Who was the first King to rule all of England? One man has a robust claim to this title — and he was undoubtedly one of our greatest monarchs. This year marks the 1,100th anniversary of his coronation.
Surprisingly, for a man deserving of such lofty epithets, he’s not very well known. As Michael Wood put it in In Search of the Dark Ages, “Until recently he was barely remembered as the founder of the medieval English state, but in the middle ages he was the great king par excellence.”
Today, on the national history curriculum, he is merely listed (along with his grandfather King Alfred) as a “non-statutory” example which teachers “could include”. This is rather like telling American children that learning about the Founding Fathers is optional. This must change, and 2025 is the perfect year for it.
On the 4th of September, it will be the 1,100th anniversary of the coronation of King Athelstan. Like generations before us, we should learn much from his life. We should be proud; after all, few nations can celebrate 1,100th anniversaries.
The place, date, and manner of his coronation are of great significance. First, the place: Kingston upon Thames was chosen as it lies at the intersection of Mercia and Wessex. By September 925 Athelstan had been recognised as ruler of both. The coronation stone can be seen there today, sadly overshadowed by a hideous concrete block of a building, Kingston Police Station.
Athelstan’s consolidation of authority was a prelude to the great achievement of his reign: defeating the Danes across the remaining Anglo-Saxon lands up to Northumbria, thereby becoming first king over all the English peoples.
Alfred had defeated the Great Heathen Army at the Battle of Edington in 878, thereby securing control over Wessex and Mercia. Alfred’s daughter Aethelflaed, who raised Athelstan as his foster mother, extended authority over East Anglia and defeated Danes at the Battle of Tettenhall.
At York in 927, Athelstan defeated the Vikings and thereby became the first King of all the English peoples. If Alfred was father of the nation, Athelstan was its first King. Understanding the Venerable Bede’s talk of a “gens Anglorum” as prophetic, their vision was to bring about the unified nation.
Athelstan’s authority was repeatedly challenged but he defended it with vigour
Michael Wood goes on to explain that “[…] if Alfred, Edward and Aethelflaed paved the way, Athelstan turned their aspirations into fact, a first kingdom of all the English. Premature perhaps, certainly it overreached itself, but it was an idea that would endure: Bede’s gens Anglorum as a single kingdom.”
Athelstan’s authority was repeatedly challenged but he defended it with vigour. A decade later at the Battle of Brunanburh (perhaps Bromborough, on the Wirral) he consolidated power further and effectively became overlord of all Britain.
Incidentally, it is thought this inspired the final victory over the White Witch in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, named The Battle of Beruna by C. S. Lewis. Peter (who leads the battle) means “rock”, as does Athelstan, literally “noble stone”. Both Athelstan and the Narnian Peter had brothers called Edmund who fought alongside them. Evidently Lewis understood the importance of telling tales of our Anglo-Saxon forebears, however cryptically, to furnish the imagination of our children.
If the location of his coronation 1,500 years ago foreshadowed his widening authority, its timing indicated his style of leadership. The 4th of September was the Feast of Moses the Lawgiver. This emphasised that he was extending an inherited tradition of Christian kingship.
The Bible was integral to these pious rulers’ vision of government
This included being the first English monarch to be crowned with, well … a crown! Using this biblical symbol of royal authority departed from the practice of using helmets. It underscored the importance of rule by right and justice rather than mere might.
The Bible was integral to these pious rulers’ vision of government. His grandfather’s great law code, the dombok or doom book was based on the Mosaic Law: headed by a poignant reference to the providence of the Israelite exodus, it opened with the Ten Commandments and enumerated 120 dooms (laws) — one for each year Moses lived.
As Bijan Omrani demonstrates in his recent book God is an Englishman, to rule in this distinctively Biblical style meant to govern by law for the good of the governed, not by rash whim for self-enrichment. Omrani describes how Athelstan’s laws expressed particular concern for the destitute.
Athelstan’s law codes also vigorously clamped down on thieving (perhaps the connection with Kingston Police Station is more fitting than we thought). As discussed on the In Our Time episode on him, his laws saw theft as a wrong not merely against the victim, but also one of disloyalty to the King. In an era of rampant and unchecked shoplifting, our authorities would do well to take this sentiment to heart today.
In many ways, we can read Athelstan as following the advice Alfred bequeathed to the nation when he had translated great works, including Pope Gregory’s Pastoral Care, into the vernacular. His coupling of both fortitude and piety almost certainly stems from his upbringing in the court of Aethelflaed, of whom these virtues were characteristic.
In his time, Athelstan inspired young people by passing on tradition. Though he never married, he fostered a future king in his court, just as his aunt had done for him. His foster child was a Norwegian prince who became a Christian while in Athelstan’s care: Haakon the Good, who returned to Norway and ruled for almost three decades during which evangelised his own nation.
Like Alfred, Athelstan encouraged literacy through translation into the English vernacular. More than half a millennium before William Tyndale, Athelstan commissioned a translation of the Bible into the English tongue. Indeed, the frontispiece of a surviving contemporary manuscript depicts him presenting a text to St. Cuthbert.
Centuries later, Athelstan’s legacy would directly inspire Tyndale. In a searing and beautiful passage in his 1528 book The Obedience of a Christian Man, Tyndale, as part of his case for doing likewise, recounts how he read as a child about King Athelstan’s commission of an English Bible translation, and the church authorities’ approval of it.
2025 is also a momentous year in this regard: it marks 500 years since Tyndale published his translation. The entire Anglosphere and Commonwealth owe him, and by extension Athelstan, a great debt. Tyndale’s translation profoundly shaped the English language as we use it today.
Language, law, our very idea of kingship and even of England — all these we owe in no small part to the neglected Athelstan. By failing to raise our own children with tales of their heroic forbears, how many Tyndales have we failed to inspire?
