Coordinates	00°59′13″N49°56′24″N
name	Cædwalla
title	King of Wessex
succession	King of Wessex
reign	685–688
predecessor	Centwine
successor	Ine
consort	Cynethryth
birth date	659
death date	April 20, 689
father	Coenberht }}

Cædwalla (c. 659 – 20 April 689) was the King of Wessex from approximately 685 until he abdicated in 688. His name is derived from the British Cadwallon. He was exiled as a youth, and during this time attacked the South Saxons and killed their king, Æthelwealh, in what is now Sussex. Cædwalla was unable to hold the territory, however, and was driven out by Æthelwealh's ealdormen. In either 685 or 686 he became king of Wessex. He may have been involved in suppressing rival dynasties at this time, as an early source records that Wessex was ruled by underkings until Cædwalla.

After his accession Cædwalla returned to Sussex and won the territory again, and also conquered the Isle of Wight, extinguishing the ruling dynasty there. He gained control of Surrey and the kingdom of Kent, and in 686 he installed his brother, Mul, as king of Kent. Mul was burned in a Kentish revolt a year later, and Cædwalla returned, possibly ruling Kent directly for a period.

Cædwalla was wounded during the conquest of the Isle of Wight, and perhaps for this reason he abdicated in 688 to travel to Rome for baptism. He reached Rome in April of 689, and was baptised on the Saturday before Easter, dying ten days later on 20 April 689. He was succeeded by Ine.

Sources

A major source for West Saxon events is the ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'', written about 731 by Bede, a Northumbrian monk and chronicler. Bede received a good deal of information relating to Cædwalla from Bishop Daniel of Winchester; Bede’s interest was primarily in the Christianization of the West Saxons, but in relating the history of the church he sheds much light on the West Saxons and on Cædwalla. The contemporary ''Vita Sancti Wilfrithi'' or ''Life of St Wilfrid'' (by Stephen of Ripon, but often misattributed to Eddius Stephanus) also mentions Cædwalla. Another useful source is the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,'' a set of annals assembled in Wessex in the late ninth-century, probably at the direction of King Alfred the Great. Associated with the ''Chronicle'' is a list of kings and their reigns, known as the ''West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List.'' There are also six surviving charters, though some are of doubtful authenticity. Charters were documents drawn up to record grants of land by kings to their followers or to the church, and provide some of the earliest documentary sources in England.

West Saxon territory in the 680s

In the late seventh century, the West Saxons occupied an area in the west of southern England, though the exact boundaries are difficult to define. To their west was the native British kingdom of Dumnonia, in what is now Devon and Cornwall. To the north were the Mercians, whose king, Wulfhere, had dominated southern England during his reign. In 674 he was succeeded by his brother, Æthelred, who was less militarily active than Wulfhere had been along the frontier with Wessex, though the West Saxons did not recover the territorial gains Wulfhere had made. To the southeast was the kingdom of the South Saxons, in what is now Sussex; and to the east were the East Saxons, who controlled London.

Not all the locations named in the ''Chronicle'' can be identified, but it is apparent that the West Saxons were fighting in north Somerset, south Gloucestershire, and north Wiltshire, against both British and Mercian opposition. To the west and south, evidence of the extent of West Saxon influence is provided by the fact that Cenwalh, who reigned from 642 to 673, is remembered as the first Saxon patron of Sherborne Abbey, in Dorset; similarly, Centwine (676–685) is the first Saxon patron of Glastonbury, in Somerset. Evidently these monasteries were in West Saxon territory by then. Exeter, to the west, in Devon, was under West Saxon control by 680, since Boniface was educated there at about that time.

Ancestry

Bede states that Cædwalla was a "daring young man of the royal house of the Gewissæ", and gives his age at his death in 689 as about thirty, making the year of his birth about 659. "Gewisse", a tribal name, is used by Bede as an equivalent to "West Saxon": the West Saxon genealogies trace back to one "Gewis", who may have been legendary. According to the ''Chronicle,'' Cædwalla was the son of Coenberht, and was descended via Ceawlin from Cerdic, who was the first of the Gewisse to land in England. However, it appears that the many difficulties and contradictions in the regnal list are caused partly by the efforts of later scribes to demonstrate that each king on the list was descended from Cerdic; thus Cædwalla’s genealogy must be treated with caution. His name is an Anglicised form of the British name "Cadwallon", which may indicate British (Brythonic) ancestry.

