Ethelred of Wessex
Encyclopedia : E : ET : ETH : Ethelred of Wessex
Life
King Ethelred I (Old English: Æþelræd) (c. 837 – April 23, 871) was a son of Ethelwulf of Wessex. He succeeded his brother, Ethelbert of Wessex, as King of Wessex and Kent in 865 [link] [link]. He had two sons, Aethelwald being the elder and Aethelhelm being the younger. Ethelred I was not able to control the increasing Danish raids which devastated England. On January 4, 871 at the Battle of Reading Ethelred suffered a crushing defeat, although he did hand the Danes a Pyrrhic victory. Soon after, however, Ethelred was able to re-form his army in time to win a stunning victory at Ashdown. However, he suffered another defeat on January 22 at the Battle of Basing and was killed at the Battle of Merton on April 23, 871. Ethelred is buried at Wimborne in Dorset. Following his death, he was popularly regarded as a saint, but never canonised. He was succeeded by his brother, King Alfred the Great.
|- style="text-align: center;"
|- style="text-align: center;"
|width="30%" align="center" rowspan=""|Preceded by:
Ethelbert
|width="30%" align="center" rowspan=""|Succeeded by:
Alfred the Great
|-
|-
See also
List of monarchs of KentExternal links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.