User:JMvanDijk/Sandbox 12/Box18

The House of Wessex, also known as the Cerdicings and the West Saxon dynasty, refers to the family, traditionally founded by Cerdic, that ruled Wessex in Southern England from the early 6th century. The house became dominant in southern England after the accession of King Ecgberht in 802. Alfred the Great saved England from Viking conquest in the late ninth century and his grandson Æthelstan became first king of England in 927. The disastrous reign of Æthelred the Unready ended in Danish conquest in 1014. Æthelred and his son Edmund Ironside attempted to resist the Vikings in 1016, but after their deaths the Danish Cnut the Great and his sons ruled until 1042. The House of Wessex then briefly regained power under Æthelred's son Edward the Confessor, but lost it after the Norman Conquest in 1066. All kings of England since Henry II have been descended from the House of Wessex through Henry I's wife Matilda of Scotland, who was a great-granddaughter of Edmund Ironside.

=Genealogy=

To Alfred the Great
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), 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.

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 (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. 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).

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. 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

Attributed coat of arms
A coat of arms was attributed by medieval heralds to the Kings of Wessex. These arms appear in a manuscript of the thirteenth century, and are blazoned as Azure, a cross patonce (sometimes a cross fleury or cross moline) between five martlets Or. The assigning of arms to the West Saxon kings is prochronistic, as heraldry did not develop in a form as we know it until the twelfth century. These arms continued to be used to represent the kingdom for centuries after their invention. They have been incorporated into heraldic charges of institutions that associate themselves with Wessex, especially Edward the Confessor, where they are used at Westminster Abbey and in the arms of the City of Westminster. The arms attributed to Edward were probably based on the design of a type of coin minted during his reign. This silver penny, often called a 'cross/eagle' type, showed an equal-armed cross within a circle, with birds depicted in the spaces between the arms of the cross.

=Succession to the English Throne/Succession crisis, 1120–1124=



On 11 November 1100 Henry married Matilda, the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland, in Westminster Abbey. Henry was now around 31 years old, but late marriages for noblemen were not unusual in the 11th century. The pair had probably first met earlier the previous decade, possibly being introduced through Bishop Osmund of Salisbury. Historian Warren Hollister argues that Henry and Matilda were emotionally close, but their union was also certainly politically motivated. Matilda had originally been named Edith, an Anglo-Saxon name, and was a member of the West Saxon royal family, being the niece of Edgar the Ætheling, the great-granddaughter of Edmund Ironside and a descendant of Alfred the Great. For Henry, marrying Matilda gave his reign increased legitimacy, and for Matilda, an ambitious woman, it was an opportunity for high status and power in England.

All kings of England since Henry II have been descended from the House of Wessex through Henry I's wife Matilda of Scotland, who was a great-granddaughter of Edmund Ironside.

====>From The Anarchy

After Henry's death, the English throne was taken not by his daughter Matilda, but by Stephen of Blois, ultimately resulting in civil war. Stephen was the son of Stephen-Henry of Blois, one of the powerful counts of northern France, and Adela of Normandy, daughter of William the Conqueror. Stephen and Matilda were thus first cousins. His parents allied themselves with Henry, and Stephen, as a younger son without lands of his own, became Henry's client, travelling as part of his court and serving in his campaigns. In return he received lands and was married to Matilda of Boulogne in 1125, the daughter and only heiress of the Count of Boulogne, who owned the important continental port of Boulogne and vast estates in the north-west and south-east of England. By 1135, Stephen was a well established figure in Anglo-Norman society, while his younger brother Henry had also risen to prominence, becoming the Bishop of Winchester and the second-richest man in England after the king. Henry of Winchester was keen to reverse what he perceived as encroachment by the Norman kings on the rights of the church.

However, the English rules of succession in this age were not hard and fast. Under the Anglo-Saxon system, any prince of the Royal House was deemed eligible to succeed if they were deemed "throne worthy" Aetheling. This could be passed on from father to daughter to son.

On the other hand, the Empress Matilda had several factors in her favor. First, she was the only living legitimate child of the previous king. Second, she was married to a powerful in his own right, Geoffrey "Plantagenet", Count of Anjou, whose lands bordered on the Duchy of Normandy. Third, she had a following in Normandy. Finally, she was, through her mother, a descendant of the old Anglo-Saxon Royal line, the House of Wessex. Matilda's mother, also Matilda, had originally been named Edith, an Anglo-Saxon name, and was a member of the West Saxon royal family, being the niece of Edgar the Ætheling, the great-granddaughter of Edmund Ironside and a descendant of Alfred the Great. For Henry, marrying Matilda gave his reign increased legitimacy. . All kings of England since Henry II have been descended from the House of Wessex through the Empress and her son, Henry II of England.

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