Who was the greatest Anglo-Saxon king?

Zhane Kelly

I think the greatest king was Alfred the Great but that's just me.

Reply 1

hunstatham

Alfred the Great, he literally made England. Until then, the Anglo-Saxons were separate kingdoms.

Reply 2

Craig_D

Offa; Alfred is overrated.

Reply 3

Craig_D

Original post by hunstatham

Alfred the Great, he literally made England. Until then, the Anglo-Saxons were separate kingdoms.

What of the Danelaw though? He never held half the country, including East Anglia, the south midlands, the east midlands, Yorkshire, Northumbria and not a square foot of Wales (seeing as it usually gets included). His son, Edward the Elder, came closer to uniting England than Alfred ever did.

Reply 4

cid

Æthelberht the first was quite great, especially for any Brits who find themselves in the Christian way.

Though he was only King of the kingdom of Kent he was the first Christian King in England, he was responsible for the first written laws in Germanic Language, also supposedly the first document written in English.

Maybe not up there with Alfred, but coming from a smaller (though rather rich) Anglo Saxon kingdom he may be considered as punching above his weight.

Take a wild guess...

Edgar the Peaceful was quite cool. Grand imperial coronation, rowed in a barge by eight vassal kings from Britain, used to send his navy round Britain every so often to demonstrate his authority. A good showman.

Reply 7

lawbot

Original post by Zhane Kelly

I think the greatest king was Alfred the Great but that's just me.

To be honest none had any qualities that would put them on a par with leader's like Napoleon Caesar or Alexander.

I agree that Alfred was the greatest, but i think historians have flattered him by christening him 'the great'

Harold Godwinson's ability to beat off the vikings under Hardrada, force a march and face off against the Normans (who were also vikings by ancestory :wink:

) put him close to greatness. He was quite close to victory in the battle of hastings.

Reply 8

Creat0r

The Danes broke their truce with Alfred and he was pretty much defeated, with Anglo-Saxon nobles defecting to the enemy etc. He went on the run and was hiding in the middle of a swamp in the Somerset Levels. Other kingdoms were under the control of the Danes and Wessex being the last. So England as it is today in name its culture, language, were reduced to a few square miles of swamp.

"One more defeat and there would probably never have been a political entity called England. We might have Daneland instead, and this novel probably would have been written in Danish. Yet Alfred survived, he won, and that is why history awarded him the honorific 'the Great'"
-Bernard Cornwell

Surely, this makes him the best Anglo-Saxon king!

Reply 9

rhose

Got to be Offa - gave rise to an awful lot of 'big dyke' jokes.

Reply 10

effofex

Alfred the Grand is usually considered the greatest, but it could very easily have been Harold Godwineson had he won at Hastings.

Had that been the case, he would most probably have been labelled 'Harold the Great' and the English would not have spent the next millenium as a conquered people. Also, the aristocrats in the UK today would probably actually be predominantly English rather than Franco-Norwegian.