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Alfred was a son of Æthelwulf, king of Wessex, and his wife Osburh. [5] According to his biographer, Asser, writing in 893, "In the year of our Lord's Incarnation 849 Alfred, King of the Anglo-Saxons", was born at the royal estate called Wantage, in the district known as Berkshire [a] ("which is so called from Berroc Wood, where the box tree grows very abundantly").
The other two sons were much younger: Æthelred was born around 848 and was king from 865 to 871, and Alfred was born around 849 and was king from 871 to 899. [17] In 856, Æthelwulf married Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, King of West Francia and future Carolingian Emperor, and his wife Ermentrude. Osburh had probably died, although it ...
Osburh's existence is known only from Asser's Life of King Alfred.She is not named as witness to any charters, nor is her death reported in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.So far as is known, she was the mother of all Æthelwulf's children, his five sons Æthelstan, Æthelbald, Æthelberht, Æthelred and Alfred, and his daughter Æthelswith, wife of King Burgred of Mercia.
Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (Classic). Translated by Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge. London: Penguin Books, 2004. Asser, Johannes. The Medieval Life of King Alfred the Great: A Translation and Commentary on the Text Attributed to Asser. Translated by Alfred P. Smyth. New York: Palgrave ...
[6] [7] Several events in the series are based on events in the life of Uhtred the Bold, such as the siege of Bebbanburg by the Scots and the severed heads on poles; however, unlike many other characters in the book series who correspond closely to historical figures, such as Alfred the Great, Guthrum and King Guthred, the main character Uhtred ...
Æthelwold and his brother Æthelhelm were still infants when their father the king died while fighting a Danish Viking invasion. The throne passed to the king's younger brother (Æthelwold's uncle) Alfred the Great, who carried on the war against the Vikings and won a crucial victory at the Battle of Edington in 878.
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.
In 893, Asser wrote a biography of Alfred entitled The Life of King Alfred; in the original Latin, the title is Vita Ælfredi regis Angul Saxonum. The date is known from Asser's mention of the king's age in the text. The work, which is less than twenty thousand words long, is one of the most important sources of information on Alfred the Great ...