Alfred the Great transformed the kingdom of Wessex into the kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons. In the three-quarters of a century following his death in 899, Alfred’s successors transformed the kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons into the kingdom of the English. King Edgar would put that kingdom back together once more after 959, but it is important to remember that its eventual permanence was anything but certain. Aethelflaed’s death was an important moment in the further development of a single English kingdom. For most of the 940s and 950s, Aethelstan’s successors had to struggle to hold on to his conquests and keep the kingdom of the English intact. In the ninth century, each shire in Wessex had its own ealdorman, but as the southern kingdom extended northwards in the tenth century, the size of the areas under the control of individual ealdormen also increased.