First campaign in Sussex

The first mention of Cædwalla is in the ''Life of St Wilfrid,'' in which he is described as an exiled nobleman in the forests of Chiltern and Andred. It was not uncommon for a seventh-century king to have spent time in exile before gaining the throne; Oswald of Northumbria is another prominent example. According to the ''Chronicle,'' it was in 685 that Cædwalla "began to contend for the kingdom". Despite his exile, he was able to put together enough military force to defeat and kill Æthelwealh, the king of Sussex. He was, however, soon expelled by Berthun and Andhun, Æthelwealh's ealdormen, "who administered the country from then on", possibly as kings.

The Isle of Wight and the Meon valley in what is now eastern Hampshire had been placed under Æthelwealh's control by Wulfhere; the ''Chronicle'' dates this to 661, but according to Bede it occurred "not long before" Wilfrid's mission to the South Saxons in the 680s, which implies a rather later date. Wulfhere's attack on Ashdown, also dated by the ''Chronicle'' to 661, may likewise have actually happened later. If these events happened in the early 680s or not long before, Cædwalla’s aggression against Æthelwealh would be explained as a response to Mercian pressure.

Another indication of the political and military situation may be the division in the 660s of the West Saxon see at Dorchester; a new see was established at Winchester, very near to the South Saxon border. Bede's explanation for the division is that Cenwalh grew tired of the Frankish speech of the bishop at Dorchester, but it is more likely that it was a response to the Mercian advance, which forced West Saxon expansion, such as Cædwalla's military activities, west, south, and east, rather than north. Cædwalla’s military successes may be the reason that at about this time the term "West Saxon" starts to be used in contemporary sources, instead of "Gewisse"; it is from this time that the West Saxons began to rule over other Anglo-Saxon peoples.

Accession and reign

In 685 or 686, Cædwalla became king of the West Saxons after Centwine, his predecessor, retired to a monastery. Bede gives Cædwalla a reign of two years, ending in 688, but if his reign was less than three years then he may have come to the throne in 685. The ''West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List'' gives his reign a length of three years, with one variant reading of two years.

According to Bede, before Cædwalla's reign, Wessex was ruled by underkings, who were conquered and removed when Cædwalla became king. This has been taken to mean that Cædwalla himself ended the reign of the underkings, though Bede does not directly say this. Bede gives the death of Cenwalh as the start of the ten-year period in which the West Saxons were ruled by these underkings; Cenwalh is now thought to have died in about 673, so this is slightly inconsistent with Cædwalla's dates. It may be that Centwine, Cædwalla's predecessor as king of the West Saxons, began as a co-ruler but established himself as sole king by the time Cædwalla became king. It may also be that the underkings were another dynastic faction of the West Saxon royal line, vying for power with Centwine and Cædwalla; the description of them as "underkings" may be due to a partisan description of the situation by Bishop Daniel of Winchester, who was Bede's primary informant on West Saxon events. It is also possible that not all the underkings were deposed. There is a King Bealdred, who reigned in the area of Somerset and West Wiltshire, who is mentioned in two land-grants, one dated 681 and the other 688, though both documents have been treated as spurious by some historians. Further confusing the situation is another land-grant, thought to be genuine, showing Ine's father, Cenred, still reigning in Wessex after Ine's accession.

Once on the throne, Cædwalla attacked the South Saxons again, this time killing Berthun, and "the province was reduced to a worse state of subjection". He also conquered the Isle of Wight, which was still an independent pagan kingdom, and set himself to kill every native on the island, resettling it with his own people. Arwald, the king of the Isle of Wight, left his two young brothers as heirs. They fled the island, but were found at Stoneham, in Hampshire, and killed on Cædwalla’s orders, though he was persuaded by a priest to let them be baptised before they were executed. Bede also mentions that Cædwalla was wounded; he was recovering from his wounds when the priest found him to ask permission to baptise the princes.

In a charter of 688, Cædwalla grants land at Farnham for a minster, so it is evident that Cædwalla controlled Surrey. He also invaded Kent, in 686, and may have founded a monastery at Hoo, northeast of Rochester, between the Medway and the Thames. He installed his brother, Mul, as king of Kent, in place of its king Eadric. In a subsequent Kentish revolt, Mul was "burned" along with twelve others, according to the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle''. Cædwalla responded with a renewed campaign against Kent, laying waste to its land and leaving it in a state of chaos. He may have ruled Kent directly after this second invasion.

