This gradual evolution, it need hardly be pointed out, was not altogether in the best interests of the monarchy; for the new dukes had to be given very considerable estates to support their authority, and this meant that the Crown was unable to retain in its own hands sufficient of the newly-won territories to guarantee itself the same territorial superiority over the dukes, as it had formerly possessed in Wessex. Statistics of course cannot be produced to show the precise distribution of territorial influence, but all indications lead to the conclusion that, everywhere north of the Thames, the Crown had to content itself with a comparatively weak position, especially in East and Middle Anglia, which from 930 onwards were placed in the hands of an aetheling enjoying such a regal endowment that he came to be familiarly known as Aethelstan Half-king.
Responsibility for this development in the direction of feudalism should probably be laid on Aethelstan's shoulders rather than on Edmund's; for Edmund had little opportunity of reconsidering his brother's policy, his career being cut short by assassination when he was still under twenty-five. He left two sons, Eadwig and Edgar, but as these were mere children, the crown was passed on to their uncle Eadred, the youngest son of Edward the Elder. This prince was also short-lived, but his reign of nine years (946-955) remains a landmark, because it witnessed the last attempt made by the men north of the Humber to re-assert their lost independence. In this rising the Danes were led at first by Anlaf Cuaran, their former king, and finally by a viking called Eric, probably Eric Blood-axe, son of Harold Fairhair the unifier of Norway. They also had the support of Archbishop Wulfstan, Edmund's shifty opponent, whom the West Saxon house had vainly tried to bind to their cause by a grant of Amounderness (central Lancashire). The chief incidents of the struggle are reported to have been the deposition and imprisonment of Wulfstan, the burning of Ripon and sundry encounters near Tanshelf, now better known as Pontefract, to secure the ford over the river Aire. In the end however Eric abandoned the struggle, and in 954 Eadred took final possession of Yorkshire and committed it to Oswulf, the high reeve of Bamborough, to hold as a "jarldom." Thus was completed the long process of welding England into a single kingdom with continuous territories stretching from the Forth to the English Channel.
