Back to the Mainly The Vikings calendar
Edmund the Elder continued to put down Viking uprisings. You have to remember that many Vikings still lived in England
but that the rulers of England were all Saxons and, as we know, Vikings could be a bit fierce. Edmund also had problems with the Welsh in Cumbria (north west
England) and so he gave Cumbria to the then King of Scotland called Malcolm.
Edmund enjoyed a good feast but not the one he had in 946AD celebrating the Feast of Augustine where he was murdered by someone he had banished
from the country for a crime some years before. Edmund had three wives. The first one gave him two sons and a daughter before she died while his third wife
became his widow and a nun after Edmund’s death and joined a convent. This was not unusual for widows of kings and nobles. However after his death his two
sons were too young to be king so another son of Edward the Elder (remember him from last time-– he was Athlestan’s father) became king.
He was called Edred and he reigned from 946 to 955AD. You may have spotted the letter E was very popular when naming future kings. Anyway Edred was
the man who put down the last Viking uprising in Northumbria and got rid of Eric Bloodaxe. Eric (his name began with an E so I guess he thought he had a good
chance of being king somewhere) made two attempts to be king of Northumbria, based himself at York, but was killed in battle by Edred. Then, Edred divided
Northumbria in three, gave the northern part to Scotland and the two southern bits were to be ruled by two Anglo-Saxon earls. However he was not a well man
and died in his thirties, in 955AD, having never married.
By then Edmund’s sons were older (happens to us all if we live long enough) and the next king was ……………………. you guessed, Edwig. He was 16 when he
was crowned. He mysteriously died four years later and was succeeded by his younger brother.
I have decided to draw up a family tree so you can see, slightly better, who everyone was. It starts from Alfred the Great and shows who was ruler
and their dates. Those in blue were Alfred’s children but they never became king. The children of a king are linked by a straight vertical line. I have not
shown the wives of the kings as this would have been very complicated. I hope it explains it. It’s great fun to do your own family tree and it is actually one
of our projects.
The family tree goes on a bit longer than where we are up to here so you can come back to it later.
Forward to 959AD
