What is Athelbert of Wessex?
{{Infobox Monarch | name=Athelbert | title=King of Wessex | image= Memorial to Ethelbald and Ethelbert in Sherborne Abbey.jpg | reign= 20 December 860 - July 866 | birth_date= | birth_place={{circa}} 830<ref>{{cite web | url=http://britannia.com/history/monarchs/saxons_wessex.html#aethelbert | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130826193803/http://britannia.com/history/monarchs/saxons_wessex.html#aethelbert | archive-date=2013-08-26 | title=Saxon Kings: House of Wessex }}</ref> | death_date=July 866<ref>https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wessex-361</ref> (aged {{circa}} 36) | death_place=Sherbourne | burial_place= | consort= | father=Ethelwulf | mother=Osburga }} '''Athelbert''', also spelled '''Æthelbert''' (836-866), was a [[Wessex|West Saxon]] [[nobleman]]. He was the sub-king of [[Kent]] from 858–860. He was the [[List of monarchs of Wessex|King of Wessex]] from 860-865. == Career == He was the third son of [[Ethelwulf of Wessex]] and Osburga.<ref name=Asser3>''Asser's Life of King Alfred'', Trans. L.C. Jane (London: Chatto & Windus, 1926), p. 3</ref> She was the daughter of Oslac, Athelwulf's butler.{{efn|The office of chief butler in an Anglo-Saxon royal household is most likely his title here. He would be a nobleman who held the honorary office of butler.<ref>Laurence Marcellus Larson, ''The King's Household in England Before the Norman Conquest'', Thesis (Ph. D.), University of Wisconsin (1902), p. 127</ref>}}<ref name=Asser3/> He got his first taste of kingship in 855 when he was left in charge of Kent while his father, King [[Athelwulf of Wessex]], was in [[Rome]].<ref name=Ashley318>Mike Ashley, The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens (New york: Carroll & Graf, 1999), p. 318</ref> His brother [[Athelbald of Wessex|Athelbald]] was left in charge of the West Saxon kingdom. When their father returned from Rome, Athelbald would not give up the throne. To avoid a civil war, their father Athelwulf took the subkingdom of Kent and Athelbald ruled as king of Wessex. When Athelwulf died in 858, Athelbe