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Alfred the Great, King of Wessex from 871 and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 to 899, is widely touted as establishing England's first Royal fleet but research led by Flinders Medieval Studies Ph.D. candidate Matt Firth has found evidence that the Anglo-Saxons' first recorded naval victory occurred 20 years before Alfred was crowned King of Wessex and 24 years before his first recorded naval victory... Using a combination of tenth-century historical texts and the growing archeological evidence for medieval ship design, the new research shows that Alfred was not the first English monarch to coordinate a fleet to defend...

The Viking Great Army's arrival in 865 was recounted in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:.. According to the Chronicle, the Vikings spent years campaigning through the territory of the four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms -- East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, and Wessex... By 880, all the kingdoms had fallen to the Vikings except Wessex, with which they made peace... Excavations conducted [at Repton, the capital of Mercia] between 1974 and 1993 by Martin Biddle and his late wife, Birthe Kjolbye-Biddle, had revealed a small, heavily defended enclosure covering just an acre or two... some experts took these findings to suggest that the Great Army was...

The Countess of Wessex looked solemn as she observed a minute's silence for victims of last night's Manchester Arena bombing. Sophie, 52, was at the London Stock Exchange this morning for the Market Open Ceremony where the group took part in a tribute for victims of the attack that has so far claimed 22 lives. The mother-of-two, who is Chair of the Women's Network Forum, also took part in a discussion about gender equality with Unilever's Paul Polman and businesswoman Alison Kay.

A hoard of Viking coins could change our understanding of English history, after showing how Alfred the Great 'airbrushed' out a rival king A Viking hoard discovered by an amateur metal detectorist could prompt the re-writing of English history, after experts claimed it shows how Alfred the Great "airbrushed" a rival king from history. Ceolwulf II of Mercia is barely mentioned in contemporary records and largely forgotten by history, only briefly described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as an "unwise King's thane". But as of today, his reputation might be rescued after a haul of coins dug up after more than...

Work begins to uncover secrets of Silbury Hill By Richard Savill Last Updated: 2:26am BST 12/05/2007 Work began yesterday to save an ancient landmark in Wiltshire from collapsing. Silbury Hill, which at 130 feet high is the largest prehistoric man-made construction in Europe, continues to mystify archaeologists. English Heritage is to spend £600,000 this summer trying to preserve the mound. Specialist engineers will enter the mound through a tunnel which was dug in 1968 by a team led by the archaeologist, Prof Richard Atkinson. That tunnel was the last of three made over two centuries by archaeologists. The original purpose...

Silbury Hill remains an enigma despite extensive excavations Inside Silbury Hill You're in your jouncing people-carrier, taking in the agreeable but unremarkable view, and then suddenly it's upon you; a pointy attention-grabber at the side of the road, towering street furniture in the shape of a hazard-warning equilateral. This is crushing historical time expressed in trigonometry.Old Egypt hands could be forgiven for thinking that the terrible shark's fin that I'm talking about is the sort of thing that looms in your windshield as you're driving through the suburbs of Cairo. But they'd be wrong. Or they'd be half-right. Silbury...

A Wiltshire mound where the legendary wizard Merlin was purported to be buried has been found to date back to 2400 BC.Radiocarbon dating tests were carried out on charcoal samples taken from Marlborough Mound, which lies in Marlborough College's grounds. The 19m (62ft) high mound had previously mystified historians. Some believed it dated back to about 600 AD. English Heritage said: "This is a very exciting time for British prehistory." Dig leader Jim Leary said: "This is an astonishing discovery. "The Marlborough Mound has been one of the biggest mysteries in the Wessex landscape. "For centuries people have wondered whether...

Tests have shown that a pelvic bone found in a museum box is likely to have been either that of Alfred - the only English king to have the moniker "Great" - or his son King Edward the Elder. The bone was found among remains dug up at a medieval abbey in Winchester, southwest England, the capital of Alfred's kingdom. The remains were initially discovered in an excavation some 15 years ago but were not tested at the time, and were stored in a box at Winchester Museum until archaeologists came upon them after a failed bid to find Alfred...

Archaeologists dug up an unmarked grave in a quiet English churchyard in search of remains of King Alfred the Great, a ninth century monarch credited with fending off the Vikings. The exhumation was apparently triggered by fears that interest over the recent discovery of the skeleton of Richard III could lead grave robbers to dig the area for his bones. Alfred the Great is known to generations of schoolchildren through a popular legend that tells of his scolding by a peasant woman for letting her cakes burn while he watched over them. He was at the time preoccupied with the...