Editing History of England (section)

==Anglo-Saxon period==
{{main|History of Anglo-Saxon England}}

===Anglo-Saxon migrations===
{{main|Sub-Roman Britain}}
{{further|Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain}}
[[File:2004 sutton hoo 01.JPG|thumb|Anglo-Saxon helmet from the [[Sutton Hoo]] ship burial, 625 AD (replica)]]

In the wake of the breakdown of Roman rule in Britain from the middle of the fourth century, present day England was progressively settled by [[Germanic peoples|Germanic]] groups. Collectively known as the [[Anglo-Saxons]], these included [[Angles (tribe)|Angles]], [[Saxons]], [[Jutes]] and [[Frisians]]. The [[Battle of Deorham]] was critical in establishing Anglo-Saxon rule in 577.<ref>{{cite web |author=Hamerow, Helena |url=http://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/wessex.html |title=The Origins of Wessex |publisher=University of Oxford |access-date=18 November 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120702185330/https://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/wessex.html |archive-date=2 July 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Saxon mercenaries existed in Britain since before the late Roman period, but the main influx of population probably happened after the fifth century. The precise nature of these invasions is not fully known; there are doubts about the legitimacy of historical accounts due to a lack of archaeological finds. [[Gildas]]' ''De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae'', composed in the 6th century, states that when the Roman army departed the Isle of Britannia in the 4th century AD, the indigenous Britons were invaded by [[Picts]], their neighbours to the north (now Scotland) and the [[Scoti|Scots]] (now Ireland). Britons invited the [[Saxons]] to the island to repel them but after they vanquished the Scots and Picts, the Saxons turned against the Britons.
[[File:Britain peoples circa 600.svg|thumb|Kingdoms and tribes in [[Britain in the Middle Ages|Britain]], c. AD&nbsp;600]]

[[File:Beowulf Cotton MS Vitellius A XV f. 132r.jpg|thumb|left|The epic poem ''[[Beowulf]]'', set in 6th century Scandinavia, composed c. 700–1000 AD.|239x239px]]

Seven kingdoms are traditionally identified as being established by these migrants. Three were clustered in the South east: [[Sussex]], [[Kingdom of Kent|Kent]] and [[Kingdom of Essex|Essex]]. The Midlands were dominated by the kingdoms of [[Mercia]] and [[Kingdom of East Anglia|East Anglia]]. To the north was [[Kingdom of Northumbria|Northumbria]] which unified two earlier kingdoms, [[Bernicia]] and [[Deira]]. Other smaller kingdoms seem to have existed as well, such as [[Kingdom of Lindsey|Lindsey]] in what is now Lincolnshire, and the [[Hwicce]] in the southwest. Eventually, the kingdoms were dominated by [[Kingdom of Northumbria|Northumbria]] and [[Mercia]] in the 7th century, [[Mercia]] in the 8th century and then [[Wessex]] in the 9th century. [[Kingdom of Northumbria|Northumbria]] eventually extended its control north into [[Scotland]] and west into [[Wales]]. It also subdued [[Mercia]] whose first powerful King, [[Penda of Mercia|Penda]], was killed by [[Oswiu of Northumbria|Oswy]] in 655. Northumbria's power began to wane after 685 with the defeat and death of its king [[Ecgfrith of Northumbria|Aegfrith]] at the hands of the [[Picts]]. Mercian power reached its peak under the rule of [[Offa of Mercia|Offa]], who from 785 had influence over most of Anglo-Saxon England. Since Offa's death in 796, the supremacy of [[Wessex]] was established under [[Egbert of Wessex|Egbert]] who extended control west into [[Cornwall]] before defeating the Mercians at the [[Battle of Ellendun]] in 825. Four years later, he received submission and tribute from the Northumbrian king, [[Eanred of Northumbria|Eanred]].<ref>Stenton, Frank. "Anglo-Saxon England". OUP, 1971</ref>

