King Egbert WEST SAXONY

   Other names for Egbert were ANGLES King, WEST SAXONY King, WESSEX King, Ecgbert, Ecgberht, KENT King and ENGLAND King.

   Ancestral File Number: G70H-62. User ID: 154921078552.

   General Notes:

King of WESSEX or WEST SAXONY Reigned 800/802, King of KENT 825, King of
ANGLES or ENGLISH 829/830-839.

BOOKS
Barber Grandparents: 125 Kings, 143 Generations, Ted Butler Bernard and Gertrude Barber Bernard, 1978, McKinney TX, p74: "269S Ecgbert, King of Wessex, (S of 258, F of 279); attacked and ravaged surrounding small kingdoms of Kent, Sussex, Essex, East Anglia, Northumbria, and Mercia which he defeated and forced to accept him as their overlord; married Radeburgh."

Kings and Queens of Great Britain, Genealogical Chart, Anne Taute and Romilly Squire, Taute, 1990: "Ecgbert, King of West Saxons 802, King of Kent 825, First to be styled King of the Angles or English 829/830-839, Mar Redburga, Died 839."

A History of the English Speaking People Winston S Churchill Vol I The Birth of Britain Dodd Mead & Co 1956 p104 "...When, in 825, the Mercian army, invading Wessex, was overthrown by Alfred's grandfather, King Egbert, at Ellandun, near Swindon, all the South and East made haste to come to terms with the victor, and the union of Kent, the seat ofthe Primate, with Wessex, now the leading English kingdom, created a solid Southern block. This, which had been the aim of West Saxon policy for many generations, was achieved just in time to encounter the invasion from the North. And Wessex was strategically strong, with sharp ridges facing north, and none of those long, slow rivers up which the Danes used to steer their long-ships into the heart of Mercia. Wessex had moreover developed a local organisation which gave her exceptional resiliency under attack: the alderman at the head of the shire could act on his own account. The advantages of this system were later to be proved. Definite districts, each under an accepted commander, or governor, for civil and military purposes, constituted a great advance on the ancient tribal kingdoms, or the merely personal union of tribes under a single king. When the dynasties of Kent, Northumbria, and Mercia had disappeared all eyes turned to Wessex, where ther was a royalhouse going back without a break to the first years of the Saxon settlement."

Roman Britain and Early England 55BC-AD871, Peter H Blair, 1963, Norton Library History of England, p205: "...It was by consolidating their hold on southern Englandthat the West Saxons, first under Egbert at the beginning of the ninth century, and later, after the Danish invasions, under Alfred the Great, eventually moved towards the conquest of the whole country..."
p218: "...During Offa's reign ofMercia, Egbert, a representative of the ancient house of Wessex and claiming descent from Cerdic, was driven into exile among the Franks...Egbert returned to Wessex from exile in 802 and for the next twenty years, while we can see that the strength of Mercia remained formidable, ...the history of Wessex and the rest of England south of the Thames is almost completely blank, and we can only guess that Egbert was making good use of his time in preparation for the exploits which eventually brought Wessex into a position of strength rivalling that of Mercia. Egbert won for himself a distinction such as had not been achieved by any member of the West Saxony house since the days of Ceawlin, the second of the Bretwaldas, in the sixth century.
"In 825 at Ellendun, now Wroughton, south of Swindon, not far from the scene of earlier conflicts between the West Saxons and the Mercians, Egbert defeated Beornwulf, king of Mercia, and so overthrew the Mercian supremacy. He promptly despatched his victorious army to Kent whose Mercian puppet ruler was expelled, and the people of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Essex all submitted to him. Beornwulf who had escaped alive from the battle at Ellendun, was killed by the East Anglians, who thereupon sought West Saxon protection against any possible Mercian attempt to seek vengeance. After a pause for recovery and further preparation for more distant campaigning, Egbert invaded Mercia in 829 and advanced as far north as the southern border of Northumbria at Dore near Sheffield where he received the submission of the Northumbrian people. In the next year he invaded north Wales. A West Saxon chronicler, choosing, perhaps deliberately, to ignore the great Mercian rulers of the eighth century, hailed Egbert as the eighth of the Bretwaldas, placing him in succession to Oswiu, the last of the Northumbrians who had reigned more than a century and a half earlier. The claim was exaggerated. Egbert never exercised such authority as Offa. Moreover the kingdom of Mercia very soon recovered its independence and it was a long time before West Saxon rulers were able to wield any real authority over the Northumbrians. Even so, Egbert's achievementwas of great importance in that it gave solidity to the kingdom of Wessex and brought fresh strength to England south of the Thames at a time when it was sorely needed. Egbert was the first of the long and distinguished line of West Saxon rulers upon whom fell the main burden of defending England against the Vikings.
"The first Viking attacks had already fallen upon the exposed coasts of Britain...Even fore Egbert's accession three Viking ships had come to land on the Dorset coast near Portland and killed the royal officer who went down to discover who the strangers were...With them the Danes and Norwegians brought their language, institutions and social custons, as well as their heathen beliefs, all of which remained to influence the character of their settlements long after the settlers themselves had become subjects of the kings of England who were descended from Egbert and his predecessors in the house of Wessex..."
p274: "Appendix A, Table of Dates...802 Accession of Egbert to Wessex...825 Mercians defeated by Egbert at Wroughton...829 Mercia conquered by Egbert to who the Northumbrians submit...839 Death of Egbert of Wessex..."
"Appendix A, The Bretwaldas...c802-839 The eighth kingcalled Bretwalda by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is Egbert, King of the West Saxons..."

