Till then,
Dorchester in the Thames Valley had been the seat of the Bishop
of Wessex, but in that year Kynewalch, the son and successor of
Kynegils, completed the church of Winchester, in which he had been
crowned, and his father buried, as for the most part were their
successors, and there he established a bishop.
It was now that Winchester began her great career. She rose with the
fortunes of the Wessex kingdom until, in the time of Egbert, she
appears as the capital of the new kingdom of England which is so named,
and for the first time in her witan.
The com kyng Egbryth
Ant wyth batyle ant fyht
Made al Englond yhol
Falle to ys oune dol;
Ant sethe he reignede her
Ahte ant tuenti folle yer:
At Wynchestre lyggeth ys bon,
Buried in a marble-ston.
Egbert triumphed and established England none too soon. As early as
the year 787, according to the "Saxon Chronicle," "ships of the
Northmen" had reached our southern coasts, and Egbert had scarcely
named his new kingdom when they imperilled it. His son, Ethelwulf, who
came to his throne in 836, was to see Winchester itself stormed before
the invaders were beaten off; but beaten off they were, and it was in
Winchester that Alfred was to reign, to give forth his laws and to plan
his campaigns against the same enemy.
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