Since so few contemporary sources exist, the events of the fifth and sixth centuries are difficult to ascertain. As such, the nature of the Anglo-Saxon settlements is debated by historians, archaeologists and linguists. The traditional view, that the Anglo-Saxons drove the Romano-British inhabitants out of what is now England, was subject to reappraisal in the later twentieth century. One suggestion is that the invaders were smaller in number, drawn from an elite class of male warriors that gradually acculturated the natives.<ref>Francis Pryor, ''Britain AD'', 2004.</ref><ref>Ward-Perkins, Bryan. "Why did the Anglo-Saxons not become more British?." The English Historical Review 115.462 (2000): page 523.</ref><ref>Higham, Nicholas J. and Ryan, Martin J. ''The Anglo-Saxon World'' (Yale University Press, 2013).</ref>

An emerging view is that the scale of the Anglo-Saxon settlement varied across England, and that as such it cannot be described by any one process in particular. Mass migration and population shift seem to be most applicable in the core areas of settlement such as East Anglia and Lincolnshire,<ref>Stefan Burmeister, ''Archaeology and Migration'' (2000): " ... immigration in the nucleus of the Anglo-Saxon settlement does not seem aptly described in terms of the "elite-dominance model.To all appearances, the settlement was carried out by small, agriculture-oriented kinship groups. This process corresponds more closely to a classic settler model. The absence of early evidence of a socially demarcated elite underscores the supposition that such an elite did not play a substantial role. Rich burials such as are well known from Denmark have no counterparts in England until the 6th century. At best, the elite-dominance model might apply in the peripheral areas of the settlement territory, where an immigration predominantly {{sic|comprised |hide=y|of}} men and the existence of hybrid cultural forms might support it."</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Dark|first=Ken R.|title=Large-scale population movements into and from Britain south of Hadrian's Wall in the fourth to sixth centuries AD|year=2003|url=https://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/GCMS/RMS-2003-03_K._R._Dark,_Large-scale_population_movements_into_and_from_Britan_south_of_Hadrian's_Wall_in_the_fourth_to_sixth_centuries_AD.pdf}}: "In fact, part of eastern Britain may have already been losing a significant portion of its rural population, as evidence from East Anglia – amassed and analyzed by local archaeologists –  may suggest. In this area at least, and possibly more widely in eastern Britain, large tracts of land appear to have been deserted in the late fourth century, possibly including whole "small towns" and villages. This does not seem to have been a localised change in settlement location, size or character but genuine desertion ... The areas where we have most indications of an intrusive Germanic culture are precisely those where we have most evidence of late fourth-century abandonment."</ref><ref>Toby F. Martin, ''The Cruciform Brooch and Anglo-Saxon England'', Boydell and Brewer Press (2015), pp. 174–178: "There is by now, however, an admission that no single model is suitable for Anglo-Saxon England in its entirety. Regional variation may well provide the key to resolution, with something more akin to mass migration in the southeast, gradually spreading into elite dominance in the north and west. I accord with this compromise between the debates insofar as large-scale migration seems highly likely for at least East Anglia and parts of Lincolnshire. At the same time, however, it is dubious that these people migrated as a coherent Anglian group."</ref><ref>Catherine Hills, "The Anglo-Saxon Migration: An Archaeological Case Study of Disruption," in ''Migrations and Disruptions'', ed. Brenda J. Baker and Takeyuki Tsuda, pp. 45–48: "In a fairly precisely defined region in eastern England, centered on Norfolk and Lincolnshire, a significant number of people from the other side of the north sea do seem to have arrived in the fifth century and established territories where Germanic material culture and, especially, burial practices were dominant. This forms the basis for the "Anglian" zone of later Anglo-Saxon England. The population may indeed have included a substantial number of people with Germanic ancestry as well as an as yet unspecifiable proportion of the native British population ... There was not one "Anglo-Saxon migration" that had the same impact in all of England ..."</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Coates|first=Richard|title=Celtic whispers: revisiting the problems of the relation between Brittonic and Old English|url=https://ul.qucosa.de/api/qucosa%3A31804/attachment/ATT-0/}}: "... I believe that the linguistic evidence favors the traditional view, at least for the south-east and for the southern North Sea coastal lands, i.e. East Anglia."</ref> while in more peripheral areas to the northwest, much of the native population likely remained in place as the incomers took over as elites.<ref name="Härke, Heinrich 2011">Härke, Heinrich. "Anglo-Saxon Immigration and Ethnogenesis." ''Medieval Archaeology'' 55.1 (2011): 1–28: "A third model, that of "elite transfer," has been suggested for Bernicia where a small group of immigrants may have replaced the British elite and took over the kingdom as a going concern."</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Kortlandt|first=Frederik|title=Relative Chronology|year=2018|url=https://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art320e.pdf}}: "The second migration, which attracted incomers from other Germanic tribes, offers a different picture for Northumbria, and more specifically Bernicia, where there was a noticeable Celtic contribution to art, culture and possibly socio-military organisation. It appears that the immigrants took over the institutions of the local population here."</ref> In a study of place names in northeastern England and southern Scotland, Bethany Fox concluded that Anglian migrants settled in large numbers in river valleys, such as those of the Tyne and the Tweed, with the Britons in the less fertile hill country becoming acculturated over a longer period. Fox interprets the process by which English came to dominate this region as "a synthesis of mass-migration and elite-takeover models."<ref>{{cite web|last=Fox |first=Bethany |title=The P-Celtic Place Names of North-East England and South-East Scotland |website=The Heroic Age |date=2007 |url=http://www.heroicage.org/issues/10/fox.html}}</ref>

