This page is under construction and England was not a homogenous kingdom until it was nominally united under Alfred the Great. At this time the Danelaw still prevailed in northern England, that is in the counties of Northumberland, Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and surrounding areas. It was only from East Anglia and to the west, i.e. Wessex that Alfred really ruled.
Dates shown are the dates of a rulers birth and death.

The time before William the conqueror was not a time of brutality, continual viking wars or a period of dark ages with no art or high literature.

In some respects it is a period of history which tends to be ignored but was in fact a great flowering of ideas and literature, albeit much of it denied to the common man but written down by monks in the abbey or related around the fires and hearths of the villages of England.

In reverse order the rulers of England before William were:-

Harold Godwinsson  born1022 - died 1066

Edward the Confessor b1002 - d1066

Canute king of Denmark and England born b995 - d1035

Aethelred the Redeless b978 - d1016

Edgar b943 - d975

Athelstan d939

Edward the elder d924

Alfred the Great King of wessex b849 - d899 - peace of wedmore proclaimed dividing England between the Danelaw and Alfreds Wessex

Aethelred king of wessex b866 - d871

Egbert king of wessex b802 - d839

Oswyd king of northumbria d670

Aethelbert King of Kent b560 - d616