Wall Chart of World History, Edward Hull, 1988, Studio Editions, Wessex 800: "...The Romans leave Britain about 426 AD, when the Picts and Scots invade from the north. The Saxons being invited over to assist in expelling them, gradually take possession of the country, and the Saxon Heptarchy (Mercia, Angles, Northumbria, Essex, Wessex, Sussex, and Kent) is formed, and exists till Egbert forms the Kingdom of England in 827. The country called Britain. The people Britons...Egbert, King of Wessex/Sussex 800-839, King of Essex/Kent 823-839, King of Mercia/Angles/Northumbria 827-839. Sole Monarch in all..."

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1981, Micropaedia, Vol III, p803, Egbert: "also spelled Ecgberht, Died 839, Anglo-Saxon ruler in England. As King of the West Saxons from 802-839, he formed around Wessex a kingdom so powerful that it eventually achieved the political unification of England (mid-10th Century). The son of Ealhmund, King in Kent in 784 and 786, Egbert was a member of a family that had formerly held the West Saxon kingship. In 789 Egbert was driven into exile on the Continent by the West Saxon King Beorhtric andhis ally, the powerful Mercian King Offa (died 796). Nevertheless, Egbert succeeded to Beorhtric's throne in 802. He immediately removed Wessex from the Mercian confederation and consolidated his power as an independent ruler. In 825 he decisively defeated Beornwulf, King of Mercia, at the Battle of Ellendune (now Wroghton, Wiltshire). The victory was a turning point in English history because it destroyed Mercian ascendancy and left Wessex the strongest of the English kingdoms. Byvirtue of long-dormant hereditary claims, Egbert was accepted as King in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Essex. In 829 he conquered Mercia itself but he lost it in the following year to the Mercian King Wiglaf. A year before his death Egbert won a stunning victory over the Danish and Cornish Briton invaders at Hingston Down (now in Cornwall)."

Macropaedia, Vol III, p202, Britain and Ireland History of: "...Mercian influence in Wessex was ended when Egbert became King there in 802, though there is no recorded warfare between the kingdoms for many years, during which Egbert conquered Cornwall and Cenwulf fought in Wales. But in 9=825 Egbert defeated Beornwulf of Mercia and then sent an army into Kent, with the result that he wasaccepted as King of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Essex. In that same same year the East Angles threw off the Mercian yoke killing Beornwulf. In 829 Egbert became ruler of Mercia and all south of the Humber, which caused the chronicler to add his name to Bede's list of kings who held the `imperium', calling him `bretwalda'. The Northumbrians accepted Egbert without fighting. Yet he held this proud position only one year; then Wiglaf recovered the Mercian throne and ruled without subjection to Egbert..."

The New Columbia Encyclopedia, 1975, p837, Egbert: "Died 839, King of Wessex (802-839). His name also appears a Ecgberht. He was descended from Cerdic... Later historians called him the first king of England, an anacronistic title, for there was no conception of a kingdom of England in this day...Egbert was succeeded by his son, Aethelwulf."