===Genetic markers of Anglo-Saxon migrations===
{{main|Genetic history of the British Isles}}
[[File:Sutton Hoo Schliesse 1 7 Jhd.JPG|thumb|Shoulder clasp from [[Sutton Hoo]], 625 AD]]
Genetic testing has been used to find evidence of large scale immigration of [[Germanic peoples]] into England. [[#Weale|Weale ''et al.'' (2002)]] found that English Y DNA data showed signs of a mass [[Anglo-Saxon]] immigration from the European continent, affecting 50%–100% of the male gene pool in central England. This was based on the similarity of the DNA collected from small English towns to that found in [[Frisia|Friesland]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Y Chromosome Evidence for Anglo-Saxon Mass Migration|url=https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/19/7/1008/1068561}}</ref> A 2003 study with samples coming from larger towns, found a large variance in amounts of continental "Germanic" ancestry in different parts of England.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=C. |last1=Capelli |first2=N. |last2=Redhead |first3=J.K. |last3=Abernethy |first4=F. |last4=Gatrix |first5=J.F. |last5=Wilson |first6=T. |last6=Moen |first7=T. |last7=Hervig |first8=M. |last8=Richards |first9=M.P.H. |last9=Stumpf |first10=P.A. |last10=Underhill |first11=P. |last11=Bradshaw |first12=A. |last12=Shaha |first13=M.G. |last13=Thomas |first14=N. |last14=Bradman |first15=D.B. |last15=Goldstein |year=2003 |title=A Y chromosome census of the British Isles |journal=Current Biology |volume=13 |issue=11 |pages=979–984 |doi=10.1016/S0960-9822(03)00373-7 |pmid=12781138 |bibcode=2003CBio...13..979C |s2cid=526263 |url=https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/10690515/A_Y_chromosome_census_of_the_British_Isles.pdf |access-date=3 September 2020 |archive-date=8 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210708152834/https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/10690515/A_Y_chromosome_census_of_the_British_Isles.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> In the study, such markers typically ranged from 20% and 45% in southern England, with East Anglia, the east Midlands, and Yorkshire having over 50%. North German and Danish genetic frequencies were indistinguishable, thus precluding any ability to distinguish between the genetic influence of the Anglo-Saxon source populations and the later, and better documented, influx of Danish Vikings.<ref>{{Cite web|title=A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles|url=https://www.csueastbay.edu/museum/files/docs/exhibit/dna/dna-chrom-isles.pdf}}</ref> The mean value of continental Germanic genetic input in this study was calculated at 54 per cent.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Härke|first1=Heinrich|last2=Thomas|first2=Mark G|last3=Stumpf|first3=Michael P H|title=Integration versus apartheid in post-Roman Britain: A response to Pattison|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23135029}}</ref>

