It's not every day this blog gets to celebrate an 1100th anniversary, this because not a great deal happened in the London area on verifiable dates in the 10th century. It's also not every day I get to use the Old English character Æ twenty-two times in a blogpost.
But today is the exception. Because today is the 1100th anniversary of King Æthelstan being crowned in Kingston, supposedly just round the back of Pret A Manger.
(that's not Pret A Manager, sorry, that's Kingston Market Place)
King Æthelstan is often credited as being the first King of England. He wasn't in 925 AD because England didn't yet exist, but it would two years later after Æthelstan brought together the kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia. But the proud country that now ties red crosses to lampposts has its origins on 4th September 925 when the Archbishop of Canterbury placed a crown atop Æthelstan's head, not a helmet as had been the case for all his predecessors.
Æthelstan was the grandson of Alfred the Great, which is impressive stuff as royal pedigrees go, and was born some time in the mid 890s, prior to the invention of birth certificates. His father was Edward the Elder, a ruler of Wessex who during his reign successfully took over Mercia, thereby gaining control of most of the land south of the Humber. Edward died in July 924, at which point the people of Wessex adopted his son Ælfweard as king whereas Mercia chose Æthelstan. But Ælfweard died just twelve days later (suspicious, what?), after which the people of Wessex moved to embrace Æthelstan too.
(that's not a recent photo, sorry, it has Charles III coronation bunting on it)
Kingston was the perfect location for Æthelstan's coronation because it was on the boundary between the two kingdoms, technically in Wessex but within wading distance of Mercia across the Thames. It was also where his father Edward had been crowned 25 years earlier, setting a precedent that would eventually see seven Saxon Kings crowned in Kingston. Only Westminster Abbey has seen more coronations, because once that was built no monarch was ever going back to riverside Kingston again. Æthelstan was the first to decree that Kingston was a royal town, and this is why Kingston upon Thames is now one of London's three royal boroughs.
The Coronation Stone in Kingston is a sarsen chunk atop a heptagonal stone base surrounded by ornate iron railings. This is not how Æthelstan would have known it - the railings are Victorian and the base includes the names of monarchs not yet born in 925. Legend says that kings sat or knelt on the stone at time of coronation, but legend also says that the coronation took place in the marketplace and was followed by a service inside a wooden Saxon chapel alongside. There's no collaborating evidence that the sarsen stone was present, only that it was retrieved from the ruins of the chapel after it collapsed in 1730, and its royal heritage may simply be supposition by 18th century historians.
(that's not a recent photo either, sorry, the stone's been scrubbed up since 2010)
The Coronation Stone sits in pride of place outside the town hall on the High Street, which is absolutely not where Æthelstan's coronation took place. It was moved here from the Garden of Rest in Church Street in 1936, a far more proximate location, although that was only temporary while building works on the Guildhall were completed. From 1850 to 1935 it had sat in the middle of the High Street, freshly positioned on its heptagonal base by patriotic Victorians looking to capitalise on Kingston's royal past. It had been moved here from an off-road site by the county assizes, prior to which it had been located beside the Elizabethan Market Hall and used as a mounting block, prior to which it had been in a more appropriate location outside All Saints' Church (roughly where the collapsed Saxon chapel had been). Never trust your eyes when it comes to historical locations.
♔ Edward the Elder - 8th June 900
♔ Æthelstan - 4th September 925
♔ Edmund - 940
♔ Edred - 16th August 946
♔ Edwy - January 956
♔ Edward the Martyr - 975
♔ Ethelred The Unready - 14th April 979
The stone base features the names of all seven Saxon kings crowned here, one on each face, with the coronation year in Roman numerals underneath. Æthelstan appears as AÐELSTAN, the "aeth" sound written as að rather than æth for reasons of Old English linguistic nuance. Meanwhile the coronation year appears as DCCCCXXV, whereas these days we'd probably plump for CMXXV rather than go all long-winded. I would show you that in a photograph but I don't have one, despite visiting the stone on several occasions, having seemingly never taken a single photo from the full-on Æthelstan angle.
(this shot's focused on his half-brother Eadmund instead, sorry)
Because look, I haven't been to Kingston to do any research in support of this post, I'm relying on past visits with different foci, be that my random jamjar borough, my walk along London Loop section 8 or a trip to celebrate King Charles's coronation. This is because I wasn't aware of the 1100th anniversary until yesterday afternoon, by which time it was too late to drop everything, cross the capital and take a couple of photos. I choose to blame the Royal Borough of Kingston for not kicking upsufficient fuss that the anniversary was imminent, or else the inexorable decay of London-based websites that used to comprehensively preview What's On in the suburbs. I only noticed when Ian Visits went to see a train.
This morning SWR named a Class 450 train King Athelstan (not Æthelstan because presumably that was deemed too complex). The ceremony at Kingston station involved the historian Tom Holland, the local MP Sir Ed Davey and a group of Saxon reenactors from the Wychwood Warriors. Children from King Athelstan Primary School were also present, wearing cardboard crowns prominently featuring the SWR logo, which is a pretty good way to skive off lessons on only the third day of the new school year. Obviously there were iced cupcakes with an edible picture of the king on top because that's what Æthelstan would have wanted. Ian has all the photos of the event so do go and read that, especially if you prefer railways to history, and to be impressed by how a train company managed to hijack the anniversary and make it all about them on a site that wasn't where the coronation took place either.
(that's just me zooming in on a previous photo, sorry)
Æthelstan had a good start to his reign, unifying the entire country with victory over Northumbria in 927. He was also a wise, learned and pious man, the kind of ideal statesman that a hereditary monarchy delivers all too rarely. Wikipedia has you covered there, assuming your knowledge of Anglo Saxon hegemony isn't up to scratch. The country tottered somewhat after his death in 939 when the people of York plumped for Viking rule instead, but the defeat of Eric Bloodaxe under King Eadred in 954 brought the nation back together and there's been an England ever since.
And it all kicked off in Kingston with the coronation of King Æthelstan 1100 years ago today, not where the Coronation Stone is and definitely not at the railway station.
