The Saxon Kings

When the Roman Empire of the West relinquished control over the embattled province of Roman Britain in the early 5th century, the island's population fell prey to savage marauders from across the North Sea - the Angles and Saxons. So began six epic centuries of uninterrupted conflict, as the Anglo-Saxons fought first for mastery of Britain, then for supremacy amongst themselves, and finally for survival against the murderous VIkings. By 875 Wressex alone survived, led to victory against the Danes by Alfred: dogged soldier and self-taught scholar, King of Wessex and, by the end of his reign, of virtually all England. Alfred was the vital bridge between the old England and the new - out of the turmoil of the Danish wars a new national identity emerged. Richard Humble gives a clear, exciting account of these obscure times, and traces England's continued recovery under Alfred's heirs - the first true kings of England, who raised the island people to a status previously unknown among the greatest powers of Christian Europe. Within 110 years of Alfred's death however, the picture had changed completely; the disastrous reign of Ethelred ended with the English humiliated, ruined, and subject to Danish rule. But stubborn Saxon loyalty outlived the interlude of the Anglo-Danish kings. It sustained both Edward the Confessor and Harold Godwinesson, and survived evn the carnage of Hastings before its final extinction under the brutal regime of William of Normandy...