House of Wessex
Princess ÆLFGIFU OF WESSEX was the grandmother of MALDRED OF WINLATON, who was hisself an ancestor of William Medecalfe de Dent, forefather of David Walker's grandmother, Jane Metcalfe.
Princess Ælfgifu belonged to the ancient royal HOUSE OF WESSEX. She was the daughter of Æthelred II. 'the Unready', King of England and Ælfgifu of York.
The HOUSE OF WESSEX, also known as the HOUSE OF CERDIC, refers to the family that initially ruled a kingdom in southwest England known as Wessex, from the 6th century under CERDIC OF WESSEX until the unification of the Kingdoms of England.
Cerdic (Note: Imaginary depiction of Cerdic from John Speed's 1611 "Saxon Heptarchy") was allegedly the first King of Anglo-Saxon Wessex from 519 to 534, cited by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as the founder of the Kingdom of Wessex and ancestor of all its subsequent kings. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Cerdic landed in Hampshire in 495 with his son Cynric in five ships. „In the year that was past from the birth of Christ 494, then Cedric and Cynric his son landed at Cerdices ora [Cerdic's ore] from five ships And they fought with the Welsh the same day.„
Cerdic (and later his son Cynric) begin the conquest of the area now known as Wiltshire. The Wiltsaete (or Wilsaetas, Saxons of Wiltshire), migrated into the same territory, either independently as a result of the decaying British defensive situation or as part of Cerdic's invasion.
He is said to have fought a Brittonic king named Natanleod at Natanleaga and killed him thirteen years later (in 508), and to have fought at Cerdicesleag in 519. Natanleaga is commonly identified as Netley Marsh in Hampshire and Cerdicesleag as Charford, 'Cerdic's Ford'.
The conquest of the Isle of Wight is also mentioned among his campaigns, and it was later given to his kinsmen, Stuf and Wihtgar, who had supposedly arrived with the West Saxons in 514. Cerdic is said to have died in 534. „This year died Cerdic, the first king of the West-Saxons. Cynric his son succeeded to the government, and reigned afterwards twenty-six winters“. Tradition states that Cerdic was buried at Cerdicesbeorg, a former barrow at Stoke near Hurstbourne the north west corner of Hampshire, which is mentioned in an eleventh century charter. Cynric suceeded him as King of Wessex from 534 to 560. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states Cynric to have been the son of Cerdic, and also (in the regnal list in the preface) to have been the son of Cerdic's son, Creoda. (A replica of the Sutton Hoo helmet produced for the British Museum )
Descent from Cerdic became a necessary criterion for later kings of Wessex, and Egbert of Wessex (c.770-839), progenitor of the English royal house and subsequent rulers of England and Britain, claimed him as an ancestor.
The House became rulers of all England from
Alfred the Great in 871 to Edmund Ironside in 1016. This period of the English monarchy is known as the Saxon period, though their rule was often contested, notably by the Danelaw and later by the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard who claimed the throne from 1013 to 1014, during the reign of Æthelred the Unready. Sweyn and his successors ruled until 1042. After Harthacanute, there was a brief Saxon Restoration between 1042 and 1066 under Edward the Confessor and Harold Godwinson, who was a member of the House of Godwin. After the Battle of Hastings, a decisive point in English history, William of Normandy became king of England. Anglo-Saxon attempts to restore native rule in the person of Edgar the Ætheling, a grandson of Edmund Ironside who had originally been passed over in favour of Harold, were unsuccessful and William's descendants secured their rule. Edgar's niece Matilda of Scotland later married William's son Henry I, forming a link between the two dynasties.