Уэссекс патшасының ұлы Этельвольд

Son of King of Wessex (died 902)

Æthelwold ('/æ//θ//əl//w//oʊ//l//d/) or Æthelwald (died 13 December 902) was the younger of two known sons of Æthelred I, King of Wessex from 865 to 871. Æthelwold and his brother Æthelhelm were still infants when their father the king died while fighting a Danish Viking invasion. The throne passed to the king's younger brother (Æthelwold's uncle) Alfred the Great, who carried on the war against the Vikings and won a crucial victory at the Battle of Edington in 878. After Alfred's death in 899, Æthelwold disputed the throne with Alfred's son, Edward the Elder. As senior ætheling (prince of the royal dynasty eligible for kingship), Æthelwold had a strong claim to the throne. He attempted to raise an army to support his claim, but was unable to get sufficient support to meet Edward in battle and fled to Viking controlled Northumbria, where he was accepted as king. In 901 or 902 he sailed with a fleet to Essex, where he was also accepted as king. The following year Æthelwold persuaded the East Anglian Danes to attack Edward's territory in Wessex and Mercia. Edward retaliated with a raid on East Anglia, and when he withdrew the men of Kent lingered and met the East Anglian Danes at an unknown location in the Battle of the Holme on 13 December 902. The Danes were victorious but suffered heavy losses, including the death of Æthelwold, which ended the challenge to Edward's rule.

In the eighth century, Mercia was the most powerful kingdom in southern England, but in the early ninth century Wessex became dominant. In the 820s King Egbert of Wessex conquered south east England (Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex). His reign saw the beginning of Viking attacks, but Egbert and his son Æthelwulf, who succeeded in 839, were able to resist them. Æthelwulf died in 858, and he was followed by four sons in succession. King Æthelbald died in 860, and King Æthelberht in 865; Æthelwold's father, Æthelred, then succeeded to the throne. In the same year the Viking Great Heathen Army invaded England. Within five years they had conquered Northumbria and East Anglia, and forced Mercia to buy them off. In late 870 the Vikings invaded Wessex, and in early 871 they fought armies under Æthelred and Alfred in four battles in quick succession, the last two of which Wessex lost. Æthelred died shortly after Easter that year, leaving young sons. Primogeniture was not established in this period, and it was believed that kings should be adults, so he was succeeded by his younger brother Alfred. By 878 the Vikings had seized eastern Mercia and nearly conquered Wessex, and Alfred was reduced to being a fugitive in the Somerset marshes, but he fought back and won the Battle of Edington. This was followed by a period of peace, and in the late 880s Alfred concluded a treaty with Guthrum, king of the East Anglian Vikings, setting the boundary between Wessex and English Mercia on the one hand, and the Danelaw on the other. Further Viking assaults in the mid 890s were unsuccessful.

After Alfred's death in 899, Æthelwold made a bid for the throne. Janet Nelson comments that "in the eyes of many Englishmen as well as Scandinavians this ætheling had claims stronger than Edward's own." According to the 'A' version of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, Æthelwold abducted a nun from her convent without the permission of King Edward and against the command of the bishop. Her identity is not known, but it must have been intended to strengthen his claim, and in the view of the historian Pauline Stafford, the Chronicles account is biased in favour of Edward and might have been intended to delegitimise a politically important marriage. Æthelwold took her to the royal manors of Twynham (now Christchurch) and then Wimborne Minster, symbolically important as his father's burial place, and declared that "he would live or die there". Lavelle sees Wimborne as strategically significant, close to Roman roads to Dorchester and Salisbury, and at a crossing point of the rivers Allen and Stour; it was the southernmost point for control of access to western Wessex and Æthelwold may have intended a division of the kingdom. However, when Edward's army approached and camped at Badbury Rings, an Iron Age hill fort four miles west of Wimborne, Æthelwold was unable to gain sufficient support to meet them in battle. Leaving behind his consort, he fled to the Danes of Northumbria, who accepted him as king. Northumbrian coins were issued at this time in the name of a king called 'Alwaldus', who is thought to have been Æthelwold. Norse sagas record traditions of a Danish king Knútr, who briefly ruled Northumbria around 900. He is said to have been at first repulsed by an English king called Adalbrigt north of Cleveland, but then to have defeated him at Scarborough. In 1987, Smyth suggested that Adalbrigt could have been Æthelwold, but in 1995 Smyth put forward the alternative idea that the Northumbrian Danes accepted Æthelwold's claim to be king of the West Saxons rather than taking him as their own king. Æthelwold's reign in Northumbria was short, in David Rollason's view because Æthelwold saw it only as a base for gaining power in Wessex. In 901 or 902 he sailed with a fleet to Essex, where Rollason states that he was accepted as king by the local Vikings. However, David Dumville points out that in the next year Æthelwold persuaded the Danes in East Anglia to wage war against Edward, and Dumville argues that it is unlikely that there was an unknown separate Viking army in Essex. In his view Æthelwold was aiming to secure recognition in part of the kingdom of Wessex in order to strengthen his claim to the throne, and he succeeded in gaining the submission of the English rulers of Essex. The East Anglian Danes joined Æthelwold in a raid on Mercia, reaching as far as the fortified burh at Cricklade on the border with Wessex. He then crossed the Thames into Wessex itself to raid Braydon. Edward retaliated by ravaging Danish East Anglia, but he withdrew without engaging Æthelwold in battle. The men of Kent lingered, although according to the Anglo Saxon Chronicle Edward sent seven messengers to recall them. The Danes caught up with the men of Kent to fight the Battle of the Holme. Its location is unknown but may be Holme in Cambridgeshire. The Danes were victorious but suffered heavy losses. Æthelwold was among the leaders on the Danish side who were killed, together with Eohric, the Viking king of East Anglia, two holds (Danish noblemen), Ysopa and Oscetel, and Beorhtsige, son of the ætheling Beornoth, who was probably a kinsman of the former king of Mercia, Burgred. Kentish losses included their two ealdormen, Sigewulf and Sigehelm, and an Abbot Cenwulf. The achievement of the Kentish contingent put Edward's failure to engage the Danes with his whole army in a poor light. In Cyril Hart's view: "Undoubtedly there were recriminations, which appear to have continued to threaten Edward's authority for some considerable period, especially in Kent; witness the Wessex chronicler's anxiety to find excuses for Edward's failure to support the Kentish contingent." Edward was later to marry Sigehelm's daughter, Eadgifu, and Hart thinks that this may have been designed to placate his Kentish subjects. The various texts of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle give different versions of the revolt. Hart states: "The oldest and more authoritative is preserved in the 'B' text of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle (supported in its essentials by the Latin East Anglian Chronicle); the official version in the 'A' text is clearly a late revision, intended to justify King Edward's position and to reinforce his authority." 'B' describes Æthelwold as an ætheling, indicating the legitimacy of his claim for the kingship, a description omitted in 'A'. 'A' says that he took possession of Wimborne and Twinham without the permission of the king and his councillors, 'B' against their will. 'B' says that Æthelwold "rode away by night" from Wimborne; 'A' reads "stole away". According to 'B', the Northumbrian Danes accepted Æthelwold as their king, and gave allegiance to him, but this is omitted in 'A'. However, none of the texts describe him as an ætheling after his flight to Northumbria, showing that his actions were no longer thought to have a claim to legitimacy. In the view of Scott Thompson Smith, the dispute was over property as well as kingship, and the Chronicle presents Edward as the successful protector of family property against outside interests.