Ecgberht (770/775 – 839), also spelled Egbert, Ecgbert, Ecgbriht, Ecgbeorht, and Ecbert, was King of Wessex from 802 until his death in 839. His father was King Ealhmund of Kent. In the 780s, Ecgberht was forced into exile to Charlemagne's court in the Frankish Empire by the kings Offa of Mercia and Beorhtric of Wessex, but on Beorhtric's death in 802, Ecgberht returned and took the throne.
Little is known of the first 20 years of Ecgberht's reign, but it is thought that he was able to maintain the independence of Wessex against the kingdom of Mercia, which at that time dominated the other southern English kingdoms. In 825, Ecgberht defeated Beornwulf of Mercia, ended Mercia's supremacy at the Battle of Ellandun, and proceeded to take control of the Mercian dependencies in southeastern England. In 829, he defeated Wiglaf of Mercia and drove him out of his kingdom, temporarily ruling Mercia directly. Later that year Ecgberht received the submission of the Northumbrian king at Dore. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle subsequently described Ecgberht as a bretwalda or 'wide-ruler' of Anglo-Saxon lands.
Ecgberht was unable to maintain this dominant position, and within a year Wiglaf regained the throne of Mercia. However, Wessex did retain control of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey; these territories were given to Ecgberht's son Æthelwulf to rule as a subking under Ecgberht. When Ecgberht died in 839, Æthelwulf succeeded him; the southeastern kingdoms were finally absorbed into the kingdom of Wessex after the death of Æthelwulf's son Æthelbald in 860. Ecgbert's descendants ruled Wessex and, later, all of England continuously until 1013.
Family
Historians do not agree on Ecgberht's ancestry. The earliest version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Parker Chronicle, begins with a genealogical preface tracing the ancestry of Ecgberht's son Æthelwulf back through Ecgberht, Ealhmund (thought to be king Ealhmund of Kent), and the otherwise unknown Eafa and Eoppa to Ingild, brother of King Ine of Wessex, who abdicated the throne in 726. It continues back to Cerdic, founder of the House of Wessex. Ecgberht's descent from Ingild was accepted by Frank Stenton, but not the earlier genealogy back to Cerdic. Heather Edwards in her Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article on Ecgberht argues that he was of Kentish origin, and that the West Saxon descent may have been manufactured during his reign to give him legitimacy, whereas Rory Naismith considered a Kentish origin unlikely, and that it is more probable that "Ecgberht was born of good West Saxon royal stock".
Ecgberht's wife's name is unknown. A fifteenth-century chronicle now held by Oxford University names her as Redburga, supposedly a relative of Charlemagne whom he married when he was banished to Francia, but this is dismissed by academic historians in view of its late date. Æthelwulf is their only known child.
He is reputed to have had a half-sister Alburga, later to be recognised as a saint for her founding of Wilton Abbey. She was married to Wulfstan, ealdorman of Wiltshire, and on his death in 802 she became a nun, Abbess of Wilton Abbey.
Political context and early life
Offa of Mercia, who reigned from 757 to 796, was the dominant force in Anglo-Saxon England in the second half of the eighth century. The relationship between Offa and Cynewulf, who was king of Wessex from 757 to 786, is not well documented, but it seems likely that Cynewulf maintained some independence from Mercian overlordship. Evidence of the relationship between kings can come from charters, which were documents which granted land to followers or to churchmen, and which were witnessed by the kings who had power to grant the land. In some cases a king will appear on a charter as a subregulus, or "subking", making it clear that he has an overlord. Cynewulf appears as "King of the West Saxons" on a charter of Offa's in 772, and in 779, he was defeated in battle of Bensington by Offa, but there is nothing else to suggest Cynewulf was not his own master, and he is not known to have acknowledged Offa as overlord. Offa did have influence in the southeast of the country: a charter of 764 shows him in the company of Heahberht of Kent, suggesting that Offa's influence helped place Heahberht on the throne. The extent of Offa's control of Kent between 765 and 776 is a matter of debate amongst historians, but from 776 until about 784 it appears that the Kentish kings had substantial independence from Mercia.