So, essentially, after Alfred the Great's grandson Aethelstan et al became the first 'official' Kings of the Kingdom of England as it is known, prior to the Norman Conquest of England, and ignoring random periods like when Cnut ruled, I'm trying to figure out what the royal standard for the Kingdom could have been. Just the Wessex Flag with the wyvern? Or would there have been something grander?
I've read that things like heralds and standards weren't really a 'thing' until the 12th Century and were often retconned into past history by people of the times, but I'm trying to do research on Anglo-Saxon history for an AH project I'm working on, which runs with the idea of the Saxons winning Hastings.
Obviously, that means that the iconic Lions are unlikely to have been used on coats of arms by a medieval Saxon England, so I'm trying to figure out would could have been used instead, using the actual period of Anglo-Saxon-ruled England as a base.
Thank you in advance for all your help.
England did not have a coat of arms or royal standard before the 12th century. The wyvern symbol only became associated with Wessex centuries after the Anglo-Saxon era. (The earliest example I'm aware of is John Speed's 1611 map of the Heptarchy.) The modern wyvern flag was only designed in 1974.
There is evidence that the kings of Wessex did use a Roman-style dragon standard, which would have been something a dragon-shaped windsock instead of a flat heraldic banner. There are depictions of red and gold ones on the Bayeux tapestry. But that was a common style of banner in Europe and there's no evidence that they were ever meant to represent Wessex specifically.
So unfortunately I'm not sure there's anything in history that really fits what you're looking for. I guess for the purposes of your alternate history a wyvern would make as much sense as anything.