Christianity

Cædwalla was unbaptised when he came to the throne of Wessex, and remained so throughout his reign, but though he is often referred to as a pagan this is not necessarily the most apt description; it may be that he was already Christian in his beliefs but delayed his baptism to a time of his choice. He was clearly respectful of the church, with charter evidence showing multiple grants to churches and for religious buildings. When Cædwalla first attacked the South Saxons, Wilfrid was at the court of King Æthelwealh, and on Æthelwealh's death Wilfrid attached himself to Cædwalla; the ''Life of Wilfrid'' records that Cædwalla sought Wilfrid out as a spiritual father. Bede states that Cædwalla vowed to give a quarter of the Isle of Wight to the church if he conquered the island, and that Wilfrid was the beneficiary when the vow was fulfilled; Bede also says that Cædwalla agreed to let the heirs of Arwald, the king of the Isle of Wight, be baptised before they were executed. Two of Cædwalla's charters were grants of land to Wilfrid, and there is also subsequent evidence that Cædwalla worked with Wilfrid and Eorcenwald, a bishop of the East Saxons, to establish an ecclesiastical infrastructure for Sussex. However, there is no evidence that Wilfrid exerted any influence over Cædwalla's secular activities or his campaigns.

Wilfrid's association with Cædwalla may have benefited him in other ways: the ''Life of Wilfrid'' asserts that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore, expressed a wish that Wilfrid succeed him in that role, and if this is true it may be a reflection of Wilfrid's association with Cædwalla's southern overlordship.

Abdication, baptism and death

In 688 Cædwalla abdicated, and went on a pilgrimage to Rome, possibly because he was dying of the wounds he had suffered while fighting on the Isle of Wight. Cædwalla had never been baptised, and Bede states that he wished to "obtain the particular privilege of receiving the cleansing of baptism at the shrine of the blessed Apostles". He is known to have stopped in Francia at Samer, near Calais, and to have given money there for the foundation of a church, and is also recorded at the court of Cunipert, king of the Lombards, in what is now northern Italy. In Rome, he was baptised by Pope Sergius I on the Saturday before Easter (according to Bede), took the name Peter, and died not long afterwards, "still in his white garments". He was buried in St. Peter's church. Bede's ''Ecclesiastical History'' and the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' agree that Cædwalla died on 20 April, but the latter says that he died seven days after his baptism, although the Saturday before Easter was on 10 April that year. The epitaph on his tomb described him as "King of the Saxons".

Cædwalla's departure in 688 appears to have led to instability in the south of England. Ine, Cædwalla's successor, abdicated in 726, and the ''West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List'' says that he reigned for thirty-seven years, implying his reign began in 689 instead of 688. This could indicate an unsettled period between Cædwalla's abdication and Ine's accession. The kingship also changed in Kent in 688, with Oswine, who was apparently a Mercian client, taking the throne; and there is evidence of East Saxon influence in Kent in the years immediately following Cædwalla's abdication.

In 694, Ine extracted compensation of 30,000 pence from the Kentishmen for the death of Mul; this amount represented the value of an aetheling's life. Ine appears to have retained control of Surrey, but did not recover Kent. No king of Wessex was to venture so far east until Egbert, over a hundred years later.

See also

House of Wessex family tree

Notes

References

;Primary sources

Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People.'' Translated by Leo Sherley-Price, revised R.E. Latham, ed. D.H. Farmer. London: Penguin, 1990. ISBN 0-14-044565-X

;Secondary sources

Category:650s births Category:689 deaths Category:7th-century rulers in Europe Category:7th-century English people Category:Burials at St. Peter's Basilica Category:West Saxon monarchs

cs:Cædwalla de:Caedwalla es:Cædwalla de Wessex eo:Caedwalla fa:کدوالای وسکس fr:Cædwalla it:Caedwalla del Wessex hu:Cædwalla wessexi király nl:Caedwalla ja:キャドワラ (ウェセックス王) ru:Кэдвалла (король Уэссекса)

Coordinates	00°59′13″N49°56′24″N
Native name	''Westseaxna rīce''
Conventional long name	Kingdom of Wessex
Common name	Wessex
Continent	Europe
Region	British Isles
Country	England
Year start	519
Year end	927
Event end	Unification of England by Æthelstan
P1	Kingdom of Sussex
Flag p1	FlagOfSussex.PNG
P2	Kingdom of Kent
Flag p2	Flag of Kent.svg
P3	Kingdom of Essex
Flag p3	Flag of Essex.svg
P4	Kingdom of Dumnonia
Flag p4	Labarum.svg
S1	Kingdom of England
Flag s1	Flag of England.svg
Flag type	Wyvern of Wessex
Image map size	200px
Capital	Winchester
Religion	PaganismChristianity
Common languages	Old English (''Englisc'')
Government type	Monarchy
Title leader	Monarchs (see full list)
Leader1	Cerdic
Year leader1	519-534
Leader2	Ine
Year leader2	688-726
Leader3	Ælfrēd the Great
Year leader3	871-899
Leader4	Æþelstān
Year leader4	925-927
Legislature	Witan
Footnotes	}}

The Kingdom of Wessex () or Kingdom of the West Saxons () was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest of 1016, from 1020 to 1066. After the Norman Conquest there was a dissolution of the English earldoms, and Wessex was split among the followers of William the Conqueror.

