![]() Sweyn, his son Canute and his successors ruled until 1042. Their rule was often contested, notably by the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard who invaded in 995 and occupied the united English throne from 1013 to 1014, during the reign of Æthelred the Unready and his son Edmund Ironside. His son, Æthelstan, extended the kingdom into the northern lands of Northumbria, which lies above the Mersey and Humber, but this was not fully consolidated until after his nephew Edgar succeeded to the throne. Edward the Elder, Alfred's son, united southern England under his rule by conquering the Viking occupied areas of Mercia and East Anglia. The House of Wessex became rulers of a unified English nation under the descendants of Alfred the Great (871–899). All kings of England since Henry II have been descended from the House of Wessex through Henry I's wife Matilda of Scotland, who was a great-granddaughter of Edmund Ironside. The House of Wessex then briefly regained power under Æthelred's son Edward the Confessor, but lost it after the Norman Conquest in 1066. Æthelred and his son Edmund Ironside attempted to resist the Vikings in 1016, but after their deaths the Danish Cnut the Great and his sons ruled until 1042. The disastrous reign of Æthelred the Unready ended in Danish conquest in 1014. Alfred the Great saved England from Viking conquest in the late ninth century and his grandson Æthelstan became first king of England in 927. The house became dominant in southern England after the accession of King Ecgberht in 802. The House of Wessex, also known as the Cerdicings and the West Saxon dynasty, refers to the family, traditionally founded by Cerdic of the Gewisse, that ruled Wessex in Southern England from the early 6th century. In or after 1125, death of Edgar Ætheling
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