927 vs 954 AD

I have heard that the debate over when ENGLAND formally began has resurfaced. It is one of those issues - like the filioque clause - that most people say "Who cares?" while the remainder insist that it is absolutely vital. 

I lean toward 954 myself. Aethelstan was the first to say he was King of all England and he did put most of the conquering or at least pacifying in place, and that was by 927.  Everyone would sort of like it to be Aethelstan. More kingly, what? Even his grandfather King Alfred, even more beloved, preferred Aethelstan to his older brother. Aethelstan is undoubtedly a great Anglo-Saxon king. But did he get the collection of territories in various states of fealty over the finish line to get to the point that we say "There! Finally! That's the England we've been looking for!" 

The other nominee is Eodred, who was sickly and uninspiring.  He did drive a stake in the ground - almost like planting a flag - on the English Benedictine Reforms, which was seen at the time as a big deal of a display about unified England in the 900s, even though it is rather a "Wait, what?" topic in the 2000s. 

Here are the weaknesses: Aethelstan had some controversy about whether he was a legitimate heir of Edward. His mother may have been a wife, may have been a concubine, and such distinctions often hinged on whether the king or the woman in question had technically been married before, or whether they had technically married before the birth of the child. If you think those are just matters of record-keeping and technicalities from an era completely unlike our own you might consider the early political career of Kamala Harris, of whom some would say "C'mon, no big deal," while others would say "Very big deal."  Yet he survived that and was almost universally accepted.  The bigger weakness is that the control of Northumbria slipped away right after he died and was not restored until later, under - you guessed it - King Eodred. 

Eodred nudged it over the line.  He gets the bouquet. 

BTW, this is delaying a post on King Canute.