Origin

According to the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' (ASC), Wessex was founded by Cerdic and Cynric, chieftains of a clan known as "''Gewisse''". They are said to have landed on the Hampshire coast and conquered the surrounding area, including the Isle of Wight. However, the specific events given by the ''ASC'' are in some doubt; archæological evidence points instead to a considerable early Anglo-Saxon presence in the upper Thames valley and Cotswolds area, entered from The Wash along Icknield Way, and the centre of gravity of Wessex in the late sixth and early seventh century seems to have lain farther to the north than in later periods, following successful expansion to the south and west. Bede states that the Isle of Wight was settled not by Saxons but Jutes, who also settled on the Hampshire coast, known as the ''Meonsæte'', and that these areas were only acquired by Wessex in the later seventh century. It is therefore possible that the ''ASC'' account is a product of the circumstances of the eighth and ninth centuries being projected back into the past to create an origin story of the ruling kinship appropriate to the contemporary form of the kingdom. It may also be noted that the names of some of the early West Saxon leaders appear to be Brythonic in origin, including the dynastic founder Cerdic (being a form of ''Ceredic'' or ''Caradoc'') and Cædwalla (from ''Cadwallon'', a Welsh name derived from ''Caswalawn'' a Brythonic version of ''Cassivellaunus''). These are interspersed with Old English names such as Ceolwulf, Coenberht and Aescwine. This variation might suggest the early rulers came from a hybrid Anglo-British dynasty or that the rule of early Wessex shifted between more than one royal clan, but this is conjecture.

The two main sources for the names and dates of the kings of Wessex are the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and an associated document known as the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List. The Chronicle gives small genealogies in multiple places, under the annals for different years. These sources, however, conflict in various ways, and cannot be fully reconciled. A recent analysis by David Dumville that has produced a set of plausible dates for the West Saxon kings has been used by other scholars but cannot be regarded as definitive. Dumville's dates are used in the historical outline below, with reference to the original sources to highlight some of the conflicts. The later genealogies may have been contrived with the intent of connecting all lineages to Cerdic, and this has introduced additional inconsistencies which cannot all be resolved.

Though the Chronicle gives 495 as the date for Cerdic's arrival in Britain

"495. There came two eaorlmen to Britain, Cerdic and Cynric his son, with five ships, to a place called Cerdicesora, on the same day they fought the Welsh."

F. M. Stenton gives evidence of doubled entries in the ''Chronicle'', which suggests an early sixth-century date for the landing of the ancestor of the Wessex ruling kinship.

Most historians appear agreed that the location of ''Cerdicesora'' or "Cerdic's Shore" is somewhere on Southampton Water, perhaps Calshot. After making a beachhead and consolidating their position they next appear to have attacked the area around Southampton at the Battle of Natanleod. The location of this ''Natanleod'' has been placed at Netley Marsh.

"508. This year Cerdic and Cynric killed a British king named Natanleod, and five thousand men with him. After that the land was known as Natanleag up to Cerdicesford."

The location of ''Cerdicesford'' has been placed at various locations in southern Hampshire including Chandler's Ford. The historian Albany Major places the site at Charford at the crossing of the River Avon (Hampshire) close to the border with Wiltshire.

"514. The West-Saxons came to Briton with 3 ships to a place called Cerdicesora and in the same year they fought the Britons and put them to flight."

"519. Cerdic and Cynric received the West-Saxon kingdom, and the same year they fought with the Britons, in a place now called Cerdicesford. The royal line of Wessex ruled from that day."

Despite the repetition there is no reason to presume there were not multiple landings along a coast known to the Saxons as Cerdic's Shore. It is likely that both Winchester and Silchester would have fallen to the West Saxons between the years 508 and 514, but this transition is only suggested by the absence of these important towns in the later annals of the British scribes. A later thrust up the Hampshire Avon towards Old Sarum in 519 appears to have been checked by the Britons at Charford. Albany Major in ''Early Wars of Wessex'' makes the case that the borders of the traditional county of Hampshire probably match those of the first West Saxon kingdom established by Cerdic and his son. Evidence of this comes from the border between Hampshire and Berkshire which follows generally the line of the Roman road that ran east and west through Silchester but is deflected in the north in a rough semicircle, in such a way as to include the whole district around the town. He argues that the capture of Silchester, of which no record has been passed down to us, was not the work of Mercian Angles but of the West Saxons probably striking north from Winchester and possibly acting in concert with a separate force making its way up the Thames Valley towards Reading. Silchester was left desolate after its fall and it is most improbable that any regard would have been paid to its side of the border had the fixing of the county boundary been made at a later period.

