Ælfrǣd, Alfred The Great (849 – 899) King of Wessex, 3rd King of England, 1st King of Anglo-Saxons

Post author By Steven Wood Collins
Post date November 17, 2021
249 Comments on Ælfrǣd, Alfred The Great (849 – 899) King of Wessex, 3rd King of England, 1st King of Anglo-Saxons

A fifteenth-century depiction of Ívarr and Ubba ravaging the countryside as it appears on folio 48r of British Library Harley 2278.

Alfred is still revered as one of the most effective and innovative of the House of Wessex kings. And, though never crowned king of England, the Saxon people of England readily submitted to his rule as their sovereign after he expelled the Great Heathen Army from the country in 880. Ivar the Boneless, son of Ragnar Lodbrok, led the Danish Viking invaders until his death in 873.

Perhaps of all the kingly decisions, he made during his reign, giving his youngest daughter’s hand in marriage to Baldwin II Carolingian would later prove historically fortuitous for the House of Wessex. Fortuitous in that the couple’s direct descendant, Matilda (1031 – 1083), Countess of Flanders, married William I (The Conqueror), Duke of Normandy, King of England.

The House of Wessex English monarchy essentially perished with the deaths of Edward the Confessor and Harold Godwineson in 1066.

The stone tablet above the door on the east face of the King Alfred Tower reads:

“ALFRED THE GREAT
AD 879 on this Summit
Erected his Standard
Against Danish Invaders
To him We owe The Origin of Juries
The Establishment of a Militia
The Creation of a Naval Force
ALFRED The Light of a Benighted Age
Was a Philosopher and a Christian
The Father of his People
The Founder of the English
MONARCHY and LIBERTY”

Alfred was an agnatic descendant of Cerdic Gewissae (470 – 534) who reigned as the first King of Wessex during the 5th century AD. Cerdic was an agnatic descendant of Sigge “Odin” Fridulfsson of Asgard (50 BC – 30 AD) 1st King of Scandinavia .

During his reign, Alfred authored an exhaustive law code, consisting of his “own” laws that included code written by his seventh-century predecessor Wessex King Ine. Entitled The Doom Book , Code of Alfred or Legal Code of Ælfred the Great, his code of laws is arranged into 120 chapters. In his introduction, explains that he compiled the laws he found in many “synod-books” and “ordered to be written many of the ones that our forefathers observed—those that pleased me; and many of the ones that did not please me, I rejected with the advice of my councillors, and commanded them to be observed in a different way.” Alfred cited particular laws that he “found in the days of Ine, my kinsman, or Offa, king of the Mercians, or King Æthelbert of Kent (552 – 615), who first among the English people received baptism.”

Alfred and his great-grandfather, Egbert, are both commemorated at the Walhalla Memorial, located above the Danube River, east of Regensburg in Bavaria. Arminius of Teutons, one of their ancestors, is celebrated as the founding father of the Saxon-German hall of fame.

He’s ranked #414 in Hart’s Most Influential People in History – Top 500 List (125).

By Steven Wood Collins

I spent most of my life unaware of my ancestral heritage. Sure, I knew of the personal history of my more immediate relatives; but beyond that, I never had any inkling as to my ancestral heritage. Then one day many years ago my sister said to me, “I sometimes wonder about our family background.” And so my quest to discover our genealogical roots commenced.

I started building my family tree with the very basic relationships, going back in time from my grandparents, one ancestor at a time. That initial effort proved to be the hardest part of the pursuit, mainly due to my lack of expertise as a novice genealogical researcher. As I gained familiarity with the databases and how to efficiently mine them, my progress gained ever-increasing momentum. Today, The Patricians! tree (Ancestry.com) contains nearly 120,000 individuals, stretching over 135 generations, 5,800 of which are my direct ancestors in a genealogical sense.

During this trek back in time, I encountered fascinating figures in both history and obscurity. This blog contains many stories about their genealogical relationship to me (and many of you). By far and away, as a student of history, the historically obscure individuals are of particular interest to me. I cite Baron “Blue Beard” Montmorency-Laval de Rais (1405 – 1440) as an example of a historically maligned personage whose real contribution to history, as both a playwright and hero of France, has yet to be properly recognized. Another example is Earl Edward de Vere (1550 – 1604), who’s yet to gain widespread recognition as the actual author of the body of literary work wrongly ascribed to William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616).

My life-long interest in international economics and finance continues unabated. I primarily demonstrate this professional involvement as a contributor to the Long Room, the members-only international finance professionals' forum hosted by the Financial Times of London.

I'm an avid recreational scuba diver who enjoys traveling to exotic dive sites. My love of the sea and marine life gives me an unbounded appreciation and support of “green” issues, especially those devoted to the conservation of endangered species and coral reefs.

He continually posts results of his personal genealogical research to his Goodreads Authors Blog. Entitled The Patricians - The Ancestral Heritage of Steven Wood Collins, the work represents thousand of hours of his research efforts and related commentary.

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