who was the first king of england?

Question

children of england know who was the first president of the u.s.a. but could not tell you who was the first king of england

Answer 1

Athelstan was the first king of a united England. Those before him were kings of individual territories. Alfred, for example, was the king of Wessex only.

Answer 2

Prince Phillip Mountbatten married into the Royal Family. He is not a blood kin of the House of Windsor as far as I know. So, he can't be king. Queen Elizabeth II is the daughter of George the VI. She was not supposed to inherit the throne. But her Uncle King Edward the VIII (I believe) was a bachelor King who never married while King and abdicated without producing an heir. So Edward's brother Prince Albert became King and took the name King George VI albeit somewhat reluctantly. He too was not expected to inherit the throne either. King George VI was monarch during World War II and the strain of that war took a heavy toll. He died a few years after the end of the war. Princess Elizabeth was on a royal tour in Kenya when she got the sad news of her father's passing. She went to bed one night a Princess and woke up the next day to the sad news and the very real fact she was now Queen or would be very very soon. These days Prince Charles is heir. He is a Windsor and would take the title of King I believe.

Answer 3

The principle reason for that, beside the failure of public education, is that the first President question has an answer. With England it kind of depends. What do we mean by King. Do you mean all of England as we now understand it or the king of a large part of it or the oldest kingdom in England that we know a kings name? Alfred "the Great", King of Wessex was the first to style himself, King of England.

Answer 4

Alfred the Great ... was the first king of a unified England...

But of course many people would say Edward the Confessor, or William of Normandy ...

For me it will always be Alfred!

He was the first king to have a vision of England as a united country, and it took almost three generations before his grandson could really say the Danes were a spent force, and England was one kingdom.

Answer 5

Dear Lord above, you're right! People don't know.
The first king of all England was William The Conqueror. Some argue that it was Edward the Confessor but William is more generally accepted.
All the others cited here were Kings of areas, not of the whole country.

Answer 6

I would say Alfred the Great because the English were divided into several kingdoms before the Vikings arrived and after that there was only one English kingdom from which the modern kingdom is descended. Though it was a long time before the Danes were pushed out from much of now what is called England.

Answer 7

The first king to say of the whole of England must have been Harold Godwinson he held it for nineteen days until his defeat by William the Conqueror in 1066

Answer 8

The way to know it is to ask, "Who was Edward I?" Before 1066, there was Edward the Confessor. But he doesn't count. Edward I was he who ruled from 1284-1304, "Edward Longshanks." That means that the kings of England begin with William the Conqueror, William I, who won the kingdom by right of conquest in 1066.

Answer 9

The Anglo-Saxon Ecgberht (Egbert) 802 - 839 was the king of wessex

the person believed to be the first king of england was ATHELSTAN (925-939)

Answer 10

Athelstan (reigned 924-939) was the first king of a completely politcaly unified England.