Study of the borders between Hampshire and Wiltshire also seem to suggest the West Saxons' westward advance was checked by about 519AD. The area north of Charford This would corroborate the date given in the ''Annales Cambriae'' for the crucial British victory at the Battle of Mons Badonicus in 517AD which is believed to have stopped further Anglo-Saxon encroachments in south-west and midland Britain for at least a generation.

The length of Cerdic's reign is unclear but the throne passed to Cynric in about 554. Cynric is Cerdic's son according to some sources and Cerdic's grandson in others, which name Creoda, son of Cerdic, as Cynric's father. Cynric was in turn succeeded by Ceawlin, who was probably his son, in about 581.

Ceawlin's reign is thought to be more reliably documented than those of the earlier kings, though the Chronicle's dates of 560 to 592 are substantially different from the revised chronology. He overcame pockets of Britons to the northeast in the Chilterns and in Gloucestershire and Somerset the captures of Cirencester, Gloucester and Bath (577), after a long pause caused by the battle of Mons Badonicus, opened the way to the southwest. Ceawlin is one of the seven kings named in Bede's ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'' as holding "imperium" over the southern English; the Chronicle later repeats this claim and refers to Ceawlin as a ''bretwalda'', or "Britain-ruler".

Ceawlin was deposed, perhaps by his successor Ceol, and died the following year. Ceol was the son of Ceawlin's brother, Cutha. Six years later, in about 594, Ceol was succeeded by Ceolwulf, his own brother; and Ceolwulf was succeeded in his turn in about 617 by Cynegils. The genealogies are remarkably inconsistent on Cynegils' pedigree: his father is variously given as Ceola, Ceolwulf, Ceol, Cuthwine, Cutha, and Cuthwulf.

Christian Wessex and the rise of Mercia

It is in Cynegils' reign that the first event in West Saxon history that can be dated with reasonable certainty occurs: the baptism of Cynegils by Birinus, which happened at the end of the 630s, perhaps in 640. Birinus was then established as bishop of the West Saxons, with his seat at Dorchester-on-Thames. This was the first conversion to Christianity by a West Saxon king, but it was not accompanied by the immediate conversion of all the West Saxons: Cynegils' successor (and probably his son), Cenwealh, who came to the throne in about 642, was a pagan at his accession. However, he too was baptised only a few years later and Wessex became firmly established as a Christian kingdom. Cynegils's godfather was King Oswald of Northumbria and his conversion may have been connected with an alliance against King Penda of Mercia, who had previously attacked Wessex.

These attacks marked the beginning of sustained pressure from the expanding kingdom of Mercia. In time this would deprive Wessex of its territories north of the Thames and the Avon, encouraging the kingdom's reorientation southwards. Cenwealh married Penda's daughter, and when he repudiated her, Penda again invaded and drove him into exile for some time, perhaps three years. The dates are uncertain but it was probably in the late 640s or early 650s. He spent his exile in East Anglia, and was converted to Christianity there. After his return, Cenwealh faced further attacks from Penda's successor Wulfhere, but was able to expand West Saxon territory in Somerset at the expense of the Britons. He established a second bishopric at Winchester, while the one at Dorchester was soon abandoned as Mercian power pushed southwards. Winchester would eventually develop into the effective capital of Wessex.

After Cenwealh's death in 673, his widow, Seaxburh, held the throne for a year; she was followed by Aescwine, who was apparently descended from another brother of Ceawlin. This was one of several occasions on which the kingship of Wessex is said to have passed to a remote branch of the royal family with an unbroken male line of descent from Cerdic; these claims may be genuine, or may reflect the spurious assertion of descent from Cerdic to legitimise a new dynasty. Aescwine's reign only lasted two years, and in 676 the throne passed back to the immediate family of Cenwealh with the accession of his brother Centwine. Centwine is known to have fought and won battles against the Britons, but the details have not survived.

Centwine was succeeded by another supposed distant relative, Caedwalla, who claimed descent from Ceawlin. Caedwalla reigned for just two years, but achieved a dramatic expansion of the kingdom's power, conquering the kingdoms of Sussex, Kent and the Isle of Wight, although Kent regained its independence almost immediately and Sussex followed some years later. His reign ended in 688 when he went on pilgrimage to Rome, where he was baptised by the Pope and died soon afterwards.

