King of England (946–955), brother of Edmund I, who finally destroyed the Viking kingdom of York — expelling Eric Bloodaxe — despite chronic ill health.
Eadred was king of England from 946 to 955, the youngest son of Edward the Elder and brother of Edmund I, whom he succeeded when Edmund's own sons were still children. Though dogged all his life by a wasting illness that left him barely able to eat, he proved a determined and successful king.
His great achievement was to end, at last, the Viking kingdom of York. After years of revolt, and the dramatic intervention of the Norwegian adventurer Eric Bloodaxe, Eadred crushed Northumbrian resistance and in 954 drove out Eric — the last Scandinavian king of York — bringing the north permanently under the English crown.
Eadred was born about 923, the youngest son of Edward the Elder by his third marriage. He came to the throne in 946 on the sudden murder of his brother Edmund, whose sons Eadwig and Edgar were too young to rule. He was closely supported throughout his reign by his mother, the dowager Eadgifu, and by Dunstan, who kept the royal treasure at Glastonbury.
Eadred is remembered for the contrast between his frail body and his forceful will. The sources describe a king of persistent ill health — unable to swallow food properly, wasting and sickly — who nonetheless drove his campaigns in the north with unrelenting determination and personally led his armies.
Pious and reliant on able advisers, especially Dunstan and his own mother, he governed through them without being dominated by them. His ferocity when crossed was real: when the Northumbrians broke faith with him he ravaged their land, and burned Ripon, before receiving their renewed submission. He appears as a sickly but iron-willed ruler who accomplished, in a short and painful life, the final subjection of Viking York that his more famous predecessors had left undone.
The dominant struggle of Eadred's reign was for Northumbria. The Northumbrians repeatedly repudiated English rule and took Scandinavian kings — first Olaf Sihtricson and then, most dramatically, the exiled Norwegian king Eric Bloodaxe. Eadred answered rebellion with devastating raids, and gradually wore down northern resistance.
In 954 the Northumbrians finally expelled and killed Eric Bloodaxe, and submitted to Eadred. The kingdom of York, independent or Viking-ruled for generations, was extinguished, and Northumbria was absorbed into a single English kingdom — a settlement that, this time, held.
Eadred's health, always poor, failed him young. He died on 23 November 955 at Frome, unmarried and without children, and was buried in the Old Minster at Winchester. He was succeeded by his nephew Eadwig, the elder son of Edmund I.
Eadred is remembered as the king who completed the unification of England by finally ending the Viking kingdom of York. Frail and short-lived, he nonetheless secured the permanent incorporation of Northumbria into the English realm, so that the England forged by Æthelstan was, after him, no longer in doubt. His reign also entrenched the influence of Dunstan and the reforming churchmen who would dominate the age of his nephews.