Paul Hill came to speak to us in October on a past king of all England who he felt has been somewhat neglected by historians. Athelstan (reigned 924-939) was the grandson of Alfred the Great and carried on his great work of uniting warring tribes and keeping Danes and Norsemen at bay.

His father Edward the Elder had defeated the Danes of Northumbria, unfortunately leaving a power vacuum which was almost immediately filled by the Norse from Dublin (who also controlled Strathclyde), so creating a dangerous alliance between Northumbria and the Danes of York. Aethelflaed of Mercia, Athelstan’s warrior aunt, had brought him up; she had a power base at Tamworth and also at an early Warwick Castle. Athelstan was eventually chosen by the Mercians to become king of the united Anglo-Saxons; the old Saxon capital of Winchester would have preferred his step-brother Aelfweard, but he died young and his other step-brother Edwin did not match up to Athelstan as kingly material. Athelstan had Edwin killed, but not before apparently extracting the secret of freemasonry (imported from the East) from him. Today freemasonry still has its Athelstan Lodge.

After becoming king Athelstan married one of his sisters to Sitric of York to form an alliance, but Sitric gave up Christianity and entered into a Danish, Norse and Scottish alliance. In 927 Athelstan sent an army to Strathclyde and scattered their forces. It is clear that Athelstan wished to model his new kingdom on the old Roman province of Britannia, and described himself on his coinage as Rex Totius Britanniae.

By 937 the Danish-Norse-Scottish forces had gathered again, and Athelstan and his army met and soundly defeated them at the great Battle of Brunenberg, perhaps the most historically important battle to be fought on British soil – arguably equal to the Battle of Hastings - as afterward England as a country was definitely established, yet the site of the battle has been lost, although there are many theories as to where it was, indeed one chronicler, Ingulf, actually says it was in Northumbria. Even around 1000 AD and later ordinary people still recalled ‘the great War’ and there were many poems about the battle.

There are various clues as to Brunenberg’s whereabouts: the Norse king Olaf survived and fled back to his ships – was it therefore near the coast? Old placenames in the North suggest variants on the name Brunenberg and one site is near to placenames which suggest ‘Olaf’s camp’ and ‘Athelstan’s camp’. Lying in one Northern river is a great boulder called the ‘Battlestone’, and there is a legend of five Danish jarls buried on the hill nearby.

But by the 13th century Athelstan’s reputation had started to decline and defamatory plays were written about him in which he was portrayed as a tyrant. At one time Athelstan had controlled virtually the whole island of Britain, not achieved again until the 18th century. Perhaps it was thought he must have been corrupted by such power; and so his memory faded.

Yvonne Masson