Æthelstan

Æthelstan was the son of Edward the Elder and Ecgwynn. When Edward died in July 924, the Mercians accepted Æthelstan as king, but Wessex resisted for months; his half-brother Ælfweard may have been recognised there but died within three weeks. Æthelstan wasn't crowned until September 925. In 927 he conquered York, the last Viking kingdom, becoming the first Anglo-Saxon ruler of all England. He invaded Scotland in 934 and forced Constantine II to submit. The Scots and Vikings resented him, and in 937 they invaded; Æthelstan met them at Brunanburh and won a victory that brought him prestige across the British Isles and the Continent. He centralised government, tightened control over charters, summoned distant leaders and Welsh kings to his councils, and issued more legal texts than any other tenth-century English king - reforms aimed at curbing robbery and building on Alfred the Great's work. His household became the centre of English learning. He never married, had no children, and when he died in October 939 the Vikings took York back.