Athelstan
by Tom Holland, Penguin, £9.99
Of all the kings and queens covered in Penguin’s new Monarchs of England series, perhaps the least known is also one of the most important. Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred the Great, was raised by his aunt Ethelfleda after his father Edward the Elder discarded his mother Ecgwynn to a convent to make a dynastic marriage. Edward went on to have another dozen children but when he died, in 924, it was Athelstan who took the throne.
There followed a reign that, had his commissioned biography not been lost, would surely have been as famous to us as his grandfather’s. For it was Athelstan who finally united the four kingdoms of England.
