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Michael Wood

Rebecca Dobbs

King Alfred and the Anglo Saxons: Episode 3: Aethelstan: The First King of England

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Aethelstan: The First King of England

Episode 3

Episode 3: Aethelstan: The First King of England

King Alfred and the Anglo Saxons

BBC Four - King Alfred and the Anglo Saxons, Aethelstan: The First King of England

How Aethelstan fulfilled the family plan to create a kingdom of all England.

Michael Wood tells the tale of King Alfred's grandson Aethelstan, showing how he fulfilled the family plan to create a kingdom of all England.

In this third episode, Alfred's grandson Aethelstan fulfils the family plan and creates a kingdom of all England.

Travelling from Devon to Cumbria, Scotland and Rome, Michael Wood tells the tale of Aethelstan's wars, his learning and his lawmaking, showing how he created a national coinage and tracing the origin of the English parliament to the king's new assembly politics. But there's also a dark side, with later legends that the king had his brother drowned at sea. In his last desperate struggle, Aethelstan defeated a huge invasion of Vikings and Scots in what became known as the Anglo-Saxon 'Great War'. 

Wood argues that Aethelstan was one of the greatest English monarchs, and with his grandfather Alfred, his father Edward and his aunt Aethelflaed, a member of our most remarkable royal family and 'even more than the Tudors, the most gifted and influential rulers in British history'.

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Factual: History

Michael Wood argues that the most important British kings lived over a thousand years ago.

Michael Wood argues that the most important and influential British kings were a father, son and grandson who lived over a thousand years ago during the age of the Vikings.

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King Alfred and the Anglo Saxons

Episode 3: Aethelstan: The First King of England

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