history of anglo-saxon england - Formation of England (10th century)
Alfred of Wessex died in 899 and was succeeded by his son Edward the Elder. Edward, and his brother-in-law Æthelred of (what was left of) Mercia, began a programme of expansion, building forts and towns on an Alfredian model. On Æthelred's death his wife (Edward's sister) Æthelflæd ruled as 'Lady of the Mercians', and continued expansion. It seems Edward had his son Æthelstan brought up in the Mercian court, and on Edward's death Athelstan succeeded to the Mercian kingdom, and, after some uncertainty, Wessex.

Æthelstan continued the expansion of his father and aunt, and was the first king to achieve direct rulership of what we would now consider 'England'. Certainly the titles attributed to him in charters and on coins suggest a widespread dominance. His expansion aroused ill-feeling among the other kingdoms of Britain, and he faced a combined Scottish-Viking army at the Battle of Brunanburh. His victory there, recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle with a poem, was one of the major steps on the road to the formation of England.

However, England was not a certainty, and indeed under Æthelstan's successors Edmund, Eadred and Edwy the kingdom broke up and was reformed numerous times. Nonetheless, Edgar, who eventually ruled the same expanse as Athelstan, seems to have consolidated the kingdom, and by the time of the rule of his son Æthelred (the Unready) England seems to have (almost) secured itself as a kingdom.

The 10th century saw important developments across Western Europe. Carolingian authority was in decline by the mid-10th century in West Francia (France), and eventually collapsed to be replaced by the weak House of Capet. In East Francia a Saxon dynasty came to power, and its kings began taking the title of Holy Roman Emperor. Interestingly, Anglo-Saxon England was probably the most 'developed' kingdom of the period; one has only to look at the way coinage was managed in the period to realise that 10th century Anglo-Saxon kings wielded far greater royal authority than their European counterparts.

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