AEthelwulf of England ^{1 2}

   Another name for AEthelwulf was Ethelwulf of Wessex and Kent.

  General Notes:

Anglo-Saxon king in England, the father of King Alfred the Great. As ruler of the West Saxons from 839 to 856, he allied his kingdom of Wessex with Mercia and thereby withstood invasions by Danish Vikings.

The son of the great West Saxon king Egbert (ruled 802-839), Aethelwulf ascended the throne four years after the Danes had begun large-scale raids on the English coast. In 851 he scored a major victory over a large Danish army at a place called Aclea in Surrey. Aethelwulf then married his daughter to the Mercian king Burgred (853), and in 856 he himself married the daughter of Charles II the Bald, king of the West Franks. Aethelwulf was deposed by a rival faction upon his return from a pilgrimage to Rome in 856, but he continued to rule Kent and several other eastern provinces until his death. In addition to Alfred the Great (ruled 871-899), three of Aethelwulf's four other sons became kings of Wessex.

  Noted events in his life were:

• He was a King of Wessex and Kent from 00 0839 to 856.

AEthelwulf married Osburh of Wight. (Osburh of Wight died in 860.)

AEthelwulf next married Judith of the West Franks, daughter of Charles II the Bald of France and Irmentrud of Orleans, on 1 Oct 856. (Judith of the West Franks was born in 843 and died in 870.)