King Æthelwulf of Wessex (r. 839–858) is easy to overlook because his son Alfred became a legend. But if you want to understand how Wessex survived the Viking age, you have to start with the father who kept the kingdom standing long enough for Alfred to inherit anything at all. Æthelwulf came to the throne when raids were becoming something worse than seasonal terror: they were turning into sustained campaigns. He wasn’t a romantic warlord-king. He was a ruler trying to do three exhausting jobs