283 – The Kingdoms of the Foreigners

Imagine that you went from being a disfavored bastard with little power, to the most powerful English king that had ever existed, in the space of just a few years.

That you went from being functionally orphaned and shunted off to Mercia, to being so powerful that continental rulers were seeking your support and sending their children to your court… just to further tie their fortunes to you.

Having annexed Northumbria and obtaining the submission of Cumbria, Strathclyde, and Scotland… and having brokered marriages with major Frankish figures, while also obtaining foster children from powerful monarchs in the region… that’s the situation that King AEthelstan was in.

It was a meteoric rise.