caption father predecessor successor succession house death_date alt spouse issue image article_title name reign
Æthelwulf the kings of england '' in the early fourteenth-century '' genealogical roll of egbert egbert Æthelbald king of wessex house of wessex 13 january 858 Æthelwulf england '' in the '' roll of the kings of osburh judith Æthelstan mercia Æthelbald , king of wessex Æthelberht , king of , wessex Æthelred , king of wessex alfred , king of king wessex of kent Æthelswith , queen of file : Æthelwulf - ms royal 14 b vi.jpg Æthelwulf
 Æthelwulf 839 -- 858
Æthelwulf

Æthelwulf -lrb- old english for `` noble wolf '' -rrb- was king of wessex from 839 to 858 .
in 825 his father , king egbert , defeated king beornwulf of mercia , ending a long mercian dominance over anglo-saxon england south of the humber .
egbert then sent Æthelwulf with an army to kent , where he expelled the mercian sub-king and was appointed sub-king himself .
after 830 egbert followed a policy of maintaining good relations with mercia , and this was continued by Æthelwulf when he became king in 839 , the first son to succeed his father as west saxon king since 641 .
the vikings became an increasing threat on both sides of the english channel in the 840s , and in 843 Æthelwulf was defeated in a battle at carhampton in somerset , but he achieved a major victory at the battle of aclea in 851 .
the vikings did not pose a major threat during his reign .
in 853 he married his daughter Æthelswith to king burgred of mercia , and in the same year he joined a mercian expedition to wales to restore the traditional mercian hegemony .
in 855 Æthelwulf went on pilgrimage to rome .
in preparation he gave a `` decimation '' , donating a tenth of his personal property to his subjects ; he appointed his eldest surviving son Æthelbald to act as king of wessex in his absence , and next son Æthelberht to rule kent and the south-east .
he spent a year in rome , and on his way back he married judith , the twelve or thirteen year old daughter of the west frankish king charles the bald .
when Æthelwulf returned to england , Æthelbald refused to surrender the west saxon throne , and Æthelwulf agreed to divide the kingdom , taking the east and leaving the west in his son 's hands .
on Æthelwulf 's death in 858 he left wessex to Æthelbald and kent to Æthelberht , but Æthelbald 's death only two years later led to the re-unification of the kingdom .
in the twentieth century Æthelwulf 's reputation among historians was low , and he was seen as pious and impractical , but historians in the twenty-first century regard him as one of the most successful west saxon kings , who laid the foundations for the success of his son , alfred the great .