From Alfred to Henry III 871-1272, Christopher Brooke, 1961, Norton Library History of England, p31: "...Over the three and ahalf centuries preceding 871 the fortunes of the country had mainly depended on the heads of three confederations, of the Northumbrians, the Mercians, and the West Saxons. Each in turn had held hedgemony in England- Northumbria in the seventhcentury, Mercia in the eighth; last of all Wessex, for a short space under King Egbert, had been recognized as the first kingdom in the country. But within thirty years of Egbert's death the other kingdoms had been overwhelmed by Viking hosts:Kent and East Anglia were Danish bases, Northumbria on the verge of becoming a Norse kingdom, Mercia divided between the Danes and English, with the English kingdom reduced to a mere satellite.
"The first mention of Viking raids on this country is in 789; but it was not until the later years of Egbert, King of Wessex, who died in 839, that they became frequent. From then on the tale of attack and disaster is continuous..."

The Formation of England 550-1042, HPR Finberg, 1977, Paladin, p104: "...In 786 Cynewulf was succeeded [as West Saxon King] by one Beorhtric, in opposition to Egbert, a descendant of King Ine's brother. Beorhtric enjoyed the support of Offa, who gave him his daughter in marriage and helped him to drive Egbert into exile. Egbert took refuge at the Frankish court and bided his time..."
p107: "...On Beorhtric's death [in 802] his rival, Egbert, returned from exile and was accepted as king in Wessex. His accession marks a turningpoint in Anglo-Saxon history. He and his descendants gradually built up to strongest kingdom England had yet known, in the process weathering storms which brought its rivals to the dust."
p117: "An incursion into Wiltshire led by the Mercian ealdorman of the Hwice and dereated by the men of Wiltshire under their own ealdorman was the only untoward event which marred the accession of Egbert to the kingship of the West Saxons (802). He spent the first decade of his reign consolidating his power in Wessex and increasing it in the south-west. In 815 he invaded Cornwall and harried it from one end to the other. Ten years later he repulsed a Cornish raid into west Devon. Finally in 838 the Britons made common cause with an army ofDanish marauders, but Egbert met them at Hingston Down on the heights to the west of the lower Tamar and routed the confederate host. These victories left the king of Wessex in a position of undisputed mastery over the whole of Cornwall. Kingsof the native line continued to maintain a shadowy existence in the far west: the Welsh annals record the death of one of them in 875; but Egbert compelled the Cornish bishop to acknowledge the archbishop of Canterbury as his canonical superior, and enriched his own dynasty by annexing large domains in Cornwall, of which he gave a tenth tot he bishop of Sherborne, with a mandate to show the Cornish church the error of its ways.
"Meanwhile the king of Mercia did not stand idly by while his southern neighbour went from strength to strength. In 825 he invaded Wiltshire, but was heavily defeated at Wroughton, three miles south of Swindon. Immediately after this battle the men of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Essex submittedto Egbert, and East Anglia sought his protection. In 829 he conquered Mercia itself and led his army to the Northumbrian border, where at Dore, near Sheffield, he exacted Northumbrian recognition of his overlordship. His meteoric rise to powerseemed to the West Saxons to justify the addition of Egbert's name to the list of bretwaldas...
"...In 838 Egbert and his son Ethelwulf entered into a concordat which bound the Archbishop of Canterbury to the West Saxon dynasty in a pact of perpetual friendship.
"Under Egbert and his immediate successors the head of the West Saxon royal house ruled directly in Wessex while his eldest son governed the eastern provinces for him with the title of king of Kent. Thus, in the course of a reign which lasted thirty-seven years and seven months, Egbert made himself and his successors masters of all southern England, from Thanet to Land's End. He disposed of a formidable military power, and knew how to profit by the resentment which the Mercian hegemony had aroused in the lesser kingdoms.
"Four years before Egbert's death Scandinavian pirates ravaged Sheppey. Thenceforth on both sides of the Channel men lived in dread of these raiders... The Norwegians, poor and politically disunited, were naturally tempted to seek fortune overseas. They took to the western seaboard, and established colonies in Shetland, Orkney, Cithness, Sutherland, and Ireland, where they founded a Norse kingdom of Dublin. TheDanes more easily found their way to the mouth of the Rhine, and thence down the Channel to the coasts of Britain and Gaul.
"Viking, the name given generally to these dangerous visitors from Scandinavia, is a word of uncerain meaning, andwe can only surmise that the pressure of growing population in their homelands drove them to embark on piratical adventures abroad. It was rarely possible to intercept them at sea.In any case, their improvements in the technique of ship-building and the use of sail with oars gave them an advantage in naval warfare. On land, armed with shirts of mail, helmets, battle-axes, and long kite-shaped shields, they proved ferocious warriors, all the more terrible because as heathens they showed no respect for persons or things held sacred by their Christian victims. Landing as some point of their own choosing on an undefended coast, they plundered churches and minsters and ravaged freely until the local militia mustered and led byits ealdorman came up with them and either put them to flight or was itself routed. In 836 King Egbert in person took the field against the crews of thirty-five ships at Carhampton, between Watchet and Minehead, and a murderous battle followed,which however failed to dislodge the Danes. During the next three decades Viking descents occurred almost annually on the south and east coasts. They were not always victorious, but which everside defeated the other a heavy price was paid in bloodshed. Twice during this perios a Danish host wintered in England: in Thanet in 851 and in Sheppey four years later.
"Ethelwulf, who succeeded Egbert in 839, was not a man to be trifled with, any more than his father..."

