The Birth of England

During the summer of 927 AD, King Æthelstan defeated in battle the Irish Norse pretender to the throne of the Kingdom of York. In doing so, he took control of the last Viking kingdom in England.

Later, on 12th July 927, near Eamont in Cumbria, King Æthelstan met with several Celtic kings across Britain. At this meeting was the English Lord of Bamburgh and possibly other nobles from the Viking territory of Northumbria. King Æthelstan brought the kingdom of Northumbria within his control, and in doing so, he was the first person to create the ‘kingdom of the English’, the forerunner to modern England.

On that day in 927, Æthelstan had, in effect, created one nation for all the English people, and they were for the first time united under one ruler. From that point forward, King Æthelstan was no longer just King of the Anglo-Saxons; he became REX ANGLORUM, King of the English.

The 12th of July is England’s birthday, and in 2027 England will be 1100 years old. England is the oldest country in Western Europe, and we believe this is worth celebrating.

You can read more about our Project Aims here.

Support our Project

We’re already have some events planned and there will be more to follow.

Details for 2026 are listed here as well as our current petitions – 2026. 

Details for 2027 can be found here –  2027. 

A video introduction to England’s first King

In this half-hour interview Cambridge Professor of early medieval history David Woodman gives an introduction to Æthelstan, England’s first king. Professor Woodman has recently published the critically acclaimed book: The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom, and gives a brief overview of the book in this interview. Many former kings ruled parts of Britain, such as Wessex, Mercia, and Northumbria, but Æthelstan was the first to rule all three. In this interview Professor Woodman expounds the historical significance of Æthelstan’s reign, and encourages us all to celebrate the 1100th anniversary of this momentus occasion in the biggest possible way.

For a more detailed account of the history of 927 – ENGLAND1100

Origin of the Project

The spark that ignited the idea of this project was an article in May 2009 edition of the BBC History magazine, a photo of the front page of which is shown page below. When I saw this article I thought, “2027 – if I’m still here, I should do something to celebrate the 1100th Anniversary of England’s unification”. Now, in all fairness, this idea took a long time to come to fruition, for it wasn’t until I joined the Royal Society of St. George that I began to publicise my idea. I organised an Athelstan appreciation day in Malmesbury in 2019, and after that I began to develop the idea of the 1100th Anniversary, to see whether this resonated with others of a similar mind. Fortunately at some point the idea did catch-on and so the Birth of England Project was created in 2021.

Taking the project beyond its naming has not been an easy road to tread. Different people have helped at different times, but there have been periods of inactivity and periods where I doubted that I could ever organise anything on the scale that I desired. However our project team now has a more stable setting than at any time in the last 4 years.

Part of the problem in the early days was attracting academic support, and this still remains a major task. There is also the problem of trying to organise events which seem so far away, people found it difficult to engage with something that was still 5 years in the future. A problem I’m sure that those who were planning the millennial celebrations of the death of Alfred the Great in the 1890’s must have encountered.

In the article Professor Michael Wood expanded on his theory that it was the meeting near Penrith in the summer of 927 that was crucial in creation of an English state. The English nation finally were united under one king, as one continental poet stated – “this completed England”.