Eadward died in 925, but the reign of his son AEthelstan, AElfred's golden-haired grandson whom the King had girded as a child with a sword set in a golden scabbard and a gem-studded belt, proved even more glorious than his own.

In spite of its submission the North had still to be won.

Dread of the northmen had drawn Scot and Cumbrian to their acknowledgement of Eadward's overlordship, but AEthelstan no sooner incorporated Northumbria with his dominions than dread of Wessex took the place of dread of the Danelaw.

The Scot King Constantine organized a league of Scot, Cumbrian, and Welshman with the northmen.

The league was broken by AEthelstan's rapid action in 926; the North-Welsh were forced to pay annual tribute, to march in his armies, and to attend his councils; the West-Welsh of Cornwall were reduced to a like vassalage, and finally driven from Exeter, which they had shared till then with its English inhabitants, But eight years later the same league called AEthelstan again to the North; and though Constantine was punished by an army which wasted his kingdom while a fleet ravaged its coasts to Caithness the English army had no sooner withdrawn than Northumbria rose in 937 at the appearance of a fleet of pirates from Ireland under the sea-king Anlaf in the Humber.