Egbert, also known as Ecgberht, Ecgbert and Ecgbryht, was king of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex from 802 until his death on February 4th, 839. He secured the ascendancy of Wessex over Mercia and made the kingdom so powerful that it achieved the political unification of England in the mid 10th century.
Born about 775AD, the son of Ealhmund King of Kent (784-786), Egbert was of a family which had been kings of Wessex. He was driven into exile in Europe in 789 by Beorhtric, King of Wessex allied with Offa (d.796), the powerful king of Mercia. Despite this, Egbert succeeded Beorhtric to the throne of Wessex in 802. He immediately removed Wessex from the Mercian confederation to consolidate it as an independent kingdom.
Egbert was laso accepted as king of Essex, Kent (802), Surrey and Sussex by virtue of long-dormant hereditary claims.
He routed the army of Beornwulf, king of Mercia, at the Battle of Ellendune (modern Wroughton, Wiltshire) and destroyed the Mercian ascendancy in 825. He left Wessex as the most powerful of the Saxon kingdoms of England and paved the way for the coutry's political unification in the mid 10th century.
Egbert conquered Mercia itself in 829 but he lost the kingdom again in the following year to the Mercian king Wiglaf.
In 838, the year before his death, Egbert won a stunning victory over the Danes and Cornish Britons at Hingston Down (now in Cornwall).
Egbert married Redburge. He died on February 8th, 839.
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