Beorhtric of Wessex

Cynewulf, king of Wessex, had been killed in 786 by the exiled noble Cyneheard, brother of the former King Sigeberht.

Beorhtric's successful bid for the throne is supported by Offa, king of the Mercians, against Egbert.

It is not entirely clear why Offa intervened in Beorhtric's favor, though it seems likely that the opportunity to influence West Saxon politics, and thus preserve the Mercian Ascendancy, were important factors.

Additionally, it is suggested that Egbert was a descendant of the Kentish dynasty that, under Eahlmund, had rebelled against Offa's rule and beaten him at the battle of Otford.

Beorhtric seems to have been subject to Offa's authority to some extent.

He had held the Synod of Chelsea jointly with Offa in 787, and in 789 he marries one of Offa's daughters, Eadburh.

Land that had traditionally been on the borders of Mercia and Wessex are administered by the Mercian court, as is seen in Charters of Offa, and his son Ecgfrith.

West Saxons seem to have used Offa's currency: a recent survey of early medieval single coin finds reveals a trail of Offa pennies running from the Upper Thames to Wareham, a site connected with Beorhtric.

The first Viking raids on England occur during Beorhtric's reign, as recorded by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

They land in 789 on the Dorset coast, near the Isle of Portland, where they kill a royal official, the shire reeve.

Eardwulf of Northumbria is not, so far as is known, connected to any of the factions that up to the mid-790s had been warring for the throne.

Nothing is definitely known of his background, though Symeon of Durham's History of the Kings, an early twelfth-century work based on the lost late tenth-century chronicle of Byrhtferth, records that his father's name was also Eardwulf, and both father and son are given the title dux.

Historian Barbara Yorke has proposed that he was a descendant of one Eanwine who (according to Symeon of Durham) was killed in 740 on the orders of King Eadberht.

This Eanwine may be identified with King Eadwulf's son of the same name.

Eardwulf's father may have been one of the two Eardwulfs whose deaths are recorded by Symeon of Durham in 774 and 775.

Eardwulf appears to have been an enemy of Æthelred I.

He first appears in the historical record in about 790, when Symeon of Durham reports that: Eardulf was taken prisoner, and conveyed to Ripon, and there ordered by the aforesaid king [Æthelred] to be put to death without the gate of the monastery.

The brethren carried his body into the church with Gregorian chanting, and placed it out of doors in a tent; after midnight he was found alive in the church.

A letter from Alcuin of York to Eardwulf suggests that this fortunate recovery was seen as being miraculous.

Eardwulf's whereabouts after his recovery are not known.

In surviving King Æthelred's anger he had been more fortunate than Ælfwald's sons, who in 791 had been drowned on Æthelred's orders.

Osred had returned from exile only to be betrayed and killed on September 14, 792, by Æthelred's command.

Æthelred himself is assassinated on April 18, 796, perhaps at Corbridge, by conspirators led by the dux Ealdred.

Æthelred is followed as king by Osbald, whose antecedents are unknown: he is deposed after twenty-seven days and flees to the land of the Picts with a few supporters.

Eardwulf on May 14, 796, becomes king.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that he was consecrated on May 26, 796, at York Minster by Eanbald I, Archbishop of York, and Bishops Æthelberht, Beadwulf and Hygebald..

The petty Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the early settlement period have been consolidated by the end of the eighth century into four large ones: Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria.

Mercia has been dominant among the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms south of the river Humber for most of the eighth century.

Æthelbald, who had come to the throne in 716, had established himself as the overlord of the southern Anglo-Saxons by 731.

Assassinated in 757, he had been briefly succeeded by Beornred, but within a year Offa had ousted Beornred and taken the throne for himself.

Offa's daughter Eadburh had married Beorhtric of Wessex in 789, and Beorhtric had become an ally thereafter.

In Kent, Offa had intervened decisively in the 780s, and at some point became the overlord of East Anglia, whose king, Æthelred, had been beheaded in 794 at Offa's orders.

It had been suggested around 789 by Charles I of the Franks that his second son, Charles the Younger, should be married to Offa's daughter Ælfflæd.

Offa had insisted that the marriage could only go ahead if Charles's daughter Bertha was married to Offa's son Ecgfrith.

Charles had taken offense, broken off contact, and closed his ports to English traders.

Normal relations were reestablished eventually nand the ports were reopened.

Charlemagne and Offa just a few years later, in 796, conclude the first commercial treaty known in English history.

Offa appears to have moved to eliminate dynastic rivals to the succession of his son, Ecgfrith.

