List of monarchs of Wessex

This is a list of monarchs of Wessex until 886 AD. For later monarchs, see the List of English monarchs. While the details of the later monarchs are confirmed by a number of sources, the earlier ones are in many cases obscure.

"Kings of Wessex" redirects here. For the school, see The Kings of Wessex Academy.

The names are given in modern English form followed by the names and titles (as far as is known) in contemporary Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and Latin, the prevalent "official" languages of the time in England.

This was a period in which spellings varied widely, even within a document. A number of variations of the details below exist. Among these are the preference between the runic character thorn (Þ, lower-case þ, from the rune of the same name) and the letter eth (Ð or ð), both of which are pronounced /th/ and were interchangeable. They were used indiscriminately for voiced and unvoiced /th/ sounds, unlike in modern Icelandic. Thorn tended to be more used in the south (Wessex) and eth in the North (Mercia and Northumbria). Separate letters th were preferred in the earliest period in Northern texts, and returned to dominate by the Middle English period onward.

The character ⁊ (Tironian et) was used as the ampersand (&) in contemporary Anglo-Saxon writings. The era pre-dates the emergence of some forms of writing accepted today; notably rare were lower case characters, and the letters W and U. W was occasionally rendered VV (later UU), but the runic character wynn (Ƿ or ƿ) was a common way of writing the /w/ sound. Again the West Saxons initially preferred the character derived from a rune, and the Angles/Engle preferred the Latin-derived lettering VV, consistent with the thorn versus eth usage pattern.

Except in manuscripts, runic letters were an Anglian phenomenon. The early Engle restricted the use of runes to monuments, whereas the Saxons adopted wynn and thorn for sounds which did not have a Latin equivalent. Otherwise they were not used in Wessex.

Monarchs of the West Saxons (Wessex)

Reign	Incumbent	Notes
The Kingdom of the Gewissae
Cerdicing dynasty
519 to 534	Cerdic	Possibly Celtic, Brythonic, name.
534 to 560	Cynric	Son, or according to some sources grandson, of Cerdic.
560 to 591	Ceawlin	Son of Cynric. Possibly Celtic, Brythonic, name.
591 to 597	Ceol	Nephew of Ceawlin, grandson of Cynric.
597 to 611	Ceolwulf	Brother of Ceol, grandson of Cynric.
611 to 643	Cynegils	Sources derive him from Cynric, but name different dynasty members as his father. Possibly Celtic, Brythonic, name
c. 626 to 636	Cwichelm	Co-ruler with Cynegils, perhaps his son of this name.
643 to 645	Cenwalh	Son of Cynegils. Possibly Celtic, Brythonic, name; Deposed
Mercian dynasty
645 to 648	Penda	King of Mercia, expelled Cenwalh.
Cerdicing dynasty
648 to 674	Cenwalh	Restored; reigned jointly with his wife Queen Seaxburh 672 to 674.
672 to 674	Seaxburh	Reigned jointly with her husband Cenwalh until his death 674
674	Cenfus	(Disputed) Perhaps reigned between Seaxburh and his son Æscwine. Given a remote descent from Cynric.
674 to 676	Æscwine	Son of Cenfus.
676 to 685	Centwine	Traditionally son of Cynegils, but this is disputed. Deposed by Cædwalla
685 to 688	Cædwalla	Perhaps descendant of Ceawlin. Usurper; abdicated, possibly of British origin.
688 to 726	Ine	Descendant of Ceawlin. Abdicated
726 to 740	Æthelheard	Perhaps brother-in-law of Ine.
740 to 756	Cuthred	Relative, possibly brother, of Æthelheard.
756 to 757	Sigeberht	Distant relative of Cuthred. Deposed (and killed?) by Cynewulf
757 to 786	Cynewulf	Assassinated by Cyneheard, brother of Sigeberht
786 to 802	Beorhtric
802 to 839	Ecgberht	Descendant of Ine's brother.
839 to 858	Æthelwulf	Son of Ecgberht.
858 to 860	Æthelbald	Son of Æthelwulf.
860 to 865	Æthelberht	Son of Æthelwulf.
865 to 871	Æthelred	Son of Æthelwulf.
871 to 886	Alfred the Great	Son of Æthelwulf. The only Anglo-Saxon monarch to be given the epithet "the Great".

Timeline of monarchs of Wessex

House of Wessex family tree

The chart shows their (claimed) descent from the traditional first king of Wessex, Cerdic, down to the children of Alfred the Great. A continuation of the tree into the 10th and 11th centuries can be found at English monarchs family tree.