In response to arguments, such as those of [[Stephen Oppenheimer]]<ref name="oppenheimer">Oppenheimer, Stephen (2006). The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story: Constable and Robinson, London. {{ISBN|978-1-84529-158-7}}.</ref> and [[Bryan Sykes]], that the similarity between English and continental Germanic DNA could have originated from earlier prehistoric migrations, researchers have begun to use data collected from ancient burials to ascertain the level of Anglo-Saxon contribution to the modern English gene pool.

Two studies published in 2016, based on data collected from skeletons found in Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon era graves in Cambridgeshire and Yorkshire, concluded that the ancestry of the modern English population contains large contributions from both Anglo-Saxon migrants and Romano-British natives.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon genomes from East England reveal British migration history|year=2016 |doi=10.1038/ncomms10408 |last1=Schiffels |first1=Stephan |last2=Haak |first2=Wolfgang |last3=Paajanen |first3=Pirita |last4=Llamas |first4=Bastien |last5=Popescu |first5=Elizabeth |last6=Loe |first6=Louise |last7=Clarke |first7=Rachel |last8=Lyons |first8=Alice |last9=Mortimer |first9=Richard |last10=Sayer |first10=Duncan |last11=Tyler-Smith |first11=Chris |last12=Cooper |first12=Alan |last13=Durbin |first13=Richard |journal=Nature Communications |volume=7 |page=10408 |pmid=26783965 |pmc=4735688 |bibcode=2016NatCo...710408S |s2cid=14795869 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Martiniano |first1=Rui |last2=Caffell |first2=Anwen |last3=Holst |first3=Malin |author-link3=Malin Holst |last4=Hunter-Mann |first4=Kurt |last5=Montgomery |first5=Janet |last6=Müldner |first6=Gundula |last7=McLaughlin |first7=Russell L. |last8=Teasdale |first8=Matthew D. |last9=Van Rheenen |first9=Wouter |last10=Veldink |first10=Jan H. |last11=Van Den Berg |first11=Leonard H. |last12=Hardiman |first12=Orla |last13=Carroll |first13=Maureen |last14=Roskams |first14=Steve |last15=Oxley |first15=John |year=2016 |title=Genomic signals of migration and continuity in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons |journal=Nature Communications |volume=7 |page=10326 |bibcode=2016NatCo...710326M |doi=10.1038/ncomms10326 |pmc=4735653 |pmid=26783717 |s2cid=13817552 |last16=Morgan |first16=Colleen |last17=Thomas |first17=Mark G. |last18=Barnes |first18=Ian |last19=McDonnell |first19=Christine |last20=Collins |first20=Matthew J. |last21=Bradley |first21=Daniel G.}}</ref>

===Heptarchy and Christianisation===
{{main|Northumbria|Mercia|Offa of Mercia|Heptarchy|Gregorian mission|Anglo-Saxon Christianity}}
[[File:Ruthwell Cross Christ on south side.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Ruthwell Cross]], 8th century AD|202x202px]]
[[File:LindisfarneFol27rIncipitMatt.jpg|thumb|Folio 27r from the [[Lindisfarne Gospels]], c. 720 AD]]

Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England began around 600 AD, influenced by [[Celtic Christianity]] from the northwest and the [[Roman Catholic Church]] from the southeast. [[Augustine of Canterbury|Augustine]], the first [[Archbishop of Canterbury]], took office in 597. In 601, he baptised the first Christian Anglo-Saxon king, [[Æthelberht of Kent]]. The last [[Anglo-Saxon paganism|pagan]] Anglo-Saxon king, [[Penda of Mercia]], died in 655. The last pagan [[Jutes|Jutish]] king, [[Arwald]] of the [[Isle of Wight]] was killed in 686. The [[Anglo-Saxon mission]] on the continent took off in the 8th century, leading to the Christianisation of practically all of the [[Frankish Empire]] by 800.