His successor was Ine, who also claimed to be a descendant of Cerdic through Ceawlin, but again through a long-separated line of descent. Ine was the most durable of the West Saxon kings, reigning for 38 years. He issued the oldest surviving English code of laws apart from those of the kingdom of Kent, and established a second West Saxon bishopric at Sherborne, covering the territories west of Selwood Forest. Near the end of his life he followed in Caedwalla's footsteps by abdicating and making a pilgrimage to Rome. The throne then passed to a series of other kings who claimed descent from Cerdic but whose supposed genealogies and relationship to one another are unknown.

During the 8th century Wessex was overshadowed by Mercia, whose power was then at its height, and the West Saxon kings may at times have acknowledged Mercian overlordship. They were, however, able to avoid the more substantial control which Mercia exerted over smaller kingdoms. During this period Wessex continued its gradual advance to the west, overwhelming the British kingdom of Dumnonia and absorbing Devon. As a result of the Mercian conquest of the northern portion of its early territories in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, the Thames and the Avon now probably formed the northern boundary of Wessex, while its heartland lay in Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Dorset and Somerset. The system of shires which was later to form the basis of local administration throughout England (and eventually, Ireland, Wales and Scotland as well) originated in Wessex, and had been established by the mid-eighth century.

The hegemony of Wessex and the Viking raids

In 802 the fortunes of Wessex were transformed by the accession of Egbert who came from a cadet branch of the ruling dynasty that claimed descent from Ine's brother Ingild. With his accession the throne became firmly established in the hands of a single lineage. Early in his reign he conducted two campaigns against the "West Welsh", first in 813 and then again at "Gafulford" in 822. During the course of these campaigns he conquered the western Britons still in Devon and reduced those beyond the River Tamar, now Cornwall, to the status of a vassal. In 825 he overturned the political order of England by decisively defeating King Beornwulf of Mercia at Ellendun and seizing control of Surrey, Sussex, Kent and Essex from the Mercians, while with his help East Anglia broke away from Mercian control. In 829 he conquered Mercia, driving its King Wiglaf into exile, and secured acknowledgment of his overlordship from the king of Northumbria. He thereby became the Bretwalda, or high king of Britain. This position of dominance was short-lived, as Wiglaf returned and restored Mercian independence in 830, but the expansion of Wessex across south-eastern England proved permanent.

Egbert's later years saw the beginning of Danish Viking raids on Wessex, which occurred frequently from 835 onwards. In 851 a huge Danish army, said to have been carried on 350 ships, arrived in the Thames estuary. Having defeated King Beorhtwulf of Mercia in battle, the Danes moved on to invade Wessex, but were decisively crushed by Egbert's son and successor King Aethelwulf in the exceptionally bloody Battle of Aclea. This victory postponed Danish conquests in England for fifteen years, but raids on Wessex continued.

In 855-6 Aethelwulf went on pilgrimage to Rome and his eldest surviving son Aethelbald took advantage of his absence to seize his father's throne. On his return, Aethelwulf agreed to divide the kingdom with his son to avoid bloodshed, ruling the new territories in the east while Aethelbald held the old heartland in the west. Aethelwulf was succeeded by each of his four surviving sons ruling one after another: the rebellious Aethelbald, then Ethelbert, who had previously inherited the eastern territories from his father and who reunited the kingdom on Aethelbald's death, then Aethelred, and finally Alfred the Great. This occurred because the first two brothers died in wars with the Danes without issue, while Aethelred's sons were too young to rule when their father died.

The last English kingdom

In 865 another enormous Danish army arrived in England. Over the following years this army overwhelmed the kingdoms of Northumbria and East Anglia. Wessex was invaded in 871, and although Aethelred and Alfred won some victories and succeeded in preventing the conquest of their kingdom, a number of defeats, heavy losses of men and the arrival of a fresh Danish army in England compelled Alfred to pay the Danes to leave Wessex. The Danes spent the next few years subduing Mercia and some of them settled in Northumbria, but the rest returned to Wessex in 876. Alfred responded effectively and was able with little fighting to bring about their withdrawal in 877. A portion of the Danish army settled in Mercia, but at the beginning of 878 the remaining Danes mounted a winter invasion of Wessex, taking Alfred by surprise and overrunning much of the kingdom. Alfred was reduced to taking refuge with a small band of followers in the marshes of the Somerset Levels, but after a few months he was able to gather an army and defeated the Danes at the Battle of Edington, bringing about their final withdrawal from Wessex to settle in East Anglia.

Over the following years Alfred carried out a dramatic reorganisation of the government and defences of Wessex, building warships, organising the army into two shifts which served alternately and establishing a system of fortified ''burhs'' across the kingdom. This system is recorded in a 10th century document known as the Burghal Hidage, which details the location and garrisoning requirements of thirty-three forts, whose positioning ensured that no one in Wessex was more than a long day's ride from a place of safety. In the 890s these reforms helped him to repulse the invasion of another huge Danish army – which was aided by the Danes settled in England – with minimal losses.

