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____ Aethelwulf
Birth: ABT 806 Wessex
Death: 13 Jan 859 England
Notes
visited Rome in 839
married second Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelwulf
Ęthelwulf (Old English for "Noble Wolf";[2] died 13 January 858) was King of Wessex
from 839 to 858.[a] In 825, his father, King Egbert, defeated King Beornwulf of Mercia,
ending a long Mercian dominance over Anglo-Saxon England south of the Humber.
Egbert sent Ęthelwulf with an army to Kent, where he expelled the Mercian sub-king
and was himself appointed sub-king. After 830, Egbert maintained good relations with
Mercia, and this was continued by Ęthelwulf when he became king in 839, the first
son to succeed his father as West Saxon king since 641.
The Vikings were not a major threat to Wessex during Ęthelwulf's reign. In 843, he
was defeated in a battle against the Vikings at Carhampton in Somerset, but he
achieved a major victory at the Battle of Aclea in 851. In 853 he joined a successful
Mercian expedition to Wales to restore the traditional Mercian hegemony, and in the
same year his daughter Ęthelswith married King Burgred of Mercia. In 855 Ęthelwulf
went on pilgrimage to Rome. In preparation he gave a "decimation", donating a tenth
of his personal property to his subjects; he appointed his eldest surviving son
Ęthelbald to act as King of Wessex in his absence, and his next son Ęthelberht to
rule Kent and the south-east. Ęthelwulf spent a year in Rome, and on his way back he
married Judith, the daughter of the West Frankish King Charles the Bald.
When Ęthelwulf returned to England, Ęthelbald refused to surrender the West Saxon
throne, and Ęthelwulf agreed to divide the kingdom, taking the east and leaving the
west in Ęthelbald's hands. On Ęthelwulf's death in 858 he left Wessex to Ęthelbald
and Kent to Ęthelberht, but Ęthelbald's death only two years later led to the
reunification of the kingdom.
In the 20th century Ęthelwulf's reputation among historians was poor: he was seen as
excessively pious and impractical, and his pilgrimage was viewed as a desertion of his
duties. Historians in the 21st century see him very differently, as a king who
consolidated and extended the power of his dynasty, commanded respect on the
continent, and dealt more effectively than most of his contemporaries with Viking
attacks. He is regarded as one of the most successful West Saxon kings, who laid the
foundations for the success of his son, Alfred the Great.
Family[edit]
Ęthelwulf was the son of Egbert, King of Wessex from 802 to 839. His mother's name
is unknown, and he had no recorded siblings. He is known to have had two wives in
succession, and so far as is known, Osburh, the senior of the two, was the mother of
all his children. She was the daughter of Oslac, described by Asser, biographer of
their son Alfred the Great, as "King Ęthelwulf's famous butler",[b] a man who was
descended from Jutes who had ruled the Isle of Wight.[13][14] Ęthelwulf had six
known children. His eldest son, Ęthelstan, was old enough to be appointed King of
Kent in 839, so he must have been born by the early 820s, and he died in the early
850s.[c] The second son, Ęthelbald, is first recorded as a charter witness in 841, and
if, like Alfred, he began to attest when he was around six, he would have been born
around 835; he was King of Wessex from 858 to 860. Ęthelwulf's third son,
Ęthelberht, was probably born around 839 and was king from 860 to 865. The only
daughter, Ęthelswith, married Burgred, King of Mercia, in 853.[16] The other two sons
were much younger: Ęthelred was born around 848 and was king from 865 to 871,
and Alfred was born around 849 and was king from 871 to 899.[17] In 856 Ęthelwulf
married Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, King of West Francia and future Holy
Roman Emperor, and his wife Ermentrude. Osburh had probably died, although it is
possible that she had been repudiated.[d] There were no children from Ęthelwulf's
marriage to Judith, and after his death she married his eldest surviving son and
successor, Ęthelbald.[13]
[Thus, the claim that he was, through his wife Judith, the father of Judith of Wessex
who married Eticho, is wrong]
Parents
____ Egbert "the Great" ( 775 - 4 Feb 839)
OF THE CAROLINGIANS Raedburh (Raedberg) (BEF 768 - )
Siblings
____ Aethelwulf (ABT 806 - 13 Jan 859)
Marriage To ____ Judith (ABT 844 - ABT 870)
m.
Notes
Parents
____ Charles II "the Bald" (13 Jun 823 - 6 Oct 877)
D'ORLEANS Ermentrude (27 Sep 823 - 6 Oct 869)
Marriage To OF HAMPSHIRE Osburh (Osberga) (ABT 810 - AFT 876)
m. dv. 853
Notes
his first
Parents
____ Oslac (ABT 780 - )
----- ----- ()
Children by OF HAMPSHIRE Osburh (Osberga) ABT 810 - AFT 876
____ Aethelred I (ABT 830 - 23 Apr 871)
____ Alfred "the Great" ( 849 - 26 Oct 899)
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