King Alfred the Great - it is your turn, as archeologists search for his grave ..

reply to post by Flavian

I thought so .. my brother is a hx teacher too.[ I know you say you are not now]

That is interesting, have you read C J Samson ?

I am fascinated by Thomas Cromwell I have ordered ' Wolf Hall' by Hilary Mantel

I would love to contribute to a thread on Henry and the damage he did to this country - pros and cons.

The dissolution of the monastries - is one great big conspiracy.

another cool thread! time prevents me from having more input right now, maybe see you all later

reply to post by ironorchid


agreed, the cornwell books that cover alfreds time are great! "the last kingdom" is the first of the series iirc, the main protagonist, uhtred is a great creation imo.

love the name by the way, ironorchid, i love moorcock (dont take that the wrong way anyone ) and the dancers at the end of time are an all time favourite of mine.

it was not such a time of mist magic and legend as you may think, the saxons were well acquinted with recording their history by alfreds time, thanks to the spread of christianity and as mentioned earlier i think, alfred was a keen scholar and devout christian.
there were some major works of history written in the saxon era..
for example Bede wrote his Ecclesiastical History of the English People in the 730's, designed to trace the growth of the church and christianity in briton roughly from the time of St Alban up to his own time.
and the Anglo Saxon Chronicle was being compiled at the time of alfred, a history of the saxon people with it's earliest entries concerning the first century and it was still being updated in the twelfth.

ironically, with the anglo saxons, we have a reasonable amount of the actual history of the who ruled where and who fought who variety, but we have precious little written down in the way of their myth and story. Beowulf is the only mostly pagan tale we have to show in that regard from them, and it not even set here in what would become england.
and ofc it only became england because of alfred

reply to post by HelenConway


Just as an addition, those of you interested in this subject might like this link, in the Mail Online, it is King Henry 1st who is the other king they are looking for.

The university is hoping that permission will be granted this spring and results could be due in the early summer.

And if Richard III and Alfred the Great were not enough lost kings to be going on with, an MP has raised the possibility of finding a third lost monarch: Henry I.


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'I do believe there's every hope of finding King Henry I.'

Henry I: MP Rob Wilson thinks that the lost body of William the Conqueror's son could be buried in Reading Abbey.

Henry, born around 1068, was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and succeeded his brother William II to the English throne.

He centralised the administration of England and Normandy in the Royal Court and was believed to be the first Norman monarch to speak fluent English.

In 1120, the years before he founded Reading Abbey, his sons William and Richard both drowned when the White Ship sank in the English Channel, leaving just his daughter Matilda.

However, succession passed to his nephew Stephen when Henry died in 1135, allegedly from eating too many lampreys.

He died in Normandy and his body was sewn into a bull's hide and transported to Reading.

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