When Berkshire Made History

Berkshire, with its Royal connections and proximity to the capital, has rocked the national headlines more than most counties. Here are our favourite moments...

- Stephen Roberts

ASHDOWN (871 AD)

Alfred is our only monarch suffixed ‘the Great’. He was a stupendous warrior but also valued education. At Ashdown in January 871, 22-year-old Alfred beat the Danes. He wasn’t even king (his brother Ethelred was), but while Ethelred prevaricated and prayed, Alfred took the initiative and charged. Later that year, Ethelred died, and Alfred ascended the throne – a young man proven on the battlefield, and the West Saxons’ hope for the struggles ahead against the marauding Danes. Ashdown was the beginning of the legend.

WINDSOR (1216)

Anglo-Saxon England ended at Hastings (1066) when William the Conqueror took the kingdom. He went on to build Windsor Castle, overlooking the Thames. 150 years later, Windsor featured in the 1st Barons’ War, which broke out when rogue King John tried wriggling out of Magna Carta’s provisions. Meetings had previously been held between the king and his barons at Wallingford and Reading (1213), but now, in 1216, the time for talking was over, as the barons besieged Windsor, although the castle held out.

ETON (1440)

The 15th century was punctuated by more civil war with the Wars of the Roses erupting in 1455, during the Lancastrian Henry VI’s reign. Earlier in his ascendancy, he had peaceable projects on his mind, founding Eton College as a charity school in 1440, intending to provide an education for 70 poor boys, who’d go on to Cambridge. Henry VI endowed the school generously, and it prospered, unlike Henry himself, who was deposed by Yorkist Edward IV and murdered in the Tower of London.

DONNINGTON (1551 & 1568)