Throughout the 7th and 8th centuries, power fluctuated between the larger kingdoms. [[Bede]] records Æthelberht of Kent as being dominant at the close of the 6th century, but power seems to have shifted northwards to the kingdom of Northumbria, which was formed from the amalgamation of Bernicia and Deira. [[Edwin of Northumbria]] probably held dominance over much of Britain, though Bede's Northumbrian bias should be kept in mind. Due to succession crises, Northumbrian hegemony was not constant, and [[Mercia]] remained a very powerful kingdom, especially under Penda. Two defeats ended Northumbrian dominance: the Battle of the Trent in 679 against Mercia, and Nechtanesmere in 685 against the [[Picts]].<ref>Frank Merry Stenton, ''Anglo-Saxon England'' (1971).</ref>

The so-called "Mercian Supremacy" dominated the 8th century, though it was not constant. Aethelbald and [[Offa of Mercia|Offa]], the two most powerful kings, achieved high status; indeed, Offa was considered the overlord of south Britain by [[Charlemagne]]. His power is illustrated by the fact that he summoned the resources to build [[Offa's Dyke]]. However, a rising Wessex, and challenges from smaller kingdoms, kept Mercian power in check, and by the early 9th century the "Mercian Supremacy" was over.

This period has been described as the [[Heptarchy]], though this term has now fallen out of academic use. The term arose because the seven kingdoms of [[Northumbria]], [[Mercia]], [[Kingdom of Kent|Kent]], [[Kingdom of East Anglia|East Anglia]], [[Kingdom of Essex|Essex]], [[Kingdom of Sussex|Sussex]] and [[Kingdom of Wessex|Wessex]] were the main polities of south Britain. Other small kingdoms were also politically important across this period: [[Hwicce]], [[Magonsaete]], [[Kingdom of Lindsey|Lindsey]] and Middle Anglia.<ref>Peter Hayes Sawyer, ''From Roman Britain to Norman England'' (Routledge, 2002).</ref>

===Viking challenge and the rise of Wessex===
{{main|Danelaw|Viking Age|Alfred the Great}}

[[File:England 878.svg|thumb|England in 878]]

The first recorded landing of [[Viking]]s took place in 787 in [[Dorset]]shire, on the south-west coast.<ref>{{cite book|last=Rees|first=Rosemary|title=The Vikings|url=https://archive.org/details/vikings0000rees|url-access=registration|year=2002|publisher=Heinemann|isbn=9781403401007|page=[https://archive.org/details/vikings0000rees/page/45 45]}}</ref> The first major attack in Britain was in 793 at [[Lindisfarne]] monastery as given by the ''[[Anglo-Saxon Chronicle]]''. However, by then the Vikings were almost certainly well-established in [[Orkney]] and [[Shetland]], and many other non-recorded raids probably occurred before this. Records do show the first Viking attack on [[Iona]] taking place in 794. The arrival of the Vikings (in particular the Danish [[Great Heathen Army]]) upset the political and social geography of Britain and Ireland. In 867 [[Kingdom of Northumbria|Northumbria]] fell to the Danes; [[Kingdom of East Anglia|East Anglia]] fell in 869. Though [[Wessex]] managed to contain the Vikings by defeating them at [[Battle of Ashdown|Ashdown]] in 871, a second invading army landed, leaving the Saxons on a defensive footing. At much the same time, [[Æthelred I, King of Wessex|Æthelred]], king of Wessex died and was succeeded by his younger brother [[Alfred the Great|Alfred]]. Alfred was immediately confronted with the task of defending Wessex against the Danes. He spent the first five years of his reign paying the invaders off. In 878, Alfred's forces were overwhelmed at Chippenham in a surprise attack.<ref>Albany F. Major, ''Early wars of Wessex'' (Hildreth Press, 2008).</ref>

