itself. In the next generation, Athelflaed of Mercia and Edward the Elder fortified Mercia and grimly won back land from the Danes, yard by bloody yard. Then Athelstan was unleashed on the islands like the wrath of the Old Testament God in a particularly irritable moment.
The impact was immediate. He scared the crap out of the Vikings. Sihtric, the Norse king of York, had fought tooth and nail against Edward, contesting every yard of land. Yet the moment Athelstan was crowned, Sihtric capitulated and acknowledged him as his king. Sihtric was no fool- he knew that unlike his predecessors, Athelstan had massive popular support in Mercia; York's neighbours. Rather than being in truculent servitude, the Mercians were ready to fight and die for a Wessex king, and do so right on York's doorstep.
Within two years of being crowned, Athelstan had given the Welsh an almighty kicking and fixed the southern border at the river Wye. Then he headed down south and hammered the rebelling Celts of Cornwall, knocking the border right back from Exeter to the Tamar. On Sihtric's death in 927, Athelstan invaded Northumbria and captured York. For the first time, all England had a sole unchallenged king- all other kings acknowledged him as overlord.
He wasn't finished there. The Norse kings of Dublin fought back in alliance with the Scots, so in 934 Athelstan invaded Scotland and razed it as far north as Edinburgh. Then in 937, arguably the most important battle ever fought on British soil took place. A massive alliance of forces from Scotland, Strathclyde, Viking Dublin, Norway and Iceland invaded Northumbria under the command of the brilliant young king of Dublin, Olaf Guthfrithson. At Brunnanburh, in a closely-fought battle, Athelstan won and left 6 enemy kings dead on the battlefield. It was the last time England's very existance as a sole nation was ever seriously threatened by British neighbours.
Bear in mid the timescales. Just over 50 years earlier. Alfred had been hiding in a marsh with England on the brink of extinction. Now his grandson had won a kingdom over three times as large, and was viewed as an unstoppable force. Imagine the Terminator with a crown and a ****ing huge sword and you're getting close.
4- Fourth claim to greatness- Humanity.
So if he was this driven and militaristic, he had to be a complete bastard, didn't he? Like William the Conqueror, or Richard the Lionheart?
He was ruthless when he had to be. When hostage-taking failed to ensure peace, hostages tended to die- and there's also the matter of those dead brothers. Yet by the standards of the day he was an amazingly enlightened ruler. Several of his surviving statutes show concern for the young- he ended the application of the death penalty on children for starters (the first moves towards a modern notion of culpability in criminal law). There was also a great deal of local representation in government- while it was way short of a modern notion of democracy, it was probably the closest equivalent to it in those dark times. The High Saxon years made the earlier and later centuries look barbaric in comparison.
His greatest achievement was to deal with all the varying ethnic factions he ruled- Saxons, Angles, Britons, Danes and Norse. Rather than stamping rule on them, he used a mix of diplomacy, charm and bullying to gain obedience from vassal kings. There were no massacres of ethnic cleansing- once Athelstan imposed his rule on a people, they tended to stay ruled whatever their ethnic make-up.
5- Fifth claim to greatness- Culture and prestige.
Athelstan was a noted patron of the arts, investing heavily in monastery libraries and scriptoriums and kick-starting the great years of monastic culture in England. He also loved enticing noted scholars, artists and poets to his court to share their wisdom, and they flocked from around the world (Among them were Egil Skallagrimsson and Israel the Grammarian). He was also a great collector of art, books and relics.
At that time, the House of Wessex was one of the oldest and most prestigious ruling families in Europe, and this attracted the notice of continental royals. Thanks to his father's apparent ability to spray forth the royal seed like a fireman's hose, Athelstan had an abundance of sisters and half-sisters and he used them well. No fewer than 5 were married off to leading royals, including Charles the Simple of France and Otto I of Germany, and Athelstan made the most of those alliances. He also collected fosterlings too- the future King Haakon of Norway was raised in his court. Two generations after being a hunted bunch of fugitives, the Wessex descendants of Cerdic were the most celebrated royal family in western Europe, with Athelstan the most influential king since Charlemagne.
6- Sixth claim to greatness- Legacy.
Athelstan created England. It's as simple as that. Its borders are overwhelmingly the ones he fixed. In his reign, the nation turned from a brawling bunch of grotty little kingdoms into a united force. Even though the Danes re-invaded after his death, they were inevitable beaten back. Even the Normans were assimilated- England is predominantly a Saxon nation.
7- The Cons.
So what did he do wrong? He died too young- in 939 aged just 44. He also got forgotten due to the eccentricities of biographers. Those were beyond his control though. There was one definite mistake in his reign- in the first known example of English imperialism he sent an army to help his ally Alain of Brittany. In an unexpected turn of events, the army all got blind drunk and decided they couldn't be bothered to go to war, so the raided the friendly ports of North-East France instead. This was probably the event that first established the notion of English football hooligans in the world at large.
Even at the end of his life, to some he was not considered a real king. He was buried in Malmesbury, not the royal capital of Winchester. He left his throne to his half-brother Edmund "The Magnificent"- a young man not worth one-tenth of his great, half-brother, reputed to be the son of a shepherdess.
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