David Woodman makes a large claim in his title and subtitle, and repeats it several times throughout his book: Æthelstan ‘formed “England” in 927’; he ‘creat[ed] England for the first time’; he has, alas, been ‘a victim of historiography’. The vital date, Woodman declares, was 12 July 927, three years after Æthelstan succeeded his father, Edward, as king of the West Saxons. On that date, at a meeting in Eamont Bridge near Penrith, two Welsh kings, one or maybe two Scottish kings and Ealdred of independent Bamburgh all made formal submission to Æthelstan, recognising him as ‘the premier king in the British Isles’. The date ought to be as familiar as 1066. How characteristic it is, Woodman observes, that England remembers conquest rather than creation.

This is perhaps a simplification of a complex situation. As far as we know, Æthelstan never called himself rex Angliae, ‘king of England’. Why would he? He was king of the Saxons, and the term Saxonia was already in existence. Probably using either Anglia or Saxonia would have offended one group or another of his subjects. On the other hand he did use the term Angulsaxonum rex, ‘king of the Anglo-Saxons’. Æthelstan’s grandfather King Alfred was also king of the West Saxons, and his mother was a Hampshire Jute, but Alfred nevertheless felt able to claim to speak for eall Angelcynn, ‘the whole of the
English race’.

It is hard to tell what Anglo-Saxons 1,100 years ago felt about their identity. One might suggest that, to them, Saxon was a political term, but there was a wider ethnic identity, which was also linguistic. Angles and Saxons both called their language Englisc; the term Seaxisc was never used.