Earl of Wessex

The title Earl of Wessex has been created twice in British history, once 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, whose expansion in the tenth century created a united Kingdom of England.

First creation

The Earldom of Wessex was conferred on Godwin by King Canute the Great. The Earldom had previously been reserved by the King. The Earldom passed to Godwin's son, who later became King Harold II and died at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The Earldom was not continued.

*Godwin, Earl of Wessex (c.1001 – 1053)
*Harold Godwinson (c.1022 – 1066) also created Earl of East Anglia and Earl of Hereford; ascended to the throne of King of England in 1066

Second creation (current)

In 1999, Queen Elizabeth II's youngest son, The Prince Edward, married Sophie Rhys-Jones. Younger sons of the monarch are normally given dukedoms at the time of their marriage, and experts had suggested the former royal dukedoms of Cambridge and Sussex as the most likely to be granted to Prince Edward, but he was instead created Earl of Wessex. When the earldom was created, the Palace announced that the Earl of Wessex would be created Duke of Edinburgh after the death of his father, The Prince Phillip, and his mother, Elizabeth II, when that title reverts back to the Crown. [http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/page3025.asp]

The Earldom has the subsidiary title Viscount Severn, which is used as a courtesy title by the Earl's son who was born on 17 December 2007.

*HRH The Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex (born 1964)Heir Apparent: James, Viscount Severn (born 2007)

Fiction

The 1998 film "Shakespeare in Love" featured an entirely fictional villainous Earl of Wessex, played by Colin Firth.

There is also a fictional Earl of Wessex in Geoffrey Trease's novel "Bows Against the Barons".