Alfred also reformed the administration of justice, issued a new law code and championed a revival of scholarship and education. He gathered scholars from around England and elsewhere in Europe to his court, and with their help translated a range of Latin texts into English, doing much of the work in person, and orchestrated the composition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. As a result of these literary efforts and the political dominance of Wessex, the West Saxon dialect of this period became the standard written form of Old English for the rest of the Anglo-Saxon period and beyond.

The Danish conquests had destroyed the kingdoms of Northumbria and East Anglia and divided Mercia in half, with the Danes settling in the north-east while the south-west was left to the English king Ceolwulf, allegedly a Danish puppet. When Ceolwulf's rule came to an end he was succeeded as ruler of "English Mercia" not by another king but by a mere ealdorman named Aethelred, who acknowledged Alfred's overlordship and married his daughter Ethelfleda. The process by which this transformation of the status of Mercia took place is unknown, but it left Alfred as the only remaining English king.

The unification of England and the Earldom of Wessex

After the invasions of the 890s Wessex and English Mercia continued to be attacked by the Danish settlers in England and by small Danish raiding forces from overseas, but these incursions were usually defeated, while there were no further major invasions from the continent. The balance of power tipped steadily in favour of the English. In 911 Ealdorman Aethelred died, leaving his widow, Alfred's daughter Aethelflaed, in charge of Mercia. Alfred's son and successor Edward the Elder, then annexed London, Oxford and the surrounding area, probably including Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, from Mercia to Wessex. Between 913 and 918 a series of English offensives overwhelmed the Danes of Mercia and East Anglia, bringing all of England south of the Humber under Edward's power. In 918 Aethelflaed died and Edward took over direct control of Mercia, extinguishing what remained of its independence and ensuring that thenceforth there would be only one Kingdom of the English. In 927 Edward's successor Athelstan conquered Northumbria, bringing the whole of England under one ruler for the first time. The Kingdom of Wessex had thus been transformed into the Kingdom of England.

Although Wessex had now effectively been subsumed into the larger kingdom which its expansion had created, like the other former kingdoms it continued for a time to have a distinct identity which periodically found renewed political expression. After the death of King Eadred in 955, England was divided between his two sons, with the elder Edwy ruling in Wessex while Mercia passed to his younger brother Edgar. However, in 959 Edwy died and the whole of England came under Edgar's control.

After the conquest of England by the Danish king Cnut in 1016, he established earldoms based on the former kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia, but initially administered Wessex personally. Within a few years, however, he had created an earldom of Wessex, encompassing all of England south of the Thames, for his English henchman Godwin. For almost fifty years the vastly wealthy holders of this earldom, first Godwin and then his son Harold, were the most powerful men in English politics after the king. Finally, on the death of Edward the Confessor in 1066, Harold became king, reuniting the earldom of Wessex with the crown. No new earl was appointed before the ensuing Norman Conquest of England, and as the Norman kings soon did away with the great earldoms of the late Anglo-Saxon period, 1066 marks the extinction of Wessex as a political unit.

Symbols

Wyvern or dragon

Wessex is often symbolised by a wyvern or dragon.

Both Henry of Huntingdon and Matthew of Westminster talk of a golden dragon being raised at the Battle of Burford in AD 752 by the West Saxons. The Bayeux Tapestry depicts a fallen golden dragon, as well as a red/golden/white dragon at the death of King Harold II, who was previously Earl of Wessex. However, dragon standards were in fairly wide use in Europe at the time, being derived from the ensign of the Roman cohort, and there is no evidence that it identified Wessex.

A panel of 18th century stained glass at Exeter Cathedral indicates that the association of a dragon with the kingdom of Wessex pre-dates the Victorians. Nevertheless, the association was popularised in the 19th century, particularly in the writings of E A Freeman. By the time of the grant of armorial bearings by the College of Arms to Somerset County Council in 1911, a (red) dragon had become the accepted heraldic emblem of the former kingdom. This precedent was followed in 1937 when Wiltshire County Council was granted arms. Two gold Wessex dragons were later granted as supporters to the arms of Dorset County Council in 1950.

In the British Army the wyvern has been used to represent Wessex: The 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division adopted a formation sign consisting of a gold wyvern on a black background, and both the Wessex Brigade and Wessex Regiments used a cap badge featuring the heraldic beast.

When Sophie, Countess of Wessex was granted arms, the sinister supporter assigned was a blue wyvern, described by the College of Arms as ''"an heraldic beast which has long been associated with Wessex"''.

