| House of Wessex | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 Golden Wyvern of Wessex[1] |
|||
| Country | Kingdom of Wessex, Kingdom of England | ||
| Titles | |||
| Founder | Cerdic of Wessex | ||
| Final ruler | Edward the Confessor | ||
| Founding year | 519 | ||
| Dissolution | 1066 | ||
| Ethnicity | English (see details) | ||
The House of Wessex, also known as the House of Cerdic, refers to the family that ruled a kingdom in southwest England known as Wessex. This House was in power from the 6th century under Cerdic of Wessex to the unification of the Kingdoms of England.
The House, at this point, became rulers of all England (Bretwalda) from Alfred the Great in 871 to Edmund Ironside in 1016. This period of the British monarchy is known as the Saxon period, though their rule was often contested, notably by the Danelaw and later by the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard who claimed the throne from 1013 to 1014, during the reign of Æthelred the Unready. Sweyn and his successors ruled until 1042. After Harthacanute, there was a brief Saxon Restoration between 1042 and 1066 under Edward the Confessor and Harold Godwinson, who was a member of the House of Godwin. After the Battle of Hastings, a decisive point in British history, William of Normandy became king of England. Anglo-Saxon attempts to restore native rule in the person of Edgar the Ætheling, a grandson of Edmund Ironside who had originally been passed over in favour of Harold, were unsuccessful and William's descendants secured their rule. Edgar's niece Matilda of Scotland later married William's son Henry I, forming a link between the two dynasties.
The House of Wessex was the last native English royal dynasty, the Kingdom of England and its successors since being ruled in turn by the House of Normandy (Norman French), House of Plantagenet (French), House of Tudor (Welsh), House of Stuart (Scottish), House of Orange (Dutch), House of Hanover (German) and House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (German; renamed House of Windsor in 1917).
Timeline of Wessex rulers
See also
References
- ^ Friar, Basic Heraldry, 12.
- Stephen Friar and John Ferguson (1993), Basic Heraldry, W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 978-0-393-03463-9
|
House of Wessex
|
||
| New title England united under Wessex
|
Ruling house of England 829–1013 |
Succeeded by House of Denmark |
| Preceded by House of Denmark |
Ruling house of England 1014–16 |
|
| Ruling house of England 1042–66 |
Succeeded by House of Godwin |
|
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
