List of kings of the Angles

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Location of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes before their migrations to Britain. Note that borders fluctuated with the fortunes of war, in particular that between the Angles and Jutes
Location of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes before their migrations to Britain. Note that borders fluctuated with the fortunes of war, in particular that between the Angles and Jutes

The Angles were the dominant Germanic tribe in the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, and gave their name to the English. Originally from Angeln in Schleswig-Holstein, a list of their kings has been preserved in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other sources.

Contents

[edit] Kings of the Angles

[edit] Legendary kings

According to legend, Sceaf was washed up on the shore as a child in an empty boat, and was later chosen as king. Counting up the generations appears to place him around 100 BC, at the very time that Angeln and surrounding regions had recently become depopulated following the migrations of the Cimbri and Teutones. The following list gives the succession from father to son, and if the genealogy is correct then Queen Elizabeth II is the 76th generation descendant of Sceaf.

[edit] Historical kings

Uffe den Spake (Offa of Angel), L.M. Moe
Uffe den Spake (Offa of Angel), L.M. Moe

After Woden, who was worshipped as a god, we are on firmer historical ground. His various sons became the ancestors of the different Anglo-Saxon kingly lines of the Heptarchy, of which the senior line was that of Mercia, descendants of Weothulgeot. The latter's son (or grandson) Whitlæg defeated and killed Amlethus, King of the Jutes to the north of the Angles in Jutland; Amlethus much later became the inspiration for Shakespeare's Hamlet. Under Wermund the Angles' fortress at Schleswig (Hedeby) was captured by the Jutes, but was retaken by Offa who was long remembered as a great conqueror (and is often referred to as Offa of Angel to distinguish him from his descendent Offa of Mercia). Before coming to the throne Offa married the daughter of Freawine, King of the Saxons, and after becoming king secured the Angles' southern border with the Saxons along the River Eider. This Freawine, like Offa, was also descended from Woden, and through his son Wig (Offa's brother-in-law) became the ancestor of the kings of Wessex, and ultimately England.

The power of the Angles in Europe was not to last, however, and in the mid 5th century, under pressure from Attila and the Huns, large numbers of them migrated to Britain - so many, in fact, that Angeln was later described as empty of people. Eomer's son Icel left his ancestral homelands and founded the Kingdom of Mercia in England (for his successors there see List of monarchs of Mercia).

[edit] See also