Decades of speculation followed, before, in 1952, the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England dated the ...

THE MERCIAN CHRONICLES completes a trilogy by Max Adams that began with The King in the North, centred on King Oswald of Northumbria (r. 634-42), and went on to Ælfred’s Britain, about King Ælfred of ...

Founded by St Aldhelm in 705 AD, it was the ecclesiastical centre of the Kingdom of Wessex, and early English kings Aethelbald and Ethelbert are buried here. Entrance free. Take a seat in Café D ...

Follow us and access great exclusive content every day The second of five sons of King Aethelwulf, Aethelbald was King of Wessex from 855 to 860. A religious man, Aethelbald made a pilgrimage to ...

The eldest surviving son of Aethelwulf, Aethelbald reigned for just five years. Perhaps the most noteworthy event of his reign was his marriage to his father’s widow, the Carolingian princess Judith, ...

Not all great love stories make it beyond the pages of some obscure history book. Judith’s status as a member of the powerful Carolingian family meant her marriage also made her the first woman ...

Sex proved a problem. Aethelbald was an early king of Mercia, a rival kingdom to Wessex. He was, according to his outraged archbishop, St Boniface, for ever fornicating in monasteries and defiling ...