The tree is largely based on the late 9th-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List (reproduced in several forms, including as a preface to the [B] manuscript of the Chronicle),[1] and Asser's Life of King Alfred. These sources are all closely related and were compiled at a similar date, and incorporate a desire in their writers to associate the royal household with the authority of being a continuation of a unified line of kingship descended from a single original founder.[2]

One apparently earlier pedigree survives, which traces the ancestry of King Ine back to Cerdic. This first appears in a 10th-century manuscript copy of the "Anglian collection" of Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies. The manuscript is thought to have been made at Glastonbury in the 930s during the reign of King Æthelstan [3] (whose family traced their own royal descent back to Cerdic via a brother of King Ine), but the material may well date back to the earliest reconstructable version of the collection, c. 796; and possibly still further back, to 725-6.[4] Compared to the later texts, this pedigree gives an ancestry for Ceolwald as son of Cuthwulf son of Cuthwine which in the later 9th-century texts sometimes seems confused; and it states Cynric as son of Creoda son of Cerdic, whereas the Chronicle annals go to some length to present Cerdic and Cynric as a father-and-son pair who land in and conquer the southern part of Wessex together (a narrative now considered spurious by historians).[5]

Many of the links shown are disputed. Egbert, who became King of Wessex in 802, was probably of Kentish origin, and his ancestry back to Cerdic may have been invented to legitimize his claim to the throne of Wessex.[6] There are also a number of discrepancies between different sources.

Key

•   - The red border indicates the monarchs
•   - The bolded border indicates the close relatives of the monarchs (parents, spouses and children)
•   - The thin border indicates other relatives

Cerdic King of Wessex ?–519-534

Cynric King of Wessex c.494–534-560

Ceawlin King of Wessex c.535–560-592

Cutha

Cuthwine b. c.565

Ceol King of Wessex ?–592-597

Ceolwulf King of Wessex ?–597-611

Cenfus King of Wessex ?–674-674

Cedda b.590

Cuthwulf b.592

Cynegils King of Wessex ?–611-642

Pybba King of Mercia

Æscwine King of Wessex ?–674-676

Cenberht 620-661

Ceolwald

Cwichelm King of Wessex ?–626-636

Centwine King of Wessex ?–676-685

Seaxburh Queen of Wessex ?–672-674

Cenwalh King of Wessex ?–642-645, 648-672

sister of Penda

Penda King of Mercia c.606–c.626-655 King of Wessex 645-648

Eowa

Caedwalla King of Wessex 659–685-688

Mul King of Kent 660-686-687

Cenred b. 640

Cuthred

Osmod

Ingild

Aldfrith King of Northumbria ?–685–704/5

Cuthburh d. c.718

Cwenburh d. c.735

Ine King of Wessex c.670–688-726

Æthelburh

Æthelheard King of Wessex ?–726-740

Cuthred King of Wessex ?–740-756

Eanwulf

Eoppa

Cynric aethling d. 748

Thingfrith

Eafa

Sigeberht King of Wessex ?–756-757

Cyneheard d. 786

Cynewulf King of Wessex ?–757-786

Offa King of Mercia ?–757-796

Ealhmund King of Kent ?–784-784

Beorhtric King of Wessex ?–786-802

Eadburh

Egbert King of Wessex 771/5–802-839

Judith of France

Æthelwulf King of Wessex 795–839-858

Osburh

Æthelstan King of Kent 830–839-858

Æthelbald King of Wessex 831–858-860

Burgred King of Mercia ?–852-874

Æthelswith 833–889

Æthelberht King of Wessex 835–860-865

Æthelred King of Wessex c.848–865-871

Alfred the Great King of Wessex 849–871-886

English monarchs' family tree

See also

• List of Wessex consorts
• Governors of Roman Britain
• List of legendary kings of Britain
• Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies

Notes

1. D.N. Dumville (1985), "The West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List and the Chronology of Early Wessex", Peritia 4 21–66 doi:10.1484/J.Peri.3.96
   D.N. Dumville (1986), "The West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List: Manuscripts and Texts", Anglia 104 1–32 doi:10.1515/angl.1986.1986.104.1
2. A "political fiction", according to D.P. Kirby (1992), The Earliest English Kings. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-09086-5, p. 49)
3. Kenneth Sisam (1953), "Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies", Proceedings of the British Academy 39 287–348
   David Dumville (1976) "The Anglian collection of royal genealogies and regnal lists", in Anglo-Saxon England, Clemoes, ed., 5 (1976), pp. 23–50. doi:10.1017/S0263675100000764
4. Dumville (1976), pp. 40, 42, 46. It is also possible that the material may first have been joined in with the collection in a copy made in Mercia c.840.
5. Barbara Yorke (1989), "The Jutes of Hampshire and Wight and the origins of Wessex" in S.R. Bassett (ed), The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, Leicester: Leicester University Press. ISBN 0718513177 pp. 84-96.
   Yorke's theory "has met with general acceptance (I cannot find any historian or archaeologist that disagrees with her conclusions)", according to Robin Bush at "Were the West Saxons guilty of ethnic cleansing?". Time Team Live 2001. Channel 4. 2001-08-28. Archived from the original on 2006-02-19.
6. Heather Edwards (2004), Ecgberht, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

References

• Barbara Yorke (1995), Wessex in the early Middle Ages, A & C Black, ISBN 071851856X; pp 79-83; table p. 81