The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom
Tudors Dynasty & Beyond
RedTop Media / Rebecca Larson
4.4 • 794 Ratings
🗓️ 23 September 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
You’ve heard of Alfred the Great. You’ve probably watched The Last Kingdom and fallen in love with Uhtred, too. (No? Just me?) Well, in today’s episode we’re looking at Alfred’s grandson, the son of Edward—Alfred’s eldest boy. Enter Æthelstan.
This one’s a bit shorter than usual, because it’s such a dense topic if you’re not already familiar with it. But if you find yourself intrigued and want to dive deeper—grab this book! And hey, for balance, go ahead and watch The Last Kingdom too (purely for fun, of course).
Buy book on Amazon! (or wherever you get your books!)
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Host: Rebecca Larson
Guest: David Woodman
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'll now hand you over to my best man, Eddie. |
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| 1:10.2 | This is the Tudors Dynasty and Beyond podcast. History with a twist. And now your host, Rebecca Larson. |
| 1:13.4 | Hello and welcome back to the show. I'm your host, |
| 1:18.6 | Rebecca Larson, and today I am very excited to welcome to the show, David Woodman. Welcome. |
| 1:25.2 | Thank you very much for having me. You know, I got your book a little while ago, and I, you know, |
| 1:29.5 | I've always been fascinated with like Alfred the Great. And when I saw your book was coming out, I thought, oh, this is an interesting topic because this is a person |
| 1:34.0 | in history I don't know very much about. And that's why I invited you on the show because I figured |
| 1:40.2 | my listeners are probably in the same boat as I am. So. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, I mean, that's exactly the reason I wanted to write the book, actually, Rebecca. I mean, of all of the early medieval kings that people think about, Alfred the Great is the number one person. And actually, Athelstan, he's lost from view and it's, you know, it's such a shame. He's the person who formed England in the first place. |
| 2:03.4 | So, so I was really, you know, inspired to write about him for that very reason. |
... |
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