Aethelstan, the First King of England

Description

Traveling from Devon to Cumbria, Scotland and Rome, Michael Wood tells the tale of King Alfred's grandson Aethelstan's wars and shows how he created a national coinage and established a political assembly that later became the English Parliament. But there's also a dark side, with legends that the king had his brother drowned at sea. Aethelstan defeated an invasion of Vikings and Scots in what became known as the Anglo-Saxon 'Great War.' Wood argues that he was one of the greatest English monarchs, and with his grandfather Alfred, his father Edward, and his aunt Aethelflaed, a member of a royal family 'even more gifted and influential in British history than the Tudors?

Runtime

60 min

Series

Contributor

Geography

Genre

Date of Publication

[2014], c2013

Database

Films on Demand

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