According to a contemporary letter from Alcuin of York, an English deacon and scholar who has spent over a decade as a chief advisor at the court of Charles I of the Franks, "the vengeance of the blood shed by the father has reached the son"; Alcuin added, "This was not a strengthening of the kingdom, but its ruin."

At Offa’s death on July 29, 796, Ecgfrith succeeds him but reigns for less than five months before Coenwulf comes to the throne.

The surviving sources do not record whether Ecgfrith died of natural causes or was assassinated, though Alcuin's letter seems to imply the latter.

Coenwulf's kin may have been connected to the royal family of the Hwicce, a subkingdom of Mercia around the lower river Severn.

It appears that Coenwulf's family were powerful, but they were not of recent Mercian royal lineage.

A letter written by Alcuin to the people of Kent in 797 laments that "scarcely anyone is found now of the old stock of kings".

Eardwulf of Northumbria had, like Coenwulf, gained his throne in 796, so Alcuin's meaning is not clear, but it may be that he intended it as a slur on Eardwulf or Coenwulf or on both.

Alcuin certainly holds negative views of Coenwulf, regarding him as a tyrant and criticizing him for putting aside one wife and taking another.

Alcuin writes to a Mercian nobleman to ask him to greet Coenwulf peaceably "if it is possible to do so", implying uncertainty about Coenwulf's policy towards the Carolingians.

Eadburh, the daughter of Offa of Mercia and Cynethryth, had in 789 married Beorhtric, king of Wessex from 787 to 802.

Offa was then the most powerful king in England, and Beorhtric had gained his support as a result of the marriage.

Eadburh, according to Asser in his biography of Alfred the Great, became all powerful, and often demanded the executions or exile of her enemies.

She was also alleged to have assassinated those men whom she couldn't compel Beorhtric to kill through poisoning their food or drink.

Eadburh in 802 according to the Asser biography attempts to poison a young favorite of the king but instead kills both of them.

The young man may have been called Worr, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the death of both men shortly before the succession of Egbert, the grandfather of Alfred the Great, as king of Wessex.

It is possible that the young Egbert had fled to Wessex in 785 or so; it is suggestive that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mentions in a later entry that Beorhtric, Cynewulf's successor, helped Offa to exile Egbert.

After Cynewulf was murdered in 786, Egbert may have contested the succession, but Offa had successfully intervened in the ensuing power struggle on the side of Beorhtric.

The Chronicle records that Egbert spent three years in Francia before he was king, exiled by Beorhtric and Offa.

The text says "iii" for three, but this may have been a scribal error, with the correct reading being "xiii", that is, thirteen years.

Beorhtric's reign lasted sixteen years, and not thirteen; and all extant texts of the chronicle agree on "iii", but many modern accounts assume that Egbert did indeed spend thirteen years in Francia.

This requires assuming that the error in transcription is common to every manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; many historians make this assumption but others have rejected it as unlikely, given the consistency of the sources.

In either case, Egbert was probably exiled in 789, when Beorhtric, his rival, married Eadburh.

At the time Egbert was in exile, Francia was ruled by Charlemagne, who maintained Frankish influence in Northumbria and is known to have supported Offa's enemies in the south.

Another exile in Gaul at this time was Odberht, a priest, who is almost certainly the same person as Eadberht, who later became king of Kent.

According to a later chronicler, William of Malmesbury, Egbert learned the arts of government during his time in Gaul.

Beorhtric's dependency on Mercia had continued into the reign of Cenwulf, who became king of Mercia a few months after Offa's death.

When Beorhtric dies in 802, Egbert comes to the throne of Wessex, probably with the support of Charlemagne and perhaps also the papacy.

The Mercians continue to oppose Egbert: the day of his accession, the Hwicce (who had originally formed a separate kingdom, but by this time are part of Mercia) attack, under the leadership of their ealdorman, Æthelmund.

Weohstan, a Wessex ealdorman, meets him with men from Wiltshire: according to a fifteenth-century source, Weohstan had married Alburga, Egbert's sister, and so was Egbert's brother-in-law.

The Hwicce are defeated, though Weohstan is killed as well as Æthelmund.

Nothing more is recorded of Egbert's relations with Mercia for more than twenty years after this battle.

It seems likely that Egbert had no influence outside his own borders, but on the other hand there is no evidence that he ever submitted to the overlordship of Cenwulf.

Cenwulf did have overlordship of the rest of southern England, but in Cenwulf's charters the title of "overlord of the southern English" never appears, presumably in consequence of the independence of the kingdom of Wessex.