Ealhmund of Kent [7136] ¹⁶⁹¹

   FamilySearch ID: 9CJ7-39W.

  General Notes:

Ealhmund was born about 0758 in Wessex, England. Ealhmund's father was Eafa and his mother was Princess of Kent. His paternal grandfather was Eoppa; his maternal grandfather was King Aethelbert II of Kent. He was an only child. He died about 0786. General Notes Ruled Kent in 784 Ruled 762-4, and again c784-c5. It has been suggested that Ealhmund was the same as the earlier Eanmund, whose name appears confirming a charter of SIGERED, the king of West Kent. If this is so then Ealhmund was the more senior king. He has been associated with Ealhmund, the father of the famous EGBERT of Wessex - if this is so, then we know that he was descended from Ingeld, the brother of INE. It is quite probable that his father or grandfather had married into the Kentish royal family, thus establishing his claim on the Kentish kingdom. Ealhmund was, however, deposed by OFFA of Mercia when he invaded Kent in 764. He would have been a young king at the time, probably in his early twenties, with no power to oppose Offa. He almost certainly went into exile, but later became allied with EGBERT n, the king who had displaced him but who in turn rebelled against Offa. When Egbert died, sometime in the early 780s, Ealhmund returned to the kingship. For a second time he faced the wrath of Offa, which this time was more violent and conclusive. Ealhmund was almost certainly killed, and Kent came directly under Offa's rule until the revolution of EADBERT PRAEN in 796.

Ealhmund was King of Kent in 784. He is reputed to be the father of King Egbert who was King of Wessex and, later, King of Kent.

He is not known to have struck any coins, and the only contemporary evidence of him is an abstract of a charter dated 784, in which Ealhmund granted land to the Abbot of Reculver. In this charter he is identified as Ealmundus rex Canciæ. By the following year Offa of Mercia seems to have been ruling directly, as he issued a charter without any mention of a local king.

General consensus among historians is this is the same Ealhmund found in two pedigrees in the Winchester (Parker) Chronicle, compiled during the reign of Alfred the Great. The genealogical preface to this manuscript, as well as the annual entry (covering years 855\endash 859) describing the death of Æthelwulf, both make King Egbert of Wessex the son of an Ealhmund, who was son of Eafa, grandson of Eoppa, and great-grandson of Ingild, the brother of King Ine of Wessex, and descendant of founder Cerdic, and therefore a member of the House of Wessex (see House of Wessex family tree). A further entry has been added in a later hand to the 784 annal, reporting Ealhmund's reign in Kent.

Finally, in the Canterbury Bilingual Epitome, originally compiled after the Norman conquest of England, a later scribe has likewise added to the 784 annal not only Ealhmund's reign in Kent, but his explicit identification with the father of Egbert. Based on this reconstruction, in which a Wessex scion became King of Kent, his own Kentish name and that of his son, Egbert, it has been suggested that his mother derived from the royal house of Kent, a connection dismissed by a recent critical review.

Historian Heather Edwards has suggested that Ealhmund was probably a Kentish royal scion, whose pedigree was forged to give his son Egbert the descent from Cerdic requisite to reigning in Wessex.

Ealhmund's wife is not known, however, he is identified as the father of:
- Ecgberht, King of Wessex.
- Æthelburh of Wilton, wife of Wulfstan, ealdorman of Wiltshire, also known as Saint Alburga of Wilton.

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Title Of Nobility: King of Kent, on an unknown date,. ¹⁶⁹²

2. Title Of Nobility: Roi de Kent, on an unknown date,. ¹⁶⁹²

Ealhmund married Edgythe ALBURGA of Kent Aetherbert [7137] [MRIN: 5570], daughter of King Æthelbert II of Kent [7144] and Desconhecida [7145], about 782 in , , Kingdom of Wessex, Anglo Saxon England.¹⁶⁹² (Edgythe ALBURGA of Kent Aetherbert [7137] was born in 755 in , , Kingdom of Wessex, Anglo Saxon England ¹⁶⁹¹, christened about 762 in , , Kingdom of Wessex, Anglo Saxon England,¹⁶⁹¹ died on 9 September 803 in Kent, , Kingdom of Wessex, Anglo Saxon England ¹⁶⁹¹ and was buried in 803 ¹⁶⁹¹.)