INTERNET
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Egbert, is regarded as the first King of England. He reigned from 802 to
829 (839?). He was born about 775 and fled from his cousin Brethrick,
taking refuse in the court of Charlemagne, where he stayed for about
twelve years, serving as one of his captains.

On the death of Brethrick, who was poisoned by his wife, Egbert returned
to England.

In 802 at Winchester he was crowned King of the West Saxons. He subdued
West Wales, or Cornwall, defeated the King of Mercia at Ellandune,
annexed Kent and in 829 he became overlord of all the English kings and
gave the name of England to the whole realm. There are still in existence
some coins struck by Egbert, though these are now extremely rare.

In 835 Egbert defeated a formidable army of Danes at Hingston Down in
Cornwall, when they attempted to invade England.

He died in 839, and was buried at Westminster.

He married Lady Readberga (Redburga). He was succeeded by his son,
Ethelwulf.

("The Genealogy of Homer Beers James", V1, JANDA Consultants, © 1993
Homer James)

Known as the first King of All England, he was forced into a period of
exile at the court of Charlemagne, by the powerful Offa, king of Mercia.
Egbert returned to England in 802 and was recognized as king of Wessex.
He defeated the rival Mercians at the battle of Ellendun in 825. In 829,
the Northumbrians accepted his overlordship and he was proclaimed
"Bretwalda" or sole ruler of Britain.

(Internet source: http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon1.html)

Egbert, king of Wessex, was a descendant of Cerdic, the founder of that
kingdom. While young he was banished by Brihtric, and after a short stay
at the court of Offa, fled to France, and lived at the court of
Charlemagne. He succeeded Brihtric in 800, and appears to have reigned
in peace till 809, when he began to make war on the tribes occupying the
south-west quarter of England. Ten years later he began the course of
conquest which ended in making him, in 827, king of all England. He then
received the ancient honourable title of Bretwalda, which had long been
disused. The sovereigns of Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria were,
however, not dispossessed, but became tributary to Egbert. In the latter
years of his reign the Northmen made several descents upon England, and
were defeated by him in Cornwall in 835. Egbert died in 837, and was
succeeded by his son Ethelwolf.

[Internet source:
http://midas.ac.uk/genuki/big/royalty/kinge.html#EthelbertofKent]

ANCESTRAL FILE
Ancestral File Ver 4.10 G70H-62 Egbert King of WESSEX Born Abt 784 Of Wessex England Mar Wessex England Died Aft 19 Nov838 Wessex England, 8HRZ-ZN Egbert WEST SAXONY King, 9HMF-S7 Egbert WESSEX King, Also Ecgberht, KQGB Ecgbert, G70H-62 Died Aft 19 Nov 838.

   Marriage Information:

Egbert married Queen Redburch Wessex WEST SAXONY in , Wessex, England. (Queen Redburch Wessex WEST SAXONY was born about 784-788 in , Wessex, England.)