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Updated: May 1, 2025
In his life he had performed divers miracles so that his grave became a place of pilgrimage, and it is said to have been about this shrine that the village and church of Steyning grew up. It remained a holy place, and Ethelwolf, the father of Alfred, is said to have been buried there, his body later being removed to Winchester.
In 833, a parliament was held at London, in the presence of King Egbert, with his son Ethelwolf, and Withlaf, the tributary King of Mercia, and most of the prelates and great men of the realm, to deliberate on the best means they could adopt to prevent the Danes from invading England. In 1210, King John summoned a parliament to meet him at his palace in St.
The dispensation was granted, and Ethelwolf became a general in the army. In the end his brother died, and he became king. He continued, however, during his reign, to manifest the peaceful, quiet, and serious character which had led him to enter the monastery, and which had probably been strengthened and confirmed by the influences and habits to which he had been accustomed there.
Ethelwolf fell under the displeasure of Hardicanute, perhaps because he was more Saxon than Danish; and though that savage king did not dare openly to arraign him before the Witan, he gave secret orders by which he was butchered on his own hearthstone, in the arms of his wife, who died shortly afterwards of grief and terror.
His father's name was Ethelwolf; and it seems highly probable that the peculiar turn which Alfred's mind seemed to take in after years, was the consequence, in some considerable degree, of this parent's situation and character. Ethelwolf was a younger son, and was brought up in a monastery at Winchester.
But the English, more military than the Britons, whom a few centuries before they had treated with like violence, roused themselves with a vigour proportioned to the exigency. Ethelwolf, impelled by the urgency of the danger, marched against them at the head of the West Saxons, and carrying with him his second son, Ethelbald, gave them battle at Okely, and gained a bloody victory over them.
Hilda was left with an only daughter, whom Canute bestowed on Ethelwolf, a Saxon Earl of large domains, and tracing his descent from Penda, that old King of Mercia who refused to be converted, but said so discreetly, that he had no objection to his neighbours being Christians, if they would practise that peace and forgiveness which the monks told him were the elements of the faith.
In a word, Ethelwolf's visit not only afforded an imposing spectacle to those who witnessed the pageantry and the ceremonies which marked it, but it was attended with permanent and substantial benefits to many classes, who became, in consequence of it, the objects of the pious monarch's benevolent regard. At length, when the year had expired, Ethelwolf set out on his return.
He was kept near to his father and mother, and closely under their influence, until his mother died, which event, however, took place when he was quite young. After this, Ethelwolf sent Alfred to Rome. Rome was still more the great center then than it is now of religion and learning.
He had, however, a very able, energetic, and warlike minister, who managed his affairs with great ability and success for a long course of years. Ethelwolf, in the mean time, leaving public affairs to his minister, continued to devote himself to the pursuits to which his predilections inclined him. He visited monasteries; he cultivated learning; he endowed the Church; he made journeys to Rome.
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