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 manuscript of the Chronicle), and Asser's Life of King Alfred. A continuation of the tree into the 10th and 11th centuries can be found at English monarchs family tree. The chart shows their (claimed) descent from the traditional first king of Wessex, Cerdic, down to the children of Alfred the Great. The only English monarch to be given the epithet 'the Great'. Deposed (and killed?) by CynewulfĪssassinated by Cyneheard, brother of Sigeberht Relative, possibly brother, of Æthelheard.ĭistant relative of Cuthred. Usurper abdicated, possibly of British origin. Traditionally son of Cynegils, but this is disputed. (Disputed) Perhaps reigned between Seaxburh and his son Æscwine. Reigned jointly with her husband Cenwalh until his death 674 Restored reigned jointly with his wife Queen Seaxburh 672 to 674.

Possibly Celtic, Brythonic, nameĬo-ruler with Cynegils, perhaps his son of this name. Sources derive him from Cynric, but name different dynasty members as his father. Son, or according to some sources grandson, of Cerdic. The early Engle restricted the use of runes to monuments, whereas the Saxons adopted wynn and thorn for sounds which did not have a Latin equivalent. Again the West Saxons initially preferred the character derived from a rune, and the Angles/Engle preferred the Latin-derived lettering VV, consistent with the thorn versus eth usage pattern.Įxcept in manuscripts, runic letters were an Anglian phenomenon. W was occasionally rendered VV (later UU), but the runic character wynn (Ƿ or ƿ) was a common way of writing the /w/ sound. The era pre-dates the emergence of some forms of writing accepted today notably rare were lower case characters, and the letters W and U. The character ⁊ ( Tironian et) was used as the ampersand (&) in contemporary Anglo-Saxon writings.

Separate letters th were preferred in the earliest period in Northern texts, and returned to dominate by the Middle English period onward.

Thorn tended to be more used in the south (Wessex) and eth in the North (Mercia and Northumbria). They were used indiscriminately for voiced and unvoiced ⟨th⟩ sounds, unlike in modern Icelandic. Among these are the preference between the runic character thorn (Þ, lower-case þ, from the rune of the same name) and the letter eth (Ð or ð), both of which are equivalent to modern ⟨th⟩ and were interchangeable. A number of variations of the details below exist. This was a period in which spellings varied widely, even within a document. The names are given in modern English form followed by the names and titles (as far as is known) in contemporary Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and Latin, the prevalent languages of record at the time in England. While the details of the later monarchs are confirmed by a number of sources, the earlier ones are in many cases obscure. For later monarchs, see the List of English monarchs. This is a list of monarchs of Wessex until AD 886.

King alfred of wessex