On the death of Edward the Elder, in the year 925, the "right royal" grandson of the Great Alfred, the "golden haired" Athelstan, succeeded to the kingdom of Wessex and its dependencies, which included the whole of England south of the Humber and the Mersey, with the exception of Cornwall and East Anglia, and the "overlordship" of the whole of the Anglo-Saxon and Danish rulers, as well as those of the Welsh and Scots, whose kings rendered him homage and acknowledged him the legitimate successor to his father Edward, whom they regarded as "their Father, Lord, and Protector." Edward the Elder was, at the time of his highest prosperity, unquestionably the most powerful "Bretwalda" or "overlord" that had ruled in Britain since the departure of the Romans. Soon after Athelstan's succession, however, the kings of the present Principality, or North Wales, as the whole country from the Severn to the Dee was then called, rebelled against the authority of the hated fair-haired Sassenach. Athelstan instantly attacked Edwall Voel, king of Gwynnedd, and wrested the entire sovereignty of his dominion from him. He, however, on the submission of the other Welsh princes, and their performance of homage to him at his court held at Hereford, generously restored it to him. Afterwards the country between the Severn and the Wye were added to Mercia, and a heavy tribute was imposed on all the revolted Welsh monarchs. Twenty pounds weight of gold and three hundred pounds of silver were to be yearly paid into the treasury, or, as it was then styled, the "Hoard" of the "King of London." To this was to be added an annual gift of twenty thousand beeves and the swiftest hounds and hawks that the country possessed. The Cornish Britons, or West Welsh, as they were then termed, were afterwards subdued, and thus all Britain south of the Humber and the Mersey again acknowledged Athelstan's supremacy or "overlordship."