Edward the Elder

Edward the Elder was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith, and on succeeding his father he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin Æthelwold. In 910 a Mercian and West Saxon army decisively defeated an invading Northumbrian army, ending the threat from the northern Vikings, and in the decade that followed Edward conquered Viking-ruled southern England in partnership with his sister Æthelflaed, Lady of the Mercians. After her death in 918 he took her daughter Ælfwynn into Wessex and imposed direct rule on Mercia, and by the end of the 910s he ruled Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia, with only Northumbria remaining under Viking rule. He died in 924 after putting down a Mercian and Welsh revolt at Chester, and was succeeded by his eldest son Æthelstan.