50 Fun Facts About Wessex

Legend says Alfred the Great, hiding from the Vikings in a peasant woman's hut, was scolded for burning what?

Cakes left baking by the fire burned while the fugitive king brooded over his troubles. The woman, who had no idea who her guest was, gave him a thorough telling-off.

Which member of the British royal family was created Earl of Wessex on his wedding day in 1999?

Prince Edward broke with the custom that a sovereign's sons are made royal dukes. He took instead an earldom that had lain unused since before the Norman Conquest.

The Wessex Saddleback, a black breed with a white band over its shoulders, is what kind of farm animal?

A pig from Wiltshire and the New Forest, the Wessex Saddleback has died out as a pure breed in Britain. It survives in small numbers in Australia and New Zealand.

Which novelist revived the name Wessex for the half-imagined region of Tess of the d'Urbervilles and other books?

Thomas Hardy first borrowed the old kingdom's name in Far from the Madding Crowd. His fictional region grew from a corner of Dorset to cover half a dozen counties.

The Westland Wessex, which hunted submarines for the Royal Navy and served with the RAF, was what type of aircraft?

A helicopter built under licence from the American Sikorsky S-58, the Wessex swapped the original piston engine for a gas turbine, which made it quieter and able to lift more.

Which television drama follows Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a Saxon raised by Vikings, as he fights for Alfred's Wessex?

The Last Kingdom began on BBC Two in 2015 and later moved to Netflix. It ran for five series before a feature-length film, Seven Kings Must Die, finished the story.

Which actor played the villainous Lord Wessex, betrothed to Viola, in the 1998 film Shakespeare in Love?

Colin Firth played the earl as a cash-strapped aristocrat after a rich bride. The title was an invention: no Earl of Wessex had existed for more than 500 years by Shakespeare's day.

Which English cathedral city, the chief city of Alfred the Great's Wessex, has a bronze statue of him raising a sword?

Winchester put up Hamo Thornycroft's towering bronze in 1901 to mark a thousand years since the king's death. Alfred had laid the city out on a new street grid to hold off the Vikings.

The author of the Wessex novels kept a notoriously bad-tempered pet named Wessex, which was what kind of animal?

A fox terrier named Wessex shared the novelist's last years at Max Gate, his Dorset home. The dog's gravestone can still be found in the grounds.

Which heraldic beast appears in gold on the red flag that was designed for the Wessex region in the 1970s?

A wyvern is a winged dragon with two legs instead of four. Medieval writers tell of Wessex armies raising a golden dragon in battle, and Somerset's county council took a red one for its arms in 1911.

The heartland of Wessex lay in Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset and which fifth modern county?

Berkshire was contested between Wessex and Mercia in the Anglo-Saxon period. It was given the title Royal County in 1957, thanks to the presence of Windsor Castle.

The Bronze Age Wessex culture, known for richly furnished graves, is credited with later phases of which stone circle?

Stonehenge was still being reworked when the culture's chieftains were buried nearby with gold. Archaeologist Stuart Piggott named the culture in 1938 after the old kingdom's lands.

Which island off the south coast did King Cædwalla of Wessex invade in the 680s, killing its last king?

Isle of Wight rulers were the last pagan kings in Anglo-Saxon England. When King Arwald fell in 686, the island became the final English territory to be converted to Christianity.

Hampshire, at the heart of old Wessex, takes its name from which south-coast port?

Southampton was Hamtun to the Saxons, and the land around it Hamtunscir. The Domesday spelling, Hantescire, is why the county's name is still shortened to Hants.

In the Wessex novels, the fictional market town of Casterbridge stands in for which real town?

Dorchester, the author's home for many years, became the setting for the story of a hay-trusser who auctions off his wife while drunk and later rises to be mayor.

In the Wessex novel Jude the Obscure, the university city of Christminster is modelled on which real English city?

Oxford marks the far north-eastern corner of the fictional Wessex. Jude, a village stonemason, moves there and studies alone in the hope of winning a place at the university.

Which public relations executive became Countess of Wessex when she married into the royal family in 1999?

Sophie Rhys-Jones had opened her own agency three years before the wedding at Windsor Castle. She was known by the Wessex title until 2023, when the couple were given a dukedom instead.