The Wessex Society have promoted the use of a flag, designed by William Crampton, which features an heraldic golden wyvern on a red background.

Attributed coat of arms

A coat of arms was attributed by medieval heralds to the Kings of Wessex. These arms appear in a manuscript of the thirteenth century, and are blazoned as ''Azure, a cross patonce between four martlets Or''. The assigning of arms to the West Saxon kings is prochronistic as heraldry did not develop until the twelfth century. These arms continued to be used to represent the kingdom for centuries after their invention.

Revival

The English author Thomas Hardy used a fictionalised Wessex as a setting for many of his novels, reviving the term ''Wessex'' for South West England. His Wessex included all the counties mentioned in the previous paragraph apart from Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire (although the city of Oxford, renamed "Christminster", is visited as part of Wessex in ''Jude the Obscure''), along with Devon. He gave the counties the following fictionalised names: Berkshire = North Wessex; Devon = Lower Wessex; Dorset = South Wessex; Hampshire = Upper Wessex; Somerset = Outer Wessex; Wiltshire = Mid-Wessex. Neighbouring Cornwall was described as Off-Wessex or Lyonesse.

There is a movement in modern day south-central England to create a regional cultural and political identity in Wessex. This consists of three distinct but interlinked organisations. The Wessex Regionalist Party is a registered political party which contests elections. The Wessex Constitutional Convention is an all-party pressure group in which those sympathetic to Wessex devolution who are not members of the Wessex Regionalist Party can also be represented. The Wessex Society is a cultural society which promotes a cultural identity for Wessex while remaining neutral on questions of political devolution. The Wessex Constitutional Convention and the Wessex Regionalist Party do not consider Cornwall to be part of Wessex.

The boundaries of Wessex are unclear. The Wessex Constitutional Convention and Wessex Society add Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire to Hardy's list. The Wessex Regionalists had used Hardy's definition of Wessex but today the party also includes Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. In the 2010 UK General Election the Wessex Regionalists contested the West Oxfordshire parliamentary seat of Witney. Most definitions exclude Cornwall. In addition there are some (e.g. within Devon) who would identify with a different regional identity that is not so geographically broad, and would include Cornwall. This definition of Wessex has been criticised from a number of quarters. Some people regard Hardy's definition as correct on the grounds that the counties north of the Thames, along with Berkshire and north-east Somerset, were part of Mercia for most of the Anglo-Saxon period.

The Wessex regionalist movements justify their eight-shire definition of Wessex in terms both of history and of modern regional geography and point to the impossibility of pleasing everyone as an argument against change at the present time, though they do not rule out the possibility of change in the future if the popular will demands it.

Modern uses

Wessex Synod of the United Reformed Church (URC)

Wessex Institute of Technology

Wessex Stadium, home to Weymouth F.C.

43rd (Wessex) Brigade - British Army's regional command for the South West region

Royal Wessex Yeomanry - British Army territorial unit

Wessex Archaeology - An educational charity and the largest UK archaeological practice

Wessex culture - an archæological label used anachronistically to describe a Bronze Age culture whose remains are found in the Wessex area

Wessex League - football league covering Hampshire and parts of the surrounding counties

Wessex Sound Studios - a renowned former recording studio

Wessex Trains - train operating company that used to operate in much of the South West region

Wessex Water - water supply and sewage company that covers much of the South West region

Wessex Cyclists Touring Club - cycling and events across the region University of Southampton sports teams have adopted 'Wessex' as a group identity

Southampton University Rugby Football Club players are called Wessex Rangers.

University of Reading halls of residence adopted 'Wessex' as its name.

Wessex Scene - a student newspaper produced by Southampton University Student's Union (SUSU)

Westland Wessex - a British built helicopter

Wessex Saddleback - a pig breed originating from Wessex

Thomas Hardy's Wessex the semi-fictional region described in the novels of Thomas Hardy

A338 - Known locally as the Wessex Way, it is a road linking Bournemouth to the A31 and leading up to Salisbury

Wessex Deanery - Responsible for the organisation and assessment of junior doctors training within the area

Earl of Wessex

In an unusual move, The Prince Edward was made Earl of Wessex and Viscount Severn in honour of his marriage to Sophie Rhys-Jones. The title Earl of Wessex had not been in use for over 900 years. The last earl, King Harold Godwinson, was famously killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

See also

List of Monarchs of Wessex

References

External links

The Burghal Hidage

Thomas Hardy's Wessex Research site by Dr Birgit Plietzsch

The History Files: Kings of the West Saxons

Wessex Law Academy

Category:927 disestablishments Category:States and territories established in 519 Category:Regions of England Category:Peoples of Anglo-Saxon England Category:Historical regions Wessex

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