Earldom of Wessex

Earldom of Wessex
Creation date	19 June 1999
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Peerage	Peerage of the United Kingdom
First holder	HRH The Prince Edward
Present holder	HRH The Prince Edward, 1st Earl of Wessex
Heir apparent	James, Viscount Severn
Remainder to	the 1st Earl's heirs male of the body lawfully begotten
Subsidiary titles	Viscount Severn

Earl of Wessex is a title that has been created three times in British history, twice in the pre-Conquest Anglo-Saxon nobility of England and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The region of Wessex (the ‘West Saxons’), in the south and southwest of England, had been one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (the Heptarchy), whose expansion in the tenth century created a united Kingdom of England.

Wessex was one of the four earldoms of Anglo-Danish England. In this period, the earldom of Wessex covered the lands of the old kingdom of Wessex, covering the counties of the south of England, and extending west to the Welsh border.

During the reign of King Cnut, the earldom was conferred on Godwin at some time after 1020. Thereafter, Godwin rose to become, in King Edward's time, the most powerful man in the kingdom. Upon Godwin's death in 1053, the earldom passed to his son, who later became King Harold II and died at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

Following the Norman conquest in the winter of 1066, King William bestowed the earldom on William FitzOsbern, his most trusted companion. FitzOsbern continued to help William consolidate his new realm until his death in Flanders in 1071. Following this, the earldom was reduced in power and regional jurisdiction, and it passed to FitzOsbern's son, Roger, as the earldom of Hereford.

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