Which bishop from 9th-century Wessex gives his name to the 15 July feast said to forecast forty days of rain?

St Swithun asked to be buried outdoors, where rain from the eaves could fall on his grave. His best-known miracle was mending a basket of eggs that workmen had smashed.

Which historical novelist wrote The Saxon Stories, thirteen novels about a warrior serving Alfred the Great of Wessex?

Bernard Cornwell, also the creator of the rifleman Richard Sharpe, believes he is descended from Uhtred the Bold, the real northern lord who lent his name to the books' hero.

Which river, with the Bristol Avon, is thought to have marked the northern boundary of Wessex by the 8th century?

The Thames became the frontier after Mercia seized the kingdom's earliest lands on the far bank. Shut out of the north, Wessex turned its ambitions southwards instead.

After hiding in the Somerset marshes, Alfred the Great routed the Viking army in May 878 at which battle?

Edington, in Wiltshire, saved Wessex. The beaten army fled to its fortress, and Alfred's men besieged it for two weeks until the Vikings handed over hostages and swore to leave.

Which Viking warlord agreed to be baptised and leave Wessex after Alfred the Great defeated him in 878?

Guthrum was baptised three weeks after his defeat, with Alfred standing as his sponsor, and 29 of his chief men joined him at the font. He went on to rule East Anglia as a Christian king.

Driven from his hall in early 878, Alfred the Great built a fort on which marsh island in the Somerset Levels?

Athelney is thought to mean 'isle of the prince' in Old English. It was then a low island lost in near-impassable swamp, joined to firmer ground by a single guarded causeway.

What were the fortified towns called that Alfred the Great planted across Wessex, each within a day's reach?

Burhs gave English the word 'borough'. Alfred's network had thirty-three of them, about 19 miles apart, so that a garrison could meet an attack anywhere in the kingdom within a day.

Which record of English history was first compiled in Wessex during the reign of Alfred the Great?

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was copied and continued in monasteries around the country. One version was still being updated in 1154, long after the Norman Conquest.

The gold and crystal Alfred Jewel, a Wessex treasure dug up in Somerset, is thought to be the handle of what?

A reading pointer, or aestel, helped a reader follow the words on a page. The jewel is inscribed 'Alfred ordered me made', and the king is recorded sending such pointers to his bishops.

Anglo-Saxon tradition credits Alfred the Great of Wessex with marking the hours by burning six of what each day?

Candles of equal size, each burning for four hours, measured out his day. They sat inside a lantern of wood and thin, see-through horn so that draughts could not spoil the timing.

Which city did Alfred the Great of Wessex retake from the Vikings in 886 and entrust to a Mercian ally?

London had been a Mercian town, so Alfred handed it to Æthelred of Mercia to govern. From that year he began styling himself King of the Anglo-Saxons.

After Alfred's wars, what name was given to the north and east of England, where Viking settlers kept their own customs?

The Danelaw left its mark on the map. Place names ending in -by and -thorp across the north of England and the East Midlands come from the Old Norse its settlers spoke.

Saga legend says the Great Heathen Army that overran Wessex came to avenge which Viking thrown into a snake pit?

Ragnar Lodbrok was executed by King Ælla of Northumbria in the saga. Three of his sons, among them Ivar the Boneless, are named as leaders of the force that landed in 865.

Which warrior does tradition name as the founder and first king of Wessex, landing in Hampshire in 495?

Cerdic is a puzzle. Most scholars think his name is Celtic British, not Germanic, which hints that the founder of Saxon Wessex may have been a native Briton.

Which king of Wessex issued one of the oldest surviving English law codes and set up a bishopric at Sherborne?

Ine issued his laws in about 694, the first from any Anglo-Saxon king outside Kent. After a long reign he abdicated in 726, leaving the kingdom, in Bede's words, to younger men.

Which king of Wessex, grandfather of Alfred the Great, broke Mercian power at the Battle of Ellendun in 825?

Egbert had lived in exile at Charlemagne's court before taking the throne in 802. After Ellendun, Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex all passed from Mercian hands into those of Wessex.