[[File:The Alfred Jewel.jpg|thumb|The [[Alfred Jewel]], late 9th century|234x234px]]

It was only now, with the independence of Wessex hanging by a thread, that Alfred emerged as a great king. In May 878 he led a force that defeated the Danes at [[Battle of Edington|Edington]]. The victory was so complete that the Danish leader, [[Guthrum]], was forced to accept Christian baptism and withdraw from [[Mercia]]. Alfred then set about strengthening the defences of Wessex, building a new navy—60 vessels strong. Alfred's success bought Wessex and Mercia years of peace and sparked economic recovery in previously ravaged areas.<ref>Richard P. Ables, ''Alfred the great: war, kingship and culture I'm Anglo-Saxon England'' (1998).</ref>

Alfred's success was sustained by his son [[Edward the Elder|Edward]], whose decisive victories over the Danes in East Anglia in 910 and 911 were followed by a crushing victory at Tempsford in 917. These military gains allowed Edward to fully incorporate Mercia into his kingdom and add East Anglia to his conquests. Edward then set about reinforcing his northern borders against the Danish [[kingdom of Northumbria]]. Edward's rapid conquest of the English kingdoms meant Wessex received homage from those that remained, including [[Gwynedd]] in Wales and Scotland. His dominance was reinforced by his son [[Æthelstan]], who extended the borders of Wessex northward, in 927 conquering the [[Kingdom of York]] and leading a land and naval invasion of [[Scotland]]. These conquests led to his adopting the title 'King of the English' for the first time.

The dominance and independence of England was maintained by the kings that followed. It was not until 978 and the accession of [[Æthelred the Unready]] that the Danish threat resurfaced. Two powerful Danish kings ([[Harold Bluetooth]] and later his son [[Sweyn Forkbeard|Sweyn]]) both launched devastating invasions of England. Anglo-Saxon forces were resoundingly defeated at [[Battle of Maldon|Maldon]] in 991. More Danish attacks followed, and their victories were frequent. Æthelred's control over his nobles began to falter, and he grew increasingly desperate. His solution was to pay off the Danes: for almost 20 years he paid increasingly large sums to the Danish nobles to keep them from English coasts. These payments, known as [[Danegeld]]s, crippled the English economy.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 569175|title = The Collection of Danegeld and Heregeld in the Reigns of Aethelred II and Cnut|journal = The English Historical Review|volume = 99|issue = 393|pages = 721–738|last1 = Lawson|first1 = M. K.|year = 1984|doi = 10.1093/ehr/XCIX.CCCXCIII.721}}</ref>

[[Æthelred the Unready|Æthelred]] then made an alliance with [[Normandy]] in 1001 through marriage to the Duke's daughter [[Emma of Normandy|Emma]], in the hope of strengthening England. Then he made a great error: in 1002 he ordered the massacre of all the Danes in England. In response, Sweyn began a decade of devastating attacks on England. Northern England, with its sizable Danish population, sided with Sweyn. By 1013, London, Oxford, and Winchester had fallen to the Danes. Æthelred fled to [[Normandy]] and Sweyn seized the throne. Sweyn suddenly died in 1014, and Æthelred returned to England, confronted by Sweyn's successor, [[Cnut the Great|Cnut]]. However, in 1016, Æthelred also suddenly died. Cnut swiftly defeated the remaining Saxons, killing Æthelred's son [[Edmund Ironside|Edmund]] in the process. Cnut seized the throne, crowning himself King of England.<ref>Thames Cussans, ''Kings and Queens of the British Isles'' (The Times Books, 2002), pp.32–35.</ref>

===English unification===
{{main|Æthelstan|Edgar of England}}

[[File:Athelstan (cropped).jpg|thumb|Frontispiece of [[Bede]]'s ''Life of St Cuthbert'', showing King Æthelstan presenting a copy of the book to the saint himself. c. 930|280x280px]]

[[Alfred of Wessex]] died in 899 and was succeeded by his son [[Edward the Elder]]. Edward, and his brother-in-law [[Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians|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. On Edward's death, Æthelstan 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. The titles attributed to him in [[Anglo-Saxon charters|charters]] and on coins suggest a still more widespread dominance. His expansion aroused ill-feeling among the other kingdoms of Britain, and he defeated a combined Scottish-Viking army at the [[Battle of Brunanburh]]. However, the unification of England was not a certainty. Under Æthelstan's successors [[Edmund I|Edmund]] and [[Edred of England|Eadred]] the English kings repeatedly lost and regained control of Northumbria. Nevertheless, [[Edgar of England|Edgar]], who ruled the same expanse as Æthelstan, consolidated the kingdom, which remained united thereafter.

===England under the Danes and the Norman conquest===
{{main|Ethelred the Unready|Canute the Great|Eiríkr Hákonarson|Norman conquest of England}}

There were renewed Scandinavian attacks on England at the end of the 10th century. [[Æthelred the Unready|Æthelred]] ruled a long reign but ultimately lost his kingdom to [[Sweyn I of Denmark|Sweyn of Denmark]], though he recovered it following the latter's death. However, Æthelred's son [[Edmund II Ironside]] died shortly afterwards, allowing [[Cnut the Great|Cnut]], Sweyn's son, to become king of England. Under his rule the kingdom became the centre of government for the [[North Sea Empire|North Sea empire]] which included Denmark and Norway.

Cnut was succeeded by his sons, but in 1042 the native dynasty was restored with the accession of [[Edward the Confessor]]. Edward's failure to produce an heir caused a furious conflict over the succession on his death in 1066. His struggles for power against [[Godwin, Earl of Wessex]], the claims of Cnut's Scandinavian successors, and the ambitions of the [[Normans]] whom Edward introduced to English politics to bolster his own position caused each to vie for control of Edward's reign.

[[File:Hexateuch king.jpg|thumb|Anglo-Saxon king with his [[Witan]]. Biblical scene in the [[Old English Hexateuch]] (11th century)]]

[[Harold Godwinson]] became king, probably appointed by Edward on his deathbed and endorsed by the [[Witan]]. But [[William of Normandy]], [[Harald Hardrada|Harald Hardråde]] (aided by Harold Godwin's estranged brother [[Tostig Godwinson|Tostig]]) and [[Sweyn II of Denmark]] all asserted claims to the throne. By far the strongest hereditary claim was that of [[Edgar the Ætheling]], but due to his youth and apparent lack of powerful supporters, he did not play a major part in the struggles of 1066, although he was made king for a short time by the Witan after the death of Harold Godwinson.

In September 1066, [[Harald III of Norway]] and [[Earl Tostig]] [[Harald III Hardrada#Invasion of England|landed in Northern England]] with a force of around 15,000 men and 300 [[longship]]s. [[Harold Godwinson]] defeated the invaders and killed Harald III of Norway and Tostig at the [[Battle of Stamford Bridge]].

On 28 September 1066, [[William of Normandy]] [[Norman Conquest#Norman invasion|invaded England]] in a campaign called the [[Norman Conquest]]. After marching from [[Yorkshire]], Harold's exhausted army was defeated and Harold was killed at the [[Battle of Hastings]] on 14 October. Further opposition to William in support of [[Edgar the Ætheling]] soon collapsed, and William was crowned king on Christmas Day 1066. For five years, he faced a series of rebellions in various parts of England and a half-hearted Danish invasion, but he subdued them and established an enduring regime.