Which grandson of Alfred the Great conquered Viking York in 927 and is regarded as the first king of England?

Æthelstan never married and had no children, so the crown passed to his half-brother. His victory at Brunanburh won him great prestige across the British Isles and on the Continent.

Which eldest daughter of Alfred the Great governed Mercia from 911 under the title Lady of the Mercians?

Æthelflæd took sole charge when her husband, Mercia's ruler, died. Months after her own death in 918 her brother, Alfred's successor, removed her daughter and took direct control of Mercia.

Who was the last Anglo-Saxon Earl of Wessex, crowned king of England in 1066 and killed at Hastings?

Harold Godwinson reigned for nine months. He beat a Norwegian invasion at Stamford Bridge near York, then marched south to meet William of Normandy less than three weeks later.

Which Scandinavian ruler, who took the English throne in 1016, created the rich earldom of Wessex for an ally?

King Cnut at first governed Wessex himself. By about 1020 he had given it to an English nobleman, whose family became the most powerful in the land after the crown.

Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria and their rival Anglo-Saxon kingdoms are traditionally known together by which name?

The Heptarchy takes its name from the Greek for seven, since East Anglia, Essex, Kent and Sussex are counted too. The idea of seven kingdoms goes back to a 12th-century historian, Henry of Huntingdon.

King Cædwalla of Wessex gave up his throne in 688 and travelled to which city, where he was baptised and soon died?

Rome saw him baptised by Pope Sergius I on the eve of Easter 689, and he died ten days later. He had been wounded on his last campaign, which may be why he gave up the crown.

Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire, the old core of Wessex, belong to which of England's nine official regions?

The South West is the largest of the nine by area and takes in much of the old kingdom. Hampshire, home of its chief city, sits just over the line in the neighbouring region.

Which market town, where a marble statue of Alfred the Great stands in the square, was the king's birthplace?

Wantage had a royal palace when Alfred was born there in 849. The town turns up in the Wessex novels under a name that honours him: Alfredston.

Which Welsh monk, later bishop of Sherborne, wrote a Life of King Alfred at the Wessex court in 893?

Asser left the monastery of St David's at the king's invitation to join the scholars gathering at court. He wrote the biography while its subject was still alive and reigning.

What name was given to the king's council of leading nobles and churchmen in Wessex and Anglo-Saxon England?

The Witan takes its name from the Old English for 'wise men'. Before the 20th century, many historians saw it as an early ancestor of Parliament.

Alfred the Great reorganised which Wessex militia, in which all free men had to serve, to counter Viking raids?

The fyrd was too slow to gather when raiders struck without warning. Alfred organised his army into two shifts that served alternately, and added a force of mounted infantry.

In 789, the first recorded Viking landing in England took place on which peninsula on the coast of Wessex?

Isle of Portland was where three ships from western Norway put in. The king's reeve tried to collect taxes from the crews, and they killed him and sailed on.

Which Germanic people, better known for settling Kent, also colonised southern Hampshire before Wessex absorbed them?

The Jutes held the Meon valley of southern Hampshire. Bede wrote that the people there were still called Jutes in his own day.

Wessex Day is celebrated on 25 May, the feast of which saint, a scholar-abbot who became bishop of Sherborne?

St Aldhelm has a flag of his own, a white cross on red, which some Wessex regionalists fly. It looks like England's St George's cross with the colours swapped.

Which missionary baptised King Cynegils, the first Christian king of Wessex, and became the kingdom's first bishop?

Birinus, a Frankish monk, had been sent by the pope to preach in parts of Britain no missionary had reached. He stayed in Wessex instead and became known as its apostle.

Which Celtic British kingdom, covering what is now Devon and beyond, steadily lost ground to an expanding Wessex?

Dumnonia takes its name from the Dumnonii, the Celtic tribe of the region. The monk Gildas twisted it into 'Damnonia', a pun on damnation, to insult its ruler.

The arms later attributed to the kings of Wessex show a gold cross on blue between four of which heraldic birds?

Martlets are drawn without feet, as birds supposed never to land. The design copies an emblem on the pennies of a later English king, and reappears in the